I have had a much more productive week this week, I’ve managed to greatly develop each of my 3 designs for the zine. I was so far behind my time plan last week so I decided to really push myself this week to try and catch up with everything. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve found that keeping myself working helps to take my mind off of everything that is going on right now.

I started with developing my advertisement anxiety illustration by drawing out an anxious woman clenching her head. I used a combination of biro pen, fineliners and a black brush pen to create this design because the ink allowed me to create a dark and moody illustration. With the biro pen I was able to create really sketchy and rough lines to convey the feeling of anxiety, stress and uncertainty. With the brush pen I was able to create bold lines for the outline of the piece and to pick out certain details that I wanted to make more noticeable. I used the fineliners primarily for adding shadows to the woman’s face and neck, I tried to make her face gaunt and almost skeleton-like to symbolise the physical toll her anxiety is having on her body. While I do like this design as a standalone illustration, I’m just not sure if it is right for my zine, the pose I have chosen to put the woman in might be a bit too cliched.

As well as drawing out the woman, I worked on painting potential backgrounds for the design using watercolour paints. I chose to make the background designs different shades of green with hints of red to try and make a really depressive murky fog. I am not sure that I like how complicated and dark I have made the painting, I worry that it will take too much attention away from the woman, so I am not sure if I am going to move forward with this background for my final design. I think I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to developing and finalising the advertisement anxiety design.

As well as developing my advertisement anxiety design, I also worked on developing and hopefully finalising my plastic planet illustration. I initially sketched out the linework with pencil before going over it with brush pen so that it would stand out. I took a lot more care when drawing out this design because I feel as if it could be the main focus of my zine, as it conveys my message really clearly by showing eco-friendly alternatives to many everyday products that are bad for the environment. As well as the linework, I coloured in my design using brush pens on a separate piece of marker paper. I did this so that if I messed up the colour, then the linework wouldn’t be affected since it’s on a different piece of paper. I will digitally put these two layers together and edit them a bit in Photoshop before I decide if it is ready for my final zine.

The third and final illustration I worked on this week was the Plastic Orca design. I used a similar process to create this design as I did on my Planet Pollution design. First I sketched out the linework in pencil, went over it with black brush pen and coloured it in on a separate piece of marker paper with coloured brush pens. I did this so that the linework wouldn’t be ruined if I messed up the colour. I am ultimately happy with how this design is going so far, I mean there are a few things that I need to change. The colours need to be edited a bit, but that can be sorted in Photoshop. My next step is to put my designs together on Photoshop and also to develop my Advertisement Anxiety and finalise it because I am just not happy with the pose I have put the woman in, I am worried that it is too cliched and overused. I think I need to research better ways to portray anxiety before settling on an idea for my final advertisement anxiety design.