Unit 2 evaluation :)

Unit 2 evaluation 

For our Unit 2 graphics course we were told to design a Digi-pack, gig poster, children's story book or zine etc ...influenced by a word we could choose from a variety we were given. Straight away i decided i wanted to create the covers and the end pages to a children's story book! I decided on this because generally when i see children's story books they tend to include bright colours, cut little hand written elements and cartoon characters which influenced me into wanting to give it ago myself! Firstly i looked at types of methods in which people used certain media’s. Such as the drawings used in the Linda McCartney food advert. I thought the images used in it looked great as i could see that there was a mixed amount of materials used in it such as water colour, and fine liner. It was also visible that there was photoshop used within the process, Which made the piece seem more exciting and different to others! I then went on to do an artist copy of a piece that i really liked, so to do this i looked on pinterest to see what i could find. i came across a watercolour painting and went on to do a further emulation of this which was very successful. Along the way i picked up techniques such as the water colour and fine liner, i adjusted my piece on photoshop, and found that i really enjoyed this unit!

The first reason i chose the watercolour sailor painting was because it was a sailor which fitted in with my nautical, ocean theme. I really liked the way the artist had created this piece, the colours they had used looked very washed out and vintage looking, which i think added to the piece. I liked how the character had over sized features because it added emphasis to him and made him look very heavy-top and cute. And i think that although all of the elements to him weren't in colour, the piece worked very well and made it look quite minimalistic and cute. I then went on to make a further emulation of this and decided to paint his ‘wife’ I took on board the idea of emphasised features, such as the head, nose, and blotchy colours to make her look the part. I also decided to create all of her components that i would imagine her having ( all nautical ) such as an ice-cream, a handbag with an anchor on it etc..I firstly drew her out in pencil lightly on paper, and then went over it with the colours that i had strongly diluted, after it had dried i once again went over it in colour with the stronger colour on top so that the paper wouldn't get ruined, And finally i then outlined it with the black. I really enjoyed making this piece because i had never really worked with watercolour before and i found that i really enjoyed using it in a messy way and i really liked the final result! 

I thought that my final piece was the piece that had the most processes used throughout. 

I used a variety of media’s for my final piece, such as watercolour, fine liner, pencil’s and also i then went on to edit all the pieces on photoshop For example adjusting the hue/ saturation to make the colours more vibrant so that they would stand out alot more. I then used photoshop to re-size all the components so that the composition of my story book looked attractive and eye catching! I really wanted all the pieces to be neat so at first i thought that drawing out all the parts to the front cover in pencil would be a good idea but once i had scanned it onto the computer i put the threshold up and realised that the pencil looked grainy and rough and almost didn't show up so i had to re-do it again so that it would stand out. This time i just went over the pencil with a fine liner. 

I really enjoyed creating my final piece. I took on board ideas from one of my artist copy's because i really liked the way the artist worked. From it i decided to use watercolour, fine liner and also was inspired by the cartoon character and created my own sailor based on theirs. I really liked my sailor character because he looked very cute and nautical. Very appropriate for a children's story book. My first thing i did in the exam was to draw out all the separate pieces on paper. I drew all the elements separately instead of together so that if i went wrong on any of them i could easily re-draw them without having to start from scratch again. So my plan was to put it all together on photoshop, this way i could also re-size all the parts so that they were all in proportion and didn't look morphed. I drew them out in pencil, using my draft as a guide so that i knew what i was going to draw. I then used a thin paintbrush and some watercolour paints to fill the pictures i had drawn in. I made sure the paint was very watered down because i wanted the colours to look subtle and cute, i also painted in a scruffy way on purpose to give it a hand made feel. Once i had finished that process i then went over my pictures with a black fine liner to give it an outline and define the images more. Once i had finished making all the pieces i then scanned it onto photoshop and started to arrange it all! Again, i used my draft as a guide as i knew where i wanted to place everything, Once i had done this i thought that the back cover looked quite plain and that the anchor at the top looked too much for the piece as it didn't fit in with the style of it so ended up removing it from the page.

 I replaced the black anchor with some more subtle clouds that i drew in ink then scanned onto photoshop, Also i added a review and a bar code to make the book seem more realistic and professional! 

Towards the end of the exam i started to draw some very detailed shells in black ink for the background of the back cover, once they were on photoshop i turned the opacity down and changed the colour to blue so that it would look more subtle, helping the blurb to stand out more! I used the shells i had drawn again for my end pages. I placed them in a pattern and then copied the layer and placed it underneath in a block colour to create a shadow, making it seem 3D.

I made 3 versions of my end papers so that i could choose from a variety of colours.

 Overall i was very happy with my final piece as it had turned out alot better than i had imagined it would of. ( although i did spell my name wrong :(