12 Images and Interim SB1 crit and evaluation

12 images, showing off a sense of atmosphere alongside the motifs:

Above are a selection of what I felt to be some of the more successful of the 12 compositions (well, if you can call these that.)/ images. 

This one is contrasting a very large and pretentious wizard beard, with a little witches hat, which is supposed to speak of the misogyny humorously covered in Terry Pratchett's 'Equal Rites' novel. The yellow behind is an ink drawing of some sea life, and it is supposed to give off an impression of magic and power. 

A negative for this image is that its just floating on a white page, total disregard for the frame. I like the imagery being attempted here though, could be quite fun with a bit more care, colour and texture. 

In my general feedback someone wrote that they quite liked this, not the most constructive thing to have said, but it makes me want to try more of it, as I quite liked the playful repetition of it and think that the general colours and aesthetics link back to the more humorous theme that I am definitely trying to convey.

Some interesting textures, and maybe even the overall scene, but roughly ripped out tissue paper a good look here.

Deep sea photocopied imagery giving a nice sense of atmosphere of fantasy and magic in this piece.

An attempt at trying to contrast a witches and wizards hat. I was aiming to make the wizards hat look superior to the witches hat, this image is rather crude, but I think this idea might have some scope.

Interim Crit

Peer Review Feedback

Before I showed my work to anyone else my opinion of it was generally quite low, I didn't think that these 12 images were very good at all, I thought some of them were pretty awful. They just felt so messy and vague but not really achieving enough to me, in what they were trying to convey (my motifs and such forth). However this from of general feed back on them made me reevaluate and see them with a slightly fresher pair of eyes. The general sense I got from this comments sheet was that my work was showing:

• 'Lots of exploration'
• 'Loads of textures'
• 'Interesting textures'
• 'Good experimentation'

Being messy and experimental is something that comes naturally to me, so I shouldn't be surprised by this, but it was nice to know that some of this could almost be regarded as good, or at least heading in a positive direction. (Unless everyone was just being polite, which is kind but totally unhelpful).

Self Evaluation pointer sheet

Interesting and Useful things that have happened so far:

• These textures (That have not come out so well on this particular scan, but can be found in my visual journal) are some of the more successful ones that I have created, I like the look and feel of them. When I was making them I had in my mind the description, found in several of the Discworld books, of an 8th extra and brand new colour that is almost synonymous with magic. I imagine purple as being the closest thing to this. I was mostly wanting to try and inspire an atmosphere of magic, creation, strange new places. The use of the deep seal life imagery definitely plays on of the biggest parts in helping to achieve this. 
• Some interesting and nice line work. 
• Nice textural bases, I think I will keep creating textures like these to cut out for collage and such forth.
• I found the use of photography of deep sea life used as textures created really interesting sense of atmospheres and scenes which helped to show off my intangible theme of magic, and convey a very different and intense fantasy world.
• The wizard and witch hats are successful to conveying my themes (humour, magic, fantasy cliche...)

Things that were't so successful, (and how might I move on from these):

• My selection of motifs. I would like to have a lot more of them, and for those to be more powerful and describe a bit more of my author/his themes.
• My drawing/image making quality. I want to attempt more refinement, and generally produce images of a higher quality that are more detailed.
• I need to have more experimentation and play in my sketchbook.
• Practise some more collage/textural work (as this is a process that could look quite good in an animation), and create some better images this way.

General Notions:

• I was beginning to get successful at creating intangible elements of feelings to my work, such as atmospheres of 'strange' and 'magic', however I need to go and refine my motifs or my characters, or what every specific imagery that I might want to convey, as this side of my work was a lot weaker.
• I found it quite difficult to get my head around what I was trying to achieve with these. My motifs did not feel strong enough and this really showed here.
• I must fins an area of focus, and pick some much better motifs and themes.