Unit 14: Working Freelance in the
Creative Media Sector
Unit 38: Mixed Media Image Making
23rd February – 22nd May
Final Major Project
For my latest and final Art project of the year, I was to either create
an environment concept art for a game, character concept for a game, graphic
novel/comic strip or a stop motion animation.
For my first task I carried out visual and written research from a wide
range of sources for my work – games and graphic novels. I carried out primary
and secondary research, on artists such as Adam Adamowitz, and his career in
design also secondary research in how to draw basic characters and faces.
For my second task I generated a wide range of ideas for possible
solutions for my project, producing mind maps, brainstorms, moodboards etc. I
considered the project’s viability, timescale, client requirements, constraints
and more.
For my third task I took my strongest concept, developed it into a very
clear proposal and prepared a pitch for my project idea. This was delivered to
my ‘project manager’ or my art teacher for an interview. I had to explain how I
will be addressing my target audience and market, identify any constraints on
my construction on production and ways to address these. I will refine my ideas
as a result of the pitch, where it was appropriate
After the pitch, I had to produce a plan for the rest of my project,
producing the necessary pre-production paperwork and accounting for my time and
make a budget. I then continued working on this plan until it was complete and
I also kept checking it to make sure I was on target.
After the plan I made was complete I carried it out, making a production
log as I progress through my targets, regularly checking it, until completion.
I drafted the product to show to a few other students and my teacher to
show that I was on task and that I could do what I said I was going to do,
taking in valuable feedback and ideas to make my final piece better.
I tried using oil paint to test different Medias which was not a very
fun day, since all my clothes got very messy and the paper didn’t look very
safe to hold up without it ripping.
Blogger not working
During uploading my work onto blogger the website had maintenance for a
few days which hindered my project, but I did move on to do other work. Also
sometimes the pictures wouldn’t load when you opened them, and the text would
sometimes be highlighted with a random colour, making some sentences and
paragraphs hard to see. There wasn’t much I could do about this but wait or try
and sort it out later.
Although I thought my idea was good and original it did require more
work to do, into research for WW1 and medieval and then making up my own
futuristic art. Making me do 9 final pieces in total but selecting 3 to give in
took some time and a lot of work at home was done.
Luckily Illustrator was my answer to the extra work I had to do; I could
easily do lots of work at home on my laptop with illustrator. To do this I used
the pen tool a lot, and it was my main media during the project apart from
pencil and pen.
Even with the amount of work that I did at home using illustrator, it
does have its downs. If you don't save it as the right file, you can open it
back up later and work on it, and instead starting again is the only option. Also
sometimes the pen tool, snaps onto what are known as anchors (the beginnings
and ends of the lines the pen tool creates) which deletes them most of the
time. Choosing the unsnap button can help solve this but also makes it harder
to do symmetrical shapes using the pen tool. And turning it off and on again
multiple times is a real hassle.
During the course I had to learn how to draw certain shapes, faces,
bodies, facial expressions and body gestures. Which took some time, but
watching videos at home helped a lot and saved precious time in college to draw
and do other work.
To make sure I met all the requirements of the brief I constantly looked
at it each lesson, just to confirm I was on track and doing the work correctly,
asking the teacher sometimes didn't hurt too.
Lastly, I would like to add that all my work was on target apart from a
few snags, and I believe my work is to professional
industry standards. I also learned many different media techniques in art and
designing my own character. I believe that I could now easily create a new
character with the same process I used, much faster and I could also make it
look a lot nicer and more professional looking.
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