7. Development of Creative Thought and Structure in Illustration and Graphic Art.

To develop ideational fluency one must branch ideas in different ways by using mind maps and brainstorming. I've been known to use brainstorming when struggling for words or ideas, as it's a great way to generate more ideas, I sometimes even draw pictures to aid my idea process. Ideational fluency is definitely more about quantity over quality, as the more ideas you have the more you have to work from. Where Brainstorming is more about thinking off the cuff, mind mapping gives you the ability to make a network of ideas that branch off one another.

I made this brainstorm for a project on fashion design, the brief wanted clothing designs that were inspired by an art movement. Because I had difficulty choosing I brainstormed as many as I could and looked into the ones I was interested in on the internet, I ended up choosing Suprematism as it then linked with another project at the time and I felt geometric shapes fit into fashion well.

For Managing a Creative Environment, I feel that no other creative environment inspires me more than my own. Even though it's my bedroom, I surround myself in posters, printouts, music and collectables that are personal to me and inspire my work. 

I'm not saying that my room is the best studio, as most of the stuff that inspires me could have the complete opposite effect on someone else. Take my music, I listen to it every time I knuckle down and get really into some work, although most people might think it sounds more like noise than music, it's what stimulates me to work. An illustrators studio must have stuff the individual is passionate about for it to be a good source of stimulus.

The picture above is from the presentation, and it really caught my eye because it illustrates the perfect creative environment for this particular Pixar employee. It is less likely for an employee of Dreamworks to have their studio like this, as they'll have different sources of stimulus.

6. ‘Production & Outcomes’ influences & reactions

It is common for all work to echo that of which the time period in which it was made in. This is called "Zeitgeist", an idea that is altered and influenced by the events and happenings of their current time. To illustrate this point further I'm going to compare two different Alice in Wonderland films from different times, not only am I going to look at what influenced the films, but what techniques were available at the time thus changing the outcome.
First of all I will look at the 1988 version of the film by Jan Švankmajer, it is known for being a even more bizarre take on the novel. It uses stop-motion animation for most of the non-human characters, which I feel reflects the time in which it was made heavily. The dark nature of the film could also be reflecting on the fact that the film was released the year before the fall of the berlin wall.

Now if we compare that to the recent release of Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton, we can see that techniques have clearly changed along with the overall feel. This film gives off a different atmosphere with its bright colours and state of the art special effects. The film somewhat reflects our time, as it's heavy use in CGI and it's IMAX 3D cinema release shows. 90% of the movie was shot in front of green screen which says a lot about our time saving attitude we have today.



Working methodology, working with different techniques and exploring for the best outcome helps illustrators work professionally and independently. To show this in action I will show how I used the process in my work.
For my brief, I decided to look at image manipulation, by all means but digital, I wanted to do everything by hand at first, so I looked into and studied a small art movement called Suprematism.

I then started to find different ways to manipulate observational drawings with Suprematism. I then explored into alternative digital manipulation, such as animation, moving photo's while photocopying, making people out of other photos and folding photographs. I made myself practice these techniques until I found the right one that suited my idea.

In the end I digitally distorted my observational drawing and painted them onto wood, combining both hand made and digital. Without all the previous exploration, I would've stayed with my original idea of having a handmade only outcome, exploration helped me stay open-minded through my project as well as give me ideas for a final piece.

5. Development of ideas and structure in Moving image

For my first key point (Character Design), I have chosen the antagonist, Tetsuo Shima from the 1988 cyberpunk animated film, Akira. Tetsuo's appearance changes drastically throughout the 3 acts of the movie. In the first act of the movie, he is just another member of Kaneda Shotaro's (antagonist) biker gang. He dresses in a light blue hooded sweatshirt and light blue jeans, his appearance consists of bright colours, these are very non-threatening colours for someone who's in a biker gang, which reflect the characters problems with being the most in-experienced member of the biker gang, the other members of the biker gang wear muddy colours, much darker and intimidating. After the Bike crash and most of the second act, Tetsuo wears a light blue hospital gown, he also has a bandage on his head. He wears this clothing while he's being incarcerated and experimented on by the government, again light colours to resemble his inferiority. However he wears a white vest and light brown trousers in act 2, but this only when he steals Kaneda's and tells him to back off, this is foreshadowing the scenes in act 3 were he's trying to find Akira. In act 3 he wears the same white vest and brown trousers only with a red cape. I see the red cape as the final element in his transformation to a villain. I found that as he transformed in to a villain, his appearance changed too, into something more intimidating. To make a convincing villain, you must not only write one, but also make the villain look like one too.

Throughout the film, Tetsuo changes a lot. When he is injured and captured by the government he develops super human abilities, with this he becomes power mad, and destroys Neo-Tokyo in a quest to find out who Akira is. The name that had plagued him since the experiments. He also battles with Kaneda as it is he who he blames for he's feelings of insignificance. This mix of Kaneda treating Tetsuo unfairly and his sudden gain of power, develops the villain that we see at the end of this film.

Next I'll demonstrate the digital storytelling principle, I have selected the movie (former comic book series) "Scott Pilgrim vs The World". Before this movie even came to the cinemas, it was released as a video game that was downloadable on most of the latest video game consoles. 

The movie itself was made for a very specific kind of audience, as the movie had a lot of references to Japanese animation and 80s and 90s video games to name a few. I think the release of the game before the movie was a strategic way to grab the target audience's attention to watch the movie. It also got those who liked the game to read the original comic, and obviously those who liked the movie, to play the game and extend the amount of buyers.

4. Reflective Visual Journal, RVJ

The RVJ is where most of my ideas are going to take shape and evolve into finished pieces. It's a representation of my journey throughout my projects and will show my development of ideas and outcomes. I've found that the best way to develop ideas is to use both my experimental side of my brain and my analytical, as seen below.

The top half of the picture is my playful experimental work, while the bottom half is showing how I used the paint splashes to improve my final piece, I wouldn't have been able to get a result like that without experimenting. This is a development process that requires me to constantly switch to either side of my brain while working. By experimenting and visually thinking with quick drawings and then evaluating and noting down ways to improve my experimentation, I'm in a cycle that will always bring me the best results I can achieve. I know from past experiences that ideas don't come to me while I'm sitting down and over thinking about my subject, they come during the process of "physical thinking" and "analytical thinking".

It is a must for me to reflect on every bit of my work in my RVJ, it is the only way I can independently refine my work. Without critical analysis I won't get my best results, I need to ask myself if my work can look and work better to produce a better outcome. In my eyes there's no such thing as perfect, but by taking steps forward and improving outcomes, I can get as close to perfect as I possibly can.

In picture above are scans and photos taken from an old project I did that shows clear iteration. Each panel is a different outcome. In the first one you can see a quick sketch I did from a photo, the second you can see I decided to use watercolour which I think worked, however I felt that the monochromatic colour did not, so for my final I used full colour and watercolour on an A1 sheet of paper. I found that this way of working is the best way to perfect my final outcome.