The Human Zoo

The idea behind this brief was to start to grasp the principles of Illustrating for graphic novels. I'm quite impressed at the speed at which my work is improving, simply from being pointed in the right direction. Given the scenario of a role-reversed zoo, I was hesitant and started drawing a blank. I started to imagine what it would feel like to wake up in that scenario, and started to draw some expression and gesture sheets. This soon sparked off some ideas for strong characters (and some very geeky in jokes thanks to a bit of over the top research.) And as soon as my characters were in place, my story started to build around them.

As the project has progressed, I have learned about plot and narrative in what seemed like a conversation rather than a lesson. I feel this has been a very good way for my tutor to present the knowledge for me, and that I am more confident in my knowledge having already talked about it whilst learning. I have also learned about sequencing panels in a novel to show the flow of the narrative throughout the story. I am currently really enjoying the character design element of the course and I feel as though I am gaining visible experience as I go on through the course.
My main aim for this project is not for me to produce a brilliant novel, or to convince my tutors or peers that I am able to do the work, but to become more comfortable in my working environment and in my capabilities to work. Once I can work easily under these situations, I feel as though a lot of experience will gather fairly rapidly .

Journey and Discovery

The intention of research is to learn, explore and develop.
In my experience, the main benefit of research is word or phrase association, and when I come across something I find particularly poignant, I can find my head flooded with conceptual ideas for the project in hand. It will sometimes be very vivid and that is when the research continues, to help develop my understanding of whatever I have in progress at the time.
For this project of Journey and Discovery, I found the underground maps to spark off the original idea of 3D anaglyphs and it was through the research of how they work that I was able to construct the basic pieces of the mobile.

The final piece that I produced may not portray the idea of journey or discovery to the viewer, but I think that someone that is open to interpretation may grasp the concept. I don't count this as a failure as I may have done with another project, because to me this project was about my personal journey, so it does not need to be evident. Although I think a viewer who truly steps into the piece to appreciate it could walk away with quite an enriching mental journey of their own.

Overall, I think the construction of this piece was a very difficult concept to materialise within the deadline without any knowledge of the logistics to begin with. But I think this was the most significant learning experience for me. I persevered throughout the difficult moments which I maybe haven't done as much in the past and I feel it really paid off.
It was also the first time that I have tried to learn a new skill solely for the purpose of a project, rather than altering my project to suit the skills I already had.