Degree

Skaadi Returns!

| Rolo

After a week of absolute manic panic, I handed in the Fat Lass Preserves Project, which, to me went really well and I am happy enough with the final outcome. I have finally gotten back to doing the project I really enjoy doing, the Skaadi Project. Unsurprisingly, my fat lass design didn’t get picked by the company owner, which to be quite honest, doesn’t bother me because it was the first time I have ever attempted to draw and finish a larger person, so it was always going to be a learning curve, yet I am definitely feeling more confident about drawing larger characters again in the future and also in my ability to create plus size characters of my own.   

  • Initial plus-size superhero sketch.
  • Developed version of my plus-size superhero sketch.
  • Final version of the Fat Lass superhero

This week I have focused on digitising one of my dynamic Skaadi sketches to put on to an A2 development board that we have been asked to create as part of our final outcomes. I sketched out a variety of character poses last week during the fat lass project; they were really rough and sketchy and didn’t really look like Skaadi at all. To rectify this, I scanned the sketches on to a computer and opened them in Adobe Illustrator, I then used the pen and pencil tools to trace over the line work, while slightly changing the proportions of the Skaadi sketches to fit how I see Skaadi in my minds-eye. Once I had the line work I proceeded to colour Skaadi in Illustrator using the paintbrush tool, I decided to focus on colouring the dynamic pose because I am really happy with the proportions and I am considering using the dynamic pose on my final comic panel. I took photos of my girlfriend to use as reference for each of thew poses because I am still getting used to drawing humanoid characters and having first hand reference really helps me figure out the proportions of my characters.

  • Dynamic pose Reference
  • Skaadi Dynamic Sketch
  • Skaadi Illustrator linework
  • Skaadi Illustrator colour
Dynamic Skaadi Process

I found colouring Skaadi with the paintbrush tool very awkward and fiddly, it was extremely time consuming to just create a basic fill layer, whereas I know that in photoshop, it is possible to fill entire areas with simply one click. It wasn’t until today (Thursday) that I found out from my tutor that there is a much easier way to fill colour in illustrator and also that we don’t actually have to complete the whole design in Illustrator, I was under the impression that it was an Illustrator project based on the content of the computer sessions so far. I guess I could have found out differently earlier if I had found the confidence to outwardly ask for help. Nevertheless, I will be using Photoshop to colour my designs in the future from now on and I will keep to Illustrator for the linework. I’ll probably take the dynamic Skaadi pose over to Photoshop as well because, while I am happy with the pose, proportions and the colour choices I have made, I am just not satisfied with her face and she looks rather flat, I feel as if it will be a lot easier to add highlights and shadows in Photoshop.

Overall, I am rather happy with my progress on the project so far, as well as how I have chosen to manage my time, especially without the support of my tutors, having been on a reading week.  I definitely need to work on my confidence and anxiety, I should ask for help and information when I need it instead of just struggling unnecessarily for ages. I am so pleased to be working on the Skaadi project now and my character is finally starting to come take some sort of shape, I’m aware that time is running out to do this project but now that I know we can use Photoshop as well as Illustrator, I am fairly confident that things are only going to get better from here.

Week One, The Return

| Rolo

I have recently finished my first week back at university after taking a year out in London and as I mentioned in my last post, I have been given 8 weeks to fully realise the project that was set to me during the summer. I am so relieved that we have been given this much time to do it because I really want to do the character of Skaadi justice and finally develop and finish a comic which is something that I have hoped to do for years. This week was a lot different to what I thought it would be, I had fully expected to immediately be thrown back into chaos, that I would have to start fully realising my character, story and finish the entire comic from the get go, this was not the case however, instead we did some peculiar group tasks and a refresher session on how to use Illustrator, which is something that I found rather useful as I hadn’t used it that much during my time away. The tutors also came around to have a look at what we had achieved over the summer and to offer advice on where to take the project next, this was also very useful as I did have some doubts about what I had done and I wasn’t entirely happy with the designs of my characters as they all seemed to be drawn in different styles, my bad, really. After speaking with my tutors, I had a much clearer idea of what I was going to do with my comic and agreed that I needed to try and stick to one style.

Overall I am rather surprised and also happy about being back, the project side of things hasn’t been half as stressful as I expected it to be (so far) and it is nice to finally have a direction for me to go in with my art. I lacked direction when I wasn’t in university and it was something I was struggling with… not anymore! The only thing that I am really concerned about is that fact that everyone on the course is new to me, I’m kind of an outsider, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because I want to solely focus on getting my degree this time around. I just wish that I didn’t have to be around so many people, it is a bit of a culture shock and isn’t making my anxiety any easier. I should really talk to them about it at some point.

Anyway, I’m getting a bit off track here, during the Illustrator session we were asked to create a face which a variety of different moveable facial features so that we could construct a range of expressions. I ended up creating a random character called broccoli- face and primarily focused on different eyes and eyebrows while keeping the rest of the face the same. Even though I only changed a couple of minor features, the results were far from minor. His facial expressions ranged from; angry to scared, from psychotic to painfully sad and just outright weird. I was amazed at how much difference the eyes could make, although it shouldn’t be too surprising as the eyes are the windows to the soul.

I am looking forward to the rest of the year and I am sure that I will find a way around my anxiety so that it doesn’t interfere with my work in anyway, I’m going to try and keep a low profile because I feel socially awkward around people and this is my last chance to get a degree with funding from Student Finance and I am determined to make the most of my time at uni.