RESPONSIVE EVALUATION

Overall I think this module for me has been successful and I have produced a lot of work for competition and live briefs. My time management and being able to juggle multiple briefs and responsibilities at once has been good, and I think that for this reason the work that I have produced hasn’t suffered too much in terms of the quality – as the quality of the work across all the briefs has been consistent. The same could be said about the collaborative work that has been produced whilst working through this module, time management and work ethic has been consistent throughout.
Despite the quality of the work being consistent throughout the whole of this module I think that the work could have been a little better – there are some areas where I think that I could have done better if I pushed myself a little harder to gain a little more refinement to the finished article.
If I were to revisit this module I would have taken more time researchinhg and seeking out competition briefs that suited my own creative interests a lot more than the ones I have chosen – although this does depend on there being competition briefs that run whilst this module is set. And this is not to say that most of the briefs that I had chosen to produce work for didn’t hold any opportunity to pursue my own creative interests, it is just that at some points within this module I felt like I was producing work that I did not have any meaningful interest in or felt like I was gaining something by doing it – however this may have served well as experience of what it is like work within the creative industry, producing work to ‘keep the lights on’
The things that I feel I enjoyed the most about this module was the wide choice of work that you could produce. It allowed me to produce work that was not necessarily relative to animation but more illustrative, and as I regard myself very much as a generalist in terms of my creative practice I found this quite enriching.
What I also enjoyed was the chance to experiment with different mediums in the more open briefs that were more relative to my specialist subject of animation, most notably the work that I produced for the ‘do it in twenty’ brief. This has helped me open up to new possibilities and new ideas – new ways in which I can approach future briefs.
I think what I least enjoyed about this module was having to pick briefs that I felt I had little or no interest in just to fill criteria, I initially found it very difficult to pick briefs and start them due to not being able to find any that I felt I would produce really good work for, due to them being interesting.
One thing that I think I need to improve within myself is my ability to work with others and challenge them abit more in terms of the intial ideas that we come up with, however this comes from me looking at the work we produced collaboratively and thinking it could have been better – but there was only a very short window for the pre production phase of the larger project that we worked on.
I think whilst working on this module my time management skills improved quite considerably, having such a varied and large amount of work forced me to be more organised and clear about what I was doing with my time and why I was doing it, this enabled me to concentrate on producing the work and order things in terms of priority.
This module has also given me a good insight into what it might be like work in the creative industry as a general creative practitioner working for yourself and collaborating with others, producing work because you have to for one reason or another seems like the biggest lesson/ message that I detract from working on this module and I understand that this will not always be the case but it is a realistic reminder of what working in the creative industry might mean for people at certain times in their career.

ISSU LINKS - PROJECT REPORT

https://issuu.com/ewanbrocklehurst/docs/project_report

ISSU LINKS - INDIVIDUAL DESIGN BOARDS

https://issuu.com/ewanbrocklehurst/docs/individual_practice_boards

ISSU LINKS - COLLAB DESIGN BOARDS

https://issuu.com/ewanbrocklehurst/docs/collab_boards

Responsive Individual Practice - Do it in Twenty - Utopia

Here is the finished resolution to the do it in twenty animation competition brief, I am very pleased with how this turned out due to the amount of work that I put into it in a short space of time and rotoscoping each frame by hand in pen and other materials. Through experimenting with this method it has made me want to do more of the same and apply it to other projects.

Collaborative Practice - 'Utopia' 20 Second Animation pt.2

Whilst Eva designed the print that we would eventually scan in and use as the background for our animation, I also helped with screen printing as the design was quite large and it made it easier and alot quicker there being two people participating in the act of screen printing.


Once the screen printing was done we scanned the best prints in and chose the best one to use as a background for this animation.

Once the background was scanned in i was able to composit the characters that I had designed into the animation and make adjustments to the timing of each movement.

Once the animation was complete I added some non intrusive music over the top, which I made myself - just to get over any copyright issues of using somebody else's music.

Collaborative Practice - 'Utopia' 20 Second Animation pt.1

Me and Eva Gould (Illustration BA hons) have worked collaboratively on this short animation project.
We chose to work on this brief to satisfy both of our creative ambitions/needs as it were, with eva designing the backgrounds for the animation and with me making a focus on character designs. With our roles assigned from the get go without any ideas thrown out or pushed around the table we were able to say ' this is my role within this collaborative project' and be satisfied that there was no confusion over what work would be designated to one another.
Whilst in charge of the character design I also took on the role of lead animator and assembly of all the different components of the project.
So for this project we first looked at the theme that was given on the show-me-the-animation website which was 'Utopia' and decided we would interpret this very literally by coming up with a landscape/environment that would embody this idea of utopia - idyllic scenes with bright colours. We took inspiration for how the scene might progress by looking at the animations ' SAUSAGE ' on Vimeo and the music video for Mr scruff's 'sweet smoke'.

The inspiration that these animations provided us with gave us the idea for the scene to look really innocent and transition smoothly through any different aspects that we may incorporate into the piece.

I first of all had to wait till Eva had designed the landscape for me to have some kind of bearing on how my approach to character design should complement her work on the landscape (Above).
Above is a preliminary sketch by Eva which I then tried to complement with my character designs.

As my sketches progressed they began to take a more shape based form. which I felt fit with Eva's design better than the line based designs first approached this project with.

this is because i see the landscape having smaller, full bodied characters dotted around it and these larger facial designs emanating from the smaller full bodied characters as a kind of insight into what they may be doing at that time/ show the mood of the people living in the landscape - or 'utopia'.

Responsive - Live Brief - Cassette Tape Cover - Character Based Design pt2

These are the two character designs that I drew up by looking at the the reference imagery that they provided I tried to keep the style relevant to the other components that make up the cover.

I also drew up some scenery for the characters to be running through and away from the monster with a gradient in the background that would appear as if it were night time and the scene is light up by moonlight.

At this point I am ready to submit the artwork to the pair and talk payment, the pair have seen previews of the work and there are some minor considerations that they may handle themselves as they come to finalizing their mixtape and look at the pricing for the tapes themselves.

Responsive - Live Brief - Cassette Tape Design - Character based Design

For this brief I was approached from outside of university by a music producing duo under the name Meddling Kidz, they had a very clear idea of what they wanted as a design for a J-card insert that would go inside a cassette tape case that they wish to put out as a limited edition mix tape of their original music.
The theme they suggested to me and the reference imagery I was given were certain characters from the 70's cartoon series 'Scooby Doo Where Are You?'. As the title track for the mixtape was to be named 'Wax' the pair wanted to include a character of similar appearance to the classic 'wax phantom' character.

With copyright in mind I did not want to imitate the character line for line but just have hints at him and the artist's work on the television series.





The pair also wanted the a mystery machine-esque vehicle that would have depictions of the two musicians/producers in my own artistic interpretation of some reference imagery that they provided.(below)

I then took this reference imagery and produced some character designs for two. -see in next post.

Collaborative Practice - UK Greetings YCN Brief

For this brief I collaborated with Eva Gould - BA hons Illustration, The deliverables for this brief were a series of greetings cards, note pads, gift wrapping and gift bags.
The target demographic was adults of all ages and the theme of the deliverables that we decided to do was a cheese and wine orientated project with quaint illustrations that were simple and non intrusive/obnoxious. The reason behind the theme being cheese and wine is the theme had to be an activity that adults enjoy socially - we both thought that the theme that we had chosen worked well as an activity it is more about the social aspect of sitting down to enjoy food with friends etc.

Above are the preliminary sketches of the components that would make up each greetings card, notepad, gift wrap and gift bag. These I did myself.

Eva then drafted up some typography that would accompany the illustrations once they had been rendered further digitally.
The greetings cards were as follows: 'Happy Birthday' 'Thankyou' 'Congratulations' and 'merry christmas'

in addition to adding the typography to the appropriate card designs Eva also added some extra illustrations for the 'Merry Christmas' greetings card, some holly leaves to add to the festivity of that particular greetings card.

This Design board features all of the greetings cards, notepads, gift wrap/gift bag designs that me and Eva collaborated on.
Before Eva put these mock ups together of the actual products it was my job to scan in the preliminary drawings I had produced and render them digitally. I then applied these finished illustrations to the appropriate designs that I had sketched out in my sketchbook before hand. I also followed the same process when putting together the repeating patterns of the giftwrap/gift bag and notepad.