brush pen

A Few Ways I’m Developing My Zine, and Other Things I’ve Done This Week

| Rolo
Plastic Orca, Marker Pen on Paper

Zine week, it’s one page zine week. I am slowly getting used to the new lockdown way of life, it’s a weird world we’re living in now. I have found that focusing on one thing at a time is the way to motivate myself to do more work. This week has been spent creating a couple of one page zines which have allowed me to experiment with different mediums such as watercolour paint and marker pens. I’m still torn between the two mediums and I can’t decide which one would be best for creating my final zine. They both work well in their own way and neither of them really work for all 3 of the illustrations. For example, the plastic orca illustration seems to look best in brush pen, especially when it comes to creating a simple ocean background; but the advertisement anxiety illustration looks best with a combination of biro pen and watercolour paint. I’m starting to think that using mixed media would be the best way to proceed with the project. The one page zine format has also given me an opportunity to do some layout development at the same time as my media testing. It’s such a useful and economic way to work because if, when all of this is over, I want to print the zines, I’ll only have to pay for one page of printing which would save me a lot of money compared to printing other zine formats.

Planet Consumption, Watercolour and Biro Pen, and Brush Pen on Paper

I am going to be making the zine accessible in a digital format as this is the only way I am going to be able to publish my zine due to the lack of printing facilities. I will be able to split the pages of my one page zine digitally using Photoshop or InDesign if I choose to use the one page format for my final piece. Which I might not, because while there are many positives to the format, there are also some negatives, such as the fact it would limit me to a certain number of pages, and the illustrations would have to be rather small as I only have access to A3 paper, meaning each individual page would be reduced to A6. Ideally I would like to draw them each at a minimum of A5.

Advertisement Anxiety- Watercolour and Biro Pen, and Marker Pen on Paper

I really need to spend more time working on layout development too, because so far I have only tried creating double paged spreads with a front and back cover. While I do like these layouts, they are missing a few things such as text and I don’t want to just stick to the first layout idea I’ve had. I should experiment a bit more before deciding which layout will be best for my final zine. I’ve had some more ideas of how I could show conscious consumption since the start of the project too so I intend to create at least one more illustration which I would like to go in the zine, this is naturally going to change my layout ideas. I’m also thinking about adding a contents page, which are present in many zines and magazines, it would make the zine look a bit more professional. The addition of these extra pages would mean that I’d need to explore new methods of creating a zine because the one-page zine format just wouldn’t be viable anymore.

Technology Isn’t Always reliable. I Need to Make Timetables, But The LWL Project Has Been Handed In- A Review Of This Week

| Rolo
LWL Final Front Cover Design

It’s done, I’ve handed in now and there is no going back. I wish that I was better t managing my time because the past weekend and week have been draining. I left myself so much to do and didn’t even realise it until the last week of the project. My sketchbook was a bit behind; my layout was only half finished and my final front cover design hadn’t been put together. It was a mess. From the outside I look organised and my tutors seem to think that I am, but on the inside, I am screaming. Not literally but you get the point. I keep saying that I am going to make some sort of timetable or planner, anything to help me organise my time and I ironically never get the time to do it. Part of me thinks that I work best with the stress, and in some ways, I do, I do lots of work in a small amount of time and then rest. Some people do bits of work over a long period of time and I just can’t work like that. But, it would be handy to create myself a timetable that works for me, something that helps me plan which days I will work on the book illustrations, which days I will work on my blog and which days I will do coursework for college because right now I just feel stretched and a bit all over the place.

I have found out that as part of the final project, which is starting on a week or two, we will have to plan the whole project ourselves and will need to show it as a part of our process. This is similar to what I had to do during the final project of my level 3 course, and I managed to get distinction then. I know I have the capacity to be organised, it’s just difficult for me sometimes, especially since I largely plan things in my head and change my plans according to different circumstances. I guess this final project is going to be a test for me since it will force me to be more organised again and actually show it on paper.

LWL Final Double Paged Spread

Anyway, all that aside, I ended up working like a machine over the past weekend and week, I tried out a bunch of different layout designs, redrew Blanche for my front cover, created a new trippy background with soft pastels and put everything together. I then found out that I hadn’t scanned my images to a high enough dpi which resulted in them being pixelated when I printed, so I had to rescan my spot illustrations again, and the front cover design again to try and stop the final designs from being pixelated. This all worked at first, until I got to the final day of the project and tried printing everything to hand in and I once again discovered that parts of my final design were pixelated which was an absolute nightmare because there wasn’t much I could do about it at that point. This time I knew it wasn’t something to do with how I scanned them because I got my tutors to check my scans and they were fine. Something went wrong with the software, whether I edited it too much, moved the file around too much or I don’t know what, something went wrong in the software and it has kind of ruined my final double paged spread on hand in day. Sometimes I forget how unreliable computers and digital art can be. I had to hand it in anyway and hope that it doesn’t cost me any marks because my tutors know that it wasn’t my fault. I’m going to have to redo the design when it comes to putting the work in my portfolio because I can’t show potential clients a pixelated piece of work. As stressful as it was sometimes, I have thorughly enjoyed this project and it has given me an interest in Editorial Illustration that i didnt have before, I am even conisdering it as a potential career path.

I have an essay due on the 19th of March and I decided to focus on the LWL project first as the due date was sooner. I am off next week while the project gets marked so I will use that time to do all of my research for the essay and get a first draft written ready to show my tutors on the Monday, I will be fine.