#i want to find something a little more stylised that also works for me but idk how

[crumbpigeon]

#this is a redraw of that iconic manga panel! i love all of the small details in it <3 #gangs all here!! #i love them your honour #me trying to draw in a vaguely anime style is always such a struggle i am sorry :< #i want to find something a little more stylised that also works for me but idk how #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi fanart #marcille donato #marcille dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #laios touden #senshi #chilchuck tims #chilchuck #marcille fanart #laios fanart #senshi fanart #chilchuck fanart #myart

[bara-izu]

Do you have any advice on how to get over lack of skill? I want to do the Astarion Lestate trend but I don't think my skills are ready for it. I have references pictures of Astarion pulled up when I'm working, and even have the game launched so I can turn him if I need to (mostly for the attempts I did at his hair) but everytime I tweaked something or started over nothing looked right. I keep getting frustrated 😭

Hi anon- Sorry this took me a while to get to, i hope you and others can still find this useful! While the basic advise to get over 'lack of skill' is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! i hope this will help you knowig where to get started with that!

I'm going to put my teacher pants back on, this might be a bit long so buckle up- I'll go over a few areas:

Primitive Shapes

How to Use References

Delete your work (hear me out)

--------------------------------------

Primitive Shapes:

This is your foundation. Everything starts with this, and while you may find it boring to think of your art in terms of cubes and spheres- i kid you not it will help elevate your work.

If/when you are stuggling to draw a complicated pose, or a specific perspective, refering back to the form in these basic shapes can really help to simplify your process and help you problem solve.

A chill/silly watch for a more in depth discussion on what i mean / how this can help - Give Pikat's 'Draw boxes (correctly) to improve your art' a watch. They also mention this in the video but @/Uncomfortable on youtube also has some great fundermental videos.

-------------------------------------

How to use references.

Okay so references are great 10/10 very useful. But, unless you know WHAT to study from a reference, they can sometimes fall flat of their usefullness.

Anatomy studies are something a lot of us will be recommended as artists, but actually knowing what to pay attention to can boost your confidence in your work. Start with a goal, what do you want to get out of this sketch session? Do you want to get better at understanding the 3D form of a specific part of anatomy? Better at poses? Try to narrow down your learning each session to make it less overwhelming.

In this i'll focus on understanding the form so, lets start with a reference. Linking back to Primitives again, start off by braking down your anatomy into forms. Sketching over the top of your references is totally fine. But make sure you are doing so critically, otherwise it may look like a flat/unnatural trace and you're not really learning from it. Via the first sketch you can see where the primitive shapes fall on the body - think of it like a ball-jointed-doll, hips, knees, shoulders ect are ball socketed whereas arms, legs ect can be made up of tubes. (See the first image, when sketching your tubes, sketch your contour lines too- this can help determind how clothing / hair will fall over the body, and can help you understand the 3D Form.)

A BIG IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE - When using photo references, do be very aware that they may be distorted due to the height of the camera, or camera focal length - (you can see in my sketch i had to edit the torso and head because the reference was a little top heavy)

A few artists/books for some extra reading / reference : - Andrew Loomis (OG for body proportions, books are a little outdated but fundermentals are still useful), - Tenten云画画 (his stylised anatomy breakdowns are very interesting to me) - Anatomy Essentials (I've had this book for years, it covers lots of areas, is a bit complex though, i myself should reread it again 😅

Also, if you can't find a reference for a specific pose, don't be afraid to use 3D programs! Anatomy 360, DesignDoll, Clip Studio, Magic Poser - all nifty options~

SO taking when we've learnt from the primitive forms, you can now try applying that to the Lestrat Picture. (which, granted is a complicated pose, as it also has forshortening and an odd top down perspetive of the bottom character- so don't panic if you don't get it the first time!)

-------------------------------------

Final points- Delete your art (hear me out)

What i mean by this is, sometimes reworking the same face over and over again can bog your down. It can make it very difficult to actually see whats wrong. So, get rid of it and start again. (hide the layer/use a different piece of paper, please don't actually bin it (yet))

Next, redraw it. Use what you've learned the first time, and redraw it from scratch. (in this case, that might be just specifically the head, or the hair, or the eyes ect - you don't have to bin the whole thing, but sometimes it can really help give you a new perspective)

Once you've done this, unhide your original, compare, this may help you understand what you were doing wrong the first time. Or if there are areas of one that you like- its an opportunity to combine them as you see fit! :)

On a side note for Astarion's Hair, the lovely @mistercrowbar actually posted a breakdown yesterday! (i use p much the same method so-)

I HOPE this was of some use- do feel free to ask any questions if you've got them! i'll try to answer in a more timely manner next time 😅

#art tutorial #or more like #art tips #long post

[corpsoir]

hello! so I don’t really know how to word this in a non word vomit kind of way so my apologies ahead of time! One of my further questions about art especially digital art is finding a nice in between style of realism & “cartoony.” I personally struggle with the realism kind of art somethin about drawing real people is extremely difficult for me, I don’t want to draw them like fully real like but I do think my art could improve if I figured it out. Do you have any tips or recommendations to help with finding this? My other question is a bit more into coloring, i think I’m getting a little better at it but I’m still a tad confused on things like shading how to do lighting all that extra stuff people add when it’s not just flat color. Hopefully I make sense? I’ve been watching videos on digital painting & it’s helping but sometimes the ones I watch kinda go over my head & I was wondering you had any other tips/tricks or could dumb it down for me. Please & thank you sm again I really appreciate your help 💘

yeah sure i have lots of tips and thoughts im sure other people might find useful or fun to read as well!

i just wanna preface this by saying this is how just i do things and by no means am i saying im doing it "right" or that there even is a right way to do art. have fun! art is just a by-product of being human, nobody can do art more correctly or better than anyone else, its just art, its like breathing!

the best tip i can give to anyone looking to improve their art, especially when it comes to drawing people and light and shade, is taking a real life figure drawing class!

i know it can be expensive depending on where you live etc but if you ever get the opportunity, DO IT! its seriously so valuable especially if you have a teacher who is good at explaining 1) how to think when youre drawing and 2) can point you in the right direction and give you tips personally according to your abilities

when it comes to balancing realism and a more stylised cartoony style the best thing here is also to learn how the real human body works and looks. and again a figure drawing class can help here but so does looking at pictures, looking at your own body and how it moves and how light plays on your skin etc! i think in order to stylise something its always helpful to have that background knowledge of how something looks like in real life, that way you can sort of abstract the thing youre drawing and simplify it with simple shapes. i think one of my favourite examples for this that a lot of people struggle with is hands. people tend to want to draw every single finger in detail, and sometimes that can look a little bit stiff. heres a bunch of hands ive scribbled lately, notice how theyre all just. idk. shapes? especially the little negative spaces that trick you into seeing a finger when in reality its just a blob with a hole through it.

you read them as hands but theyre really just. blobs mostly.

there are tons of books on anatomy for artists as well and those might help! i dont have any tips there though, most of my knowledge on the human form is from figure drawing and looking at my own body and stuff :))

and COLOURS! so i always work with a limited palette for my art. instead of going in and picking new colours all the time and ending up with an inconsistent muddy mess like i used to, i have made a nice palette with colours i enjoy and that go together well.

lots of reds and browns and purples here, but thats just my personal preference for how i work with colours lol

and im gonna be really annoying with this but when it comes to shading things "right" this is something you gotta practice practice and practice, by looking at real world examples and trying to replicate it on paper (or digitally i guess). i still have a lot to learn, i struggle with light and shade still too and its fine, its a learning process!

but anyways this is how i usually do the light in my art, and i think this piece is the best example because its a very bright light source and stuff

excuse my handwriting lol my thinking when it comes to light is just. im trying to think about what im drawing as a 3d object, so in my head i try to visualise for example how the light will fall on their weird hair shapes and their skin and clothes.

oh and also i just found a compilation of a bunch of videos by an artist who is really good at explaining a lot of stuff i do too! its REALLY long but she's got so many good tips on how to think about art and its really helped me a lot since i stumbled upon them. shes also really great at explaining colour theory in a way that made it so much easier for me!

hope this helps at least a little bit lol im not a good teacher sorry!!

#sorry if this is just a jumbled mess im hungover and tired lol jgkhldfgd #colour theory #art tips #ask

[gehenna-calling]

13, 20, 37 and A for quintus 👀👀

thank you for enabling my desperate need to talk about my boy

questions from here, i’m still eager for more if anyone else wants to ask!

13) What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

tragically quintus is a very boring man and is basically allergic to colour. his wardrobe is mostly monochrome; i’m stylising it as very slightly greenish and purplish shades. green would probably be the colour that suits him most i think!

20) If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

hmm this is an interesting one. familial love is quite important to him; one of his convictions is “protect my kin”, and that includes both his remaining mortal family and his clan. i think he’d explain his love for his “kin” as a sort of protectiveness - looking after your own, and a responsibility to take care of them? but if you asked him to elaborate on why he should be protective of certain people and not others, he’d probably struggle to define why he separates the two. as for romantic love, he would probably tell you it’s the most important thing anyone can have, a truly beautiful force, and then basically describe his blood-bonded feelings for his sire. he’s forgotten what actual normal romantic love is supposed to be, without a heavy layer of forced obedience and devotion. platonic love is the trickiest one - it’s the one that’s kind of fallen by the wayside for him. he’s so focused on his twin motivating factors of protectiveness for his family and love for his sire, he’s kind of forgotten how friendships work. perhaps he’ll gradually discover it with his new coterie, but for now he’d definitely find it hard to define platonic love as anyway near as strong or important as the two others.

37) Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)? 

this boy is a Note Taker. he carries a little reporter’s notebook with him everywhere, and writes down everything he needs to remember in it. for stuff he needs to hold in his head without the chance to write it down, he usually associates it with a pattern or cipher he already knows, to help him remember it.

A) Why are you excited about this character?

well i sure am excited, aren’t i??? my apologies to everyone around me who will have to deal with rabid malk brain for at least a couple more weeks. i’d say a large chunk of it is New Character Excitement, of course, but i’d say the fact i’m doing something new with my first v5 character is also a factor. quin’s also my first character with a real risk of losing humanity/sliding to the beast, so that’s also very exciting!!

#quintus #answered ask #thank you for asking!!

[marypsue]

Hhhhhn I’m glad you put your pinned post back bc i missed a few sneak peeks!! First of all, I love the ominous suit baddies and a new introduction for Erica Sinclair bc she honestly would be a child detective and rabble rouser! Also I love that Erica has heard enough about Lucas’s connection that lets him sneak into the movies that she goes to Steve when she feels unsafe! Tbh I feel like it’s a crime that we never got a scene of Lucas braving about his cool older friend who lets him go to movies for free and drives only for Erica to call Steve a loser but clearly note down that he’s a trusted adult ( let thé Sinclair siblings bond!! Let them be children and shit talk but also care for each other deeply! )Also truly such a joy seeing your impeccable sense of dramatic tension bc that scene sucked me right back in and left me excited about stranger things again . The blend of character work and plot has really gotten so good and it’s fun seeing how your style changed since the first installment!! Also belatedly, the age swap fic (another beloved marypsue AU that is always rotissering in my brain alongside body swap) with Nancy detectiving and a fun twist on the classic Hopper finding the government conspiracy beats of ST1.

Hello hello! Thank you so much! I'm thrilled to hear that the tension is good, and that the plot and character work seem to be working together well. That's all I ever want.

I love Erica and I want her to have all of the screentime! All of the sibling relationships on Stranger Things are so interestingly set up and I just want more of all of them. All the time. Forever.

I feel like the setup in this AU allows for a little more cross-generational interaction in general than the show itself implies. That was one of the things I really liked about s3, the way it put together the Scoops Troop instead of just splitting everybody up into three groups based on age again. It worked really well in s1 because, obviously, they were riffing on three different genres aimed at the three different age categories, and also because none of the characters knew anything, including that the others were involved. The more everybody knows, though, the more you either have to come up with external obstacles to separate them out and not have them share what they know with the others, or you gotta play with and shake up that structure a little. (I'm having some fun with it with former heroes right now, and I hope you'll like how it turns out!)

It's funny that you should mention the change in style, because it's something I've been thinking about recently. Part of it is definitely that the first installment in this AU is canon divergent after all the canon setup and everything, so I was able to lean a lot more heavily on what I could assume the audience already knows. I liked that a lot, and I'd like to try to pull that stylised, storytelling-style voice back into it more. But the changes in the s1 and s2 fics have enough knock-on effects, and I'm also changing enough things in the plot, that I can't lean so much on what people already know about s3. (Although I'm definitely having fun using some of those expectations!) I want to make sure everything's set up well, clear, and makes sense, and I'd like to do a little more of that highly stylised stuff again. Hoping I can strike a balance there.

Also, just so you know, for when and if I change the pinned post again (which will happen when I have a new fic to post), there are a few ways to see only the samples on my blog, other than the pinned post. I am from the Ancient Times, before tumblr decided blogs should automatically open in the dash, and my pinned post is actually just a roundup of the links in the header that you can see if you go to my public-facing blog page! (This page also has the added benefit that you don't have to be logged in to tumblr to see it. Technically, every blog has a URL like this, but I believe that if you use the default tumblr theme, it forces you to go to the blog-in-the-dashboard version automatically. I'm not sure, though, I haven't changed my blog theme in something like a decade.)

I also tag for organisation, and I find it's easier to find tagged posts in the [blog].tumblr.com view than the blog-in-dashboard view. On marypsue.tumblr.com, if you click on a tag, it will show you every post tagged with that tag, in chronological order. It won't catch posts that use the same phrase in the body text, only posts that have been tagged. But it will bring up every post with that tag, and it won't show you duplicates of the same posts (which I find the search often does for no apparent reason).

All my fic samples and fic posts are tagged with the wildly imaginative this is mary's fic tag. All my original writing is tagged with mary writes. I've also tried to start tagging by WIP name. So if you're, say, in the mary writes tag, and you read and enjoy a sample from Fearleading Squad, you can click on the fearleading squad tag on the post and it will show you more samples from that WIP. Or if you're looking for samples from the upcoming final installment of the Hawkins, Indiana psychic baby boom, there's a tag for that too.

(If you already knew all of this and just found the pinned post more convenient, I hope you'll forgive me. I just realised as I was reading your ask that tumblr goes out of its way to direct you to the blog-in-dashboard view, and I don't know how common knowledge it is anymore that there's another option.)

#chatter #one day I will not write a novel in response to every ask. today is not that day. #sorry it took so long to answer this I have been. a jelly

[fandomgamersimp]

Devilman Crybaby rant

First of all, gloss over the fact of how late I am with this, I've never been good at keeping up with stuff like that. Second, this entire post is mostly just for me to let out all the storm of thoughts forming in my brain right now, because that's how I operate, but feel free to drop your insight.

ALSO SPOILERS AHEAD

So, I'm a big fan of the Devilman series, let me establish that. I've fell in love when I stumbled upon Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman years before, which led me to catching up with older shows/OVAs, I even got my hands on the manga. I simply love it- the premise, philosophy, questioning all of what we understand as being human, empathy, love... I live for media like this. So obviously I checked out Crybaby on Netflix too.

And, in my opinion, it wasn't actually that good at all, despite the hype.

The animation is the front of it, let's start with that.

I know it's hard for people to adjust. Anime throughout the years has had various styles, so distict and popular at the specific time periods that it pretty much separated anime styles into groups of how shows were stylised at the time. So when something breaks through that drastically, it may received mixed, if not mostly negative comments (look at Aku no Hana for example). And you know, I actually liked it for the most part. It was unique, its fluidity in motion captivating, in my eyes. But the more episodes, the more obvious it was that it didn't work for everything, slowly starting to become more annoying than charming, visually speaking.

My second ick? Sirene. Oh my.

I'm talking about episodes involving her as a whole.

I've always been mesmerised by this specific act in the story to be honest. Sirene's story itself is something I find beautifily tragic. In love with the demon prisoned in a human body, the demon possessed by someone else pretty much, desperately wanting to free him in order to be together while also following insticts of a demonic being - proving its strenght for the sake of survival ingrained into demons' very core, thriving at the thought of defeating someone who can outpower you (and being good at it, considering she was one of very few, if not the only demon close to finishig Devilman). Among her is Kaim, the demon in love with her - both of them creating this duo of unconditional feelings, making us question whether demons and humans are actually that different and if demons are capable of caring about each other without wanting anything in return (like Kaim letting himself be killed, so Sirene could get a chance at winning), then what makes us special as human beings in comparision to them? I am passionate, as you can see, about this.

And disappointed that in comparision, this act in Crybaby was shallow and felt sped up, present only for the sake of it. I remember feeling down and upset, kind of like when you order something amazing at first glance off the web, only for it to arrive looking cheap and horrible in quality. Their fight felt like it lasted for a minute, Sirene's and Kaim's story and their purpose to it more of a speck. I personally feel that if they could pull it off in an OVA (The Demon Bird, 1990), manga (1972) etc., they could've pulled it off here.

Bringing time feels especially important to me, since many other shows having the same runtime (around 22/23 minutes if you count out the op and ed) are able to still make it work while also having deep/complicated stories like Devilman.

These episodes also brought something else to my attention while watching.

Their obsession with NSFW stuff. Blood, gore, sex. "But it's for the more mature audience, obviously they put that in." Yeah. Original Devilman is bloody and gory as well, absolutely not meant for younger readers/watchers. But here, when I finished watching the show, if felt like it became an excuse for them, putting it into scenes without rhyme or reason - and I do expect a little more reason, because Devilman in its core is meant to be a bit more than a show someone can just jack off to on a Friday night I think or fawn over edgy guts and all. As I mentioned, it came off to me extremely strongly while watching the Sirene act - mostly because she felt highly sexualised (among other female characters) and her feelings for Amon focused solely on "rail me, Amon".

"People in love want to do these things together, especially demons, because" - sorry to interrupt, but this whole act, to me, was meant to prove that demons are not actually mindless beasts, but instead able to purely feel for someone beyond the physical need just like people, making us, consumers, ask ourselves how it correlates to our own humanity if those "vile and mindless monsters" also understand what it means to love and save someone we care about.

Instead, I saw pointless sex scenes, adding nothing to its core while feeling like it had some purpose meant for it, they just didn't feel like elaborating. I can deal with it to some extent. Maybe I did miss a point, maybe I'm exaggarating. But from where I stand, its only point was to scream "look at this thing, it's 16+". And nothing beyond - which, again, hits me harder when I remembered previous stuff was nowhere near close to stuffing itself with NSFW while still being meant for older people, violence paired with topics of demonic need for violence and survival while mentions of sex barely present or hinted at without feeling like it's shoved down your throat, focusing on its debate over morals and meaning of humanity, questioning who is really the actual monster. Unlike Crybaby - trying to do something similar and forgetting about it later.

Those are the most important points from me. Again, it is meant mostly to be a mindless rant and "let-it-out" sort of deal, so forgive the messiness of it. I'd also like to remind that these are my personal views and I am willing to have a convo about it.

But Devilman is, as I hopefully showcased, important to me. I love the manga, I love OVAs, I love shows and specials.

So it cut me extra deep to admit to myself that I did not, at all, love or even like Crybaby.

Because it wasn't just what it really could be.

#devilman #devilman series #devilman manga #devilman crybaby #go nagai #manga #anime #rant post #text post #devilman crybaby spoilers

[ram-blings-of-a-madman]

REVIEW 002: STRAY

***

OVERALL: 9.5/10

Stray, as a both as a game and as a story in itself, is an absolute work of genius. For one thing, one of it's main selling points, as suggested by the title of the game itself, is that you get to play as a lovable little cat - which alone is pretty freaking awesome, right? The game is set out as a dystopian adventure from the POV of a cat, leading you to solve puzzles, take on new challenges, and even just explore the world around you as if you were a cat - which not only presents you with an incredibly fun new point of view, but also makes for some interesting challenges throughout the game, and allows you to form a sort of emotional investment, or bond, with the little feline you play as.

The game itself is set in a dystopian world, without humans, and most of its story takes place beneath the roof of an underground city. This city is...pretty strange - for one thing, it's populated only by robots, and some not-so-friendly pests known as the zurks, which are recurring enemies that appear throughout the game, and prove themselves to be irritable little beasts at best, and terrifyingly grotesque at worst. Overall, the setting and premise of Stray makes for a fun concept and an incredibly well-made game, combining fun puzzles and challenges with a strange, new world from an entirely new perspective to create an interestingly immersive experience.

My only real problem with Stray, aside from a few minor camera issues, is the slight lack of guides for where you and your little cat should go aside from towards the main goal. Oftentimes, this will end up with you moving to a new area and getting locked off entirely from where you had been previously, meaning any unfinished side quests will have to remain that way until you can play again.

However, that's more of an issue for those players who prefer to complete the game in its entirety, and people who just enjoy a more relaxed way to play the game, like me, should have no problem with this!

***

GRAPHICS: 10/10

Personally, I absolutely ADORE the look of this game - from the characters themselves, to the environment that surrounds them. The world of Stray, though set in a dystopian world, isn't afraid to utilise bright and striking colours, often making the game feel incredibly immersive and interesting, without pushing it too far and creating a cluttered or overwhelming kind of look. I found myself loving every part of the game's environment, not only for it's incredibly beautiful looks, but also the way it treats the city as a playground for you as the player - as you play through the game, you'll find that, although you are playing as a cat in a robot's world, the game manages to make the city incredibly accessible, allowing you to find newer ways to navigate the world around you. Squeezing through grates, climbing through windows, and of course, jumping from ledge to ledge, as you navigate the city and the world around it, everything feels incredibly natural to play.

On top of that, Stray has managed to blend it's game graphics with the lovable face of a cat, without ever leaning more into the realm of creepy rather than cute. The little feline hero you play as moves and looks realistic enough to make the player feel immersed in the experience, but stylised just that little bit to keep it looking as cute and lovable as as a real cat would. The cat's movements are agile and nimble, so much so that they feel like that of a real cat, allowing exploring the environment to become an incredibly fun experience, and something you will always want to do more of.

***

CHARACTERS: 9.5/10

Many of the characters in Stray consist of the robot companions you meet during your time in the city, and each of them, though fundamentally the same thing - a robot - feel incredibly unique, and take on lovable, unique and even, at times, funny personalities. Interacting with these characters will allow your little cat to "talk" to them (or rather, they will talk to you), which will skillfully reveal not just more about the story of the city itself, but about them and their own backstories, personalities, and characters as a whole. Stray really knows how to create lovable characters, from the cat you play as to your robot companion, B-12, to the inhabitants of the city that you pass and interact with throughout your adventure, which helps emphasise the immersive experience and, at least for me, allows you to grow incredibly attached to both the game and the characters it presents.

(In other words, they're silly and I love them)

***

STORY: 9/10

The story of Stray is, at least for me, incredibly interesting, and not just the story you follow as the player, of the lost cat escaping the city and finding his way back home, but also of the city itself, and how it came to be this strange, dystopian sort of environment. The way that the game reveals its story isn't ever rushed or confusing, and through interacting with the other characters and even just simply exploring the world around you, it becomes easy to gradually unearth the secrets of the city, and piece together the puzzle of what made it into such a place.

The main story itself is pretty awesome in itself, as well, managing to be both heartwarming and intense when it needs to be, and by the end, it shows itself to be a lovely little tale of a cat's journey back home, making the story of Stray easily suitable for both the people who enjoy a more fast-paced, exciting experience, and those who would rather a sweeter, more heartwarming take to the story. Either way, Stray's story is a joy to uncover and very skillfully crafts an incredibly immersive story without ever becoming too confusing to follow.

***

FINAL THOUGHTS:

All in all, I absolutely LOVED the game stray, and it's definitely up there in one of my top 5 games of all time!! Would recommend, I am incredibly attached to the little cat and the robots alike (they're very silly)

Also fun fact!! I loved this game so much that I've ended up starting a little Stray-inspired story of my own :)

- Ket!! :D

#review #game review #reviews #ket reviews #games #stray #stray game #stray game review #stray review #i love this little game its so silly #funky little cats and funky little robots what more could you ever ask for #silly silly games are my passion #holds this game gently in my hands #i love it #so good #so cool #augh

[reikunrei]

1, 19, and 23!

Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital?

i think it depends on what i'm doing!! when i'm just doing fanart or want to draw something quickly and casually, digital is my favorite way to go! it's easier to fix mistakes and takes a lot less brain power in that regard. when i want to do something a little more involved, like a life study, then i prefer traditional. specifically i love using colored pencils. i love blending and layering the colors to make NEW colors, and i feel like i can really get into a drawing and stick with it for days on end (throwback to my main BFA piece of a family of mule deer that i spent upwards of 50 hours on lol)

19. What is the most difficult thing for you to draw?

hmmmmm i think for me right now, it's human likenesses. i feel pretty confident in drawing people generally, like i feel mostly confident in basic anatomy and i can spit out a coherent semi-realistic human form without using a reference, but i still find it really hard to make a drawing look like a specific person. especially because i really enjoy going the realistic route rather than something more stylised

23. Do you draw more fanart, or more original art?

as of late, it's been more fanart! i would love to do more original stuff, but the original stuff i wanna do is like what i did in school where i go to a natural history museum, post up in front of the taxidermy, and sit there the entire day without moving lol. BUT i do not have the time for that at the moment, sadly!

this also blurs the lines a bit, but throughout 2021/half of 2022, i did furry commissions on twitter, and i feel like that's sort of a blurred line between original work and fanart, because it's original in the sense that the character/sona is an original creation, BUT is it fanart if it's not my own character?? i'll let the jury decide

Artist Asks!

#tysm!!!! i love talking about art hehehehehe #ask

[teapopp]

Hi hi back again back again

1. Your artstyle is so soft and I feel like it’s gotten even softer since the last time I saw ur blog/pos 2. How’d you develop your artstyle? It’s very pretty :D 3. I think I might come around more often, say hi and stuffs :3c

HI HI HI!!!! welcome back :D

UM... THANK U.... i rly want my artstyle to turn into a yellow blobby mess hehe. i strive for squishability but i keep trying to be accurate soo hehe working on it !!! im rly glad u find it soft !!!

also abt developing my style,,,?? i've been drawing since i was like 6!!! but i got kinda serious about it when i was like 8 and started actually reading chapter books and playing video games

ngl,, its just a bunch of other ppl's art styles mixed together hehe,,

like june's (@ actuallyrea on twitter) style and riverspirit456 on youtube when i wanted to learn how to shade and use colour as a young artist.

i just take little bits n mix it together and use what i learn from studying the human body :p

(UH.... AND ANIME... I WATCHED ANIME AS A KID.... I MADE FAIRY TAIL FAN ART)

(^^^embarrassing fact!!!!!!)

back in like 2019 i really liked milcherie's stuff on deviantart but idk where they are now :( i think their account died or something :( they were rly nice and they liked trevor from pokemon xy and they were a motivation and inspiration to me :,)

(mainly bc no one rly bothered to draw trevor and they were like nice to my mediocre trevor art... BUT STILL...)

(if there's no content... make ur own ykwim??)

(warrior cats, pokemon and sonic artists were crucial to my artistic development during my formative years LOL)

also ,, i had a moment when my art was SUPER stylised like tiny torso, giant blocky limbs, strange eye and faceshapes, just because i wanted to find a style that i liked and it did not work out NANDNS,,,

BUT ALAS !!! i have settled down w the anime+chibi styles i have now (even if they change w every drawing i make bc im SO INCONSISTENT SADGE.....) the circle above where the nose is stayed pretty consistent tho!!! ive been using it for almost 3 years now? or 4....

but ya i think the main motivation behind development was seeing these ppl's neat ocs and thinking... "i wanna do that!!" as a 9 year old and making my first warrior cat oc, then sonic oc, then pokemon trainer oc

and then feeling frustrated that i couldnt draw the pose i wanted to and then scouring the internet for poses to learn and taking in little bits from different artists i looked up to to polish my drawings.

(and also the fact that i liked unloved characters at the time)

TRIED TO MAKE IT READABLE!!!!!^^

ALSO.... AHH COME AROUND MORE BTW.... UR SO NEAT.... SOBS AND SCREAMS.... I WILL TRY TO SAY HI IN RECORD TIME....!!!

#mille response #digital artist #oc artist

[demonlandline]

this has probably already been asked but any tips for learning/improving portraiture? your work is AMAZING i want to hang it up above a mantelpiece btw :]]

Hello, firstly thank you so much!!!

Secondly, some tips! This ended up long and a bit rambly but I hope these are helpful

Highly recommend analysing faces and anatomy and really looking at all the small details as well as the broader outlines and features. Faces are made out of shapes, and those shapes are made visible by how light hits them. So taking your understanding a step further than just 'there's a shadow here so I'll draw a shadow here' to 'there's a shadow here because of the angle and position of this part of the face and the direction of the light.' So you have a bit more control over how you're carving out features from the page. For example when drawing lips it's common to start out just drawing the outline of the edge of the lips, like that's the first shape that jumps out because there's a clear border, but there's a lot of shapes and shadows and different angles and curves and planes within those, and sometimes you can get a better result emphasising those shapes rather than emphasising the border.

I think understanding those shapes gives you more freedom stylistically as well. Like the more detail you can perceive within the borders of larger features the more you can do with them. If you're feeling like you'd like your portraits to be less smooth or less simple then paying attention to those smaller details can allow you to add more defined and stylised brush strokes and lines in ways that make the portrait more coherent rather than less.

Getting proportions right is probably the least fun part of drawing for me but it's super important. My main tip on this is to study a ref image and break the face down into small shapes and parts and angles, and really look at how they relate to each other and what's lining up with what. I tend to isolate each line and shape in turn and say, for example 'okay, this section of the edge of the nose is a mostly straight line, it's almost completely vertical, and it intersects with the edge of the eye here' and then I draw exactly that. I also have a little ruler with a sliding gauge that I use to double check proportions and make sure everything is as accurate as possible.

Also like, practicing and experimenting and going through the whole being bad at it stage really does work. Sounds a little bit silly but I'm always a bit surprised when I practice something and actually get better at it. All the art tips in the world can't compare to what you learn through the process and you'll find your own style along the journey too.

Thirdly, you CAN hang my art up above a mantelpiece! I have an inprnt shop with a whole lot of art. Feel free to let me know if there's a specific piece you'd like a print of that's not in the shop <3

#ask tylar #art tips

[firefeufuego]

For the ask meme: 1, 2, 7 and 13

Thank you anon!!

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Hmmm, my comfort zone is definitely a hint of Lungs/Dance of the Druids-esque stylised paganism meets Dead Poets Society/Oxbridge realness, power play in sex that’s in service of equality, and as many references to Greek mythology as I can shove into a fic. My characters are always slightly kinder to each other and better at communication than is necessarily realistic, but it’s what I like to write and I find it a useful personal growth and reflection exercise as well—what could I say or do for the people I love in hard moments, etc.

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

An actual slow burn? But I probably don’t have the patience for it. I suppose this kind of repressed emotional affair that I’m writing in ‘if it’s a crime’ is something I’ve wanted to write forever. That kind of external conflict for a relationship is something I find so compelling, and I always watch those sorts of stories with a vain hope that the crazy kids involved will sort it out. As Sally Bowles says, maybe this time…

7. Share a snippet from one of your favourite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Slumped in the passenger seat, looking sad and sodden and still so lovely, she said, ‘I should have called a cab.’

He scoffed. ‘You should absolutely not have called a cab, Lily. You know I’ll always come.’

She shook her head violently and seemed to immediately regret it, looking out the window to ward off the nausea. ‘You shouldn’t have to. I mean, God, James. Don’t you ever get sick of taking care of me? Isn’t it tiring?’

He was brought straight back to the tiny tutorial room at Balliol where he’d studied Classics with the boy with the best jawline at Oxford. Their tutor had had them recite the Oresteia, and James had been half terrified, half thrilled that he’d know—that he could sense the way James’ heart had beaten faster in his chest as he’d looked between dark blue eyes and the slightly crooked mouth he’d kissed against the wall of the boathouse the week before. Even then in that car, the exquisite ache of his lips and tongue and breath forming the words ‘ἀλλὰ κηδεύσω σ᾽ ἐγώ’ and ‘οὐκ ἔμοιγε σοῦ’ sat heavy and glorious in his chest. Especially then, when the devotion he felt was not a giddy simulacrum of late adolescence but ocean-deep and life-long.

‘Not to me, if it’s you,’ he said, a confession of love as stark and sincere as he’d ever given.

Lily’s face was still turned away, but he could see the edge of her frown. ‘I should be a better friend.’

Not sure if this is a favourite just because it’s the most recent but I do love it, it hits a Lot of my comfort zone boxes as you see. I’m almost glad that I couldn’t just use the Anne Carson translation (because this fic is set before it was written), because there’s something so special about reciting lovely words in another language, you’re so much more aware of the physicality of it (hence the lips and tongue and breath—that rule of three with the double ‘and’ is absoLUTEly my comfort zone, I use it every second sentence).

I also love writing these moments of misunderstanding where it’s really clear what both sides mean and why they’re not understanding each other in that moment. Finally, the exploration of James’ bisexuality and the feeling of saying scripted words to someone you have a crush on and the words meaning so much more is ripped straight from my little life and so I am Fond.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Probably the best someone has told me is to read and keep reading, but that’s pretty obvious so I’ll go with something I’ve kind of found on my own. I really strive for a sense of poetry in my prose, and the way I try to make sure it’s there and it’s working is by reading my writing aloud. You get a sense of what assonance and consonance works and what the rhythm should be and where there should be a full stop. Also, I often find that if you’re writing sentence by sentence like I do sometimes, each sentence might work individually, but you’ve repeated the same structure too many times. All those kinds of things get highlighted really clearly when you’re reading aloud. Do I just like the sound of my own voice? Maybe so, maybe so. Hmmmm, podfic for ‘he’s too far away’ when?

#my writing #ask me #but he's a little bit too far away

[mi5018tomberry]

Project Ideas

Here are some of the first ideas I scribbled down initially inspired by the artist David Zinn.

I thought I could explore something like the micro-world within the lockers in Men In Black 2 but the amount of detail for something like this would be excessive and less focused on compositing and may become more of a modelling and animation project.

This is the main video which inspired this train of thought, its all about the making of Little Big Planet. The game was stylised and build using simple blocky shapes with loads of textures applied and then dotted around with a sandbox feeling and I thought that I could try and make something of this sort for this project using a mixture of assets and real world interaction.

I wrote some more notes about location ideas and plans for using a small 3D character and which environments would work for this project.

These are some of the locations I could use for this animation with some experimentation with reflections, lighting and some VFX added on top to transition from location to location with portals or cannons.

If I go down this route then I could try to make something like the video above, the animator uses a mixture of 3D and 2D animation with a lot of different techniques that would be useful to learn for compositing.

An alternative to the small world aesthetic is exploring campus with a video editing approach in mind with slightly less focus on animating characters. Taking what I have learnt about District 9's approach to VFX I could try to integrate VFX without turning it into the show piece of the project. The image above are some notes related this idea keeping in mind my limitations and which locations could work best. The idea I want to run with if I take this approach is an experimental approach trying out different types of effects within each shot and combining them together.

The notes here further explored this idea with a focus on a POV horror/experience inspired by the course closing down and the surroundings are fading with it with shots that have people and objects glitching, disappearing and transforming unnaturally until we are found in a void at the end like the image above.

The main locations for this project would be the computer lab, classroom and I would also have to used the green screen room for the void at the end if I go down this route.

Above are some video tutorials or references which I want to try out for the VFX side of things as I think it would be a great way to push myself into video editing and VFX which I have not dabbled with much as of yet. Ideally I want to find a way to execute my best ideas for these two plans because I may find that focusing on smaller scale shots may be limiting for a module about compositing which aims for layers upon layers of different effects and techniques to make something really believable.

For the glitch/matrix style shots, the video above is one of the shots that would look visually amazing if I could make it work with a lot of rotoscoping and a 3 static shots one of which is a clean plate as reference for backgrounds and to not mess anything up. This relates to one of the ideas I wrote down in my sketchbook with a discussion between student and teacher and there is a jump-scare of someone coming through the teachers face saying something like "wake up" or "its over".

Whilst doing research I also found this post on reddit with someone doing compositing of their own looking for feedback to improve a shot of Godzilla composited into some of their own footage. The advice was really interesting because it talked about adding a camera shake to account for each footstep of Godzilla which made me think more about the environmental implications of the VFX added to a shot and what extra thought must be put in to make the shots feel real:

Camera Shake

Blurring

Smoke/Dust

Reflections

Lens Flare

#Youtube #Instagram

[fussyspace]

Those not finished, part 1

At this stage of the competition, we're just meant to read 10-30% of a book and vote yes or no on whether we want to continue/the book should advance. The team's votes are then added together to find the top 10-12, which we then read in full and score.

These are the books I gave a no vote to and didn't finish reading. There are some I finished reading and still voted no to (usually when they were short enough that it wouldn't take long to get to the end).

A no vote doesn't necessarily mean a book is bad. Please also remember that these views are my own and may not reflect the rest of the team.

Star Language, Charon Dunn

Word count: ~59,000

Cover: It's, uh... it's a vibe. I'm not sure if it's purposefully leaning into the MS Paint/Word Art aesthetic, but it's definitely there. I certainly wouldn't want to pick it up based on the cover – even improving the typography and leaving the rest alone would do wonders. It does have a certain charm to it, in the same way that the Star Wars Holiday Special does.

Blurb: 'Melina is super unlucky when it comes to mothers; hers is an abusive greedy drugged-up nightmare who sells her to traffickers. She’s a lot luckier when it comes to boyfriends – her big strong alien bae makes everyone thirst. The one department where her luck is absolutely on point has to do with her talent – a flair for learning languages that makes her the only one capable of performing translation duty once the aliens reach Earth. Trigger warning: SA, ultraviolence, 18+, explicit badness.'

I didn't really know what to make of this, beyond cringing at 'big strong alien bae' and figuring that plus the trigger warnings must mean it was erotica. It wasn't (and I admit to be a little disappointed even though that's not my thing). I'm still not sure if 'explicit badness' is meant to mean badassery or something else.

Content: I wasn’t thrilled when the book opened with the main character’s entire life story. It was, admittedly, a fairly interesting life, and I could see it was leading up to her translating for the aliens when they arrived, but there was nothing sci-fi to it for a massive whack of book. My main issue was the writing style, however, which never varied from being very simplistic and telling rather than showing. It was good that it stuck quite clearly to the narrator’s voice, but I still found it made everything feel bland and reported. It only really started getting a little more varied and interesting by the 30% mark.

When the aliens eventually arrived, they were quite uninteresting – just grey humans with a culture that’s meant to be slightly different but fundamentally isn’t, and they somehow have dinosaurs. The main character also said she loved one of the aliens at one point, but felt nothing when she was reassigned to a different alien. This might make sense on account of her backstory, but it seemed weird to me, and I was sort of interested to see what happened next but also very bored of it. I stopped reading for this reason. Given it's short, I still might read the rest of it later.

Vote to continue at 30%: No

The Rat's Nest, Adam Crookston

Word count: ~46,300

Cover: I appreciate the stylised battery diagram here. I think it's pretty neat, and works well with the text. I don't think it gives me much idea what the book's about, though, and I'm not sure I need to know that it's the first edition.

Blurb: 'In the Year 3022, the people of earth have migrated planets over 82 times, saving ones that provide useful resources and storage. After a woman goes missing on the infamous planet 28. It's up to a gifted soldier to return her to safety. A story about Self Belief, Belonging, and pushing through the worst.Will Tom survive the trails and tribulations, or will Cain take over the minds of everyone.

'Tom - An Electrician Solider with the ability to manipulate minds to his liking through the 82 government protocol. He follows the rules and still gets the bad end of the stick, but with every fight he keeps going.

'Cain - The mysterious figure with an ability to control millions through manipulation and control, his mass army of millions takes over cities on planet 28 to his liking. An ability to control desires.

'Alma - A warrior on the planet 28, she's made a world that is her own, geared with anything to be prepared for a fight. a fighter for the 82 until she was exposed to the realities of who they are.'

This is a blurb of decent enough length to get what might be inside, unlike a few others that were quite short. Unfortunately this is also where I got a glimpse of the overall quality, with sentences fragmented at random, incorrect punctuation and haphazard capitalisation. If I were looking for a book to read and read this blurb, I would give it a hard pass. It's a shame, as it sounded like it could otherwise be interesting.

Content: As hinted by the blurb, the writing quality was poor – much worse than the blurb, in fact. Full of sentence fragments, inconsistent tenses and incorrect word choices, I couldn't read more than a few pages before I had to put it down.

Vote to continue: No

Escalation, Itzhak Begerano

Word count: ~90,300

Cover: It has the feeling of some text slapped over a stock image, and it's not a stock image that tells me anything about what's inside. The author actually submitted some cartoons for the cover contest, and I believe this was adapted from an animated piece, so it would have been nice to see some of that instead.

Blurb: 'Bizarre politicians are dragging the world into a hallucinatory war.

'Two conflicted presidents, each driven by delusion and greed, dream of ruling the globe. To meet their goals, they resort to fraud, bribery, and corruption. Alexander Monroe - the president of the Democratic Organization, and Suleiman Assad - the president of the Free Islamic Forces, find themselves dragged into an inevitable war. Barney Chaplin the entertainer, the nerdy minister of education who opposes the idiotic war. He became Monroe's deputy and was sent to the front lines in the Fata Morgana desert to entertain his troops while risking his own life. The performance of President Monroe and the members of his government are examined by the government psychiatrist Professor Cheers, and everyone understands that it is better that someone supervises her as well… During the illusory war, well-known Hollywood actors who have passed their time are forced to function as deadly commandos and go beyond enemy lines.

'story possibilities

'·     '

Yes, the YouTube link is included in the blurb. The rest of the blurb is all one chunk of text that starts out pretty interesting, but then keeps dropping names and keeps getting weirder. By the end I'm not really sure what direction the book's trying to take. I'm afraid I also didn't (and still don't) understand enough about the political situations mentioned to comment, and given this a political satire, that's a fairly crucial aspect for me to lack.

Content: The first few pages of this book were completely nonsensical and a real struggle to read. Absolutely cluttered with adjectives, I couldn't tell what was going on and couldn't bring myself to read any more.

Vote to continue: No

#SPSFC #SPSFC3 #SPSFC3 round 1 #self publishing #science fiction #sci fi #SFF

[fmp2halimekaraca]

Artist Research

These are some of the main artists that inspired me during the process of creating my final outcomes.

Alberto Mielgo

Mielgo is both a concept artist and a movie director, best known for dis Netflix debut in Love, Death and Robots. He was also one of the main concept artists for Spiderverse and one of my biggest inspiration when it comes to art in general. I decided to look at him for this project due to the uniqueness of his style. I have researched a lot of artists that have sketchy, unpolished styles but Alberto's has something that sets him into a whole different league. I love the collage/scrapbook look of his style and how each colour seems to be layered on top like a sticker. I find his work to be a strange mix between stylisation and realism which only makes his art stand out more and be easier to recognise. The asymmetry of his character designs combined with the urban fashion and environments make for a visually pleasing, contemporary aesthetic that still pays homage to the vintage days.

Everything seems to have so much dimension while keeping true to the iconic comic book style through textures, lines, and overall cartoonish colours and stylised anatomy proportions. His environments and city concept art inspires me the most due to how lively and messy everything is . Every part of every street or building looks as if was actually populated and held individuals that left their marks on the ground or walls through litter, graffities, etc.

Something that I could really learn from Miguel is how to draw different faces and staying as far away as possible from having to characters with the same face/body features. At the moment, my characters all seem to have similar face structures and it is hard for me to try out new body types or even different clothing styles.

Joshua Smith

Joshua smith, although a diorama maker/ miniaturist, has helped me a lot through the early stages of my project. Since my project was so focused on the city aesthetics and the more, looking at some of Smith's dioramas, especially the bodegas and the city buildings helped me a lot with developing my own sketches and getting that specific atmosphere of a overcrowded apartment building, with graffities, air conditioners, scrapped paint, uneven bricks, etc.

I fin it so impressive how he manages to put so much personality and authenticity in each of his works. The details are mesmerizing, especially the ones someone would most likely miss, like the ripped stickers on the door, or the rust around the metal parts, or even just the little pieces of rubbish lying around. Joshua's dioramas showed me how the more you add, the more organic it will look, especially in human settlements.

His work has also helped me in designing the building for my first illustration. I really wanted to have all the imperfections that he has in his work without making it look abandoned or unlivable but rather old and worn-out, as if it has a history of hosting people.

Shaun Tan

I really like Tan's Work and as different as it is from my style, it has inspired me to try out more ''painting'' techniques with my digital work and once again, visit the idea of over stylising my art to make it more appealing to younger audiences. Shaun's art has that quality that makes it look like it came straight from fairy-tale books, with it's soft blending and muted colours, it has a very specific folkloric aesthetic.

I also like how some of his artworks seem to be inspired by Van Goh's style. The mix of brush strokes seem to be very similar and the way each different section of the painting is constituted of different shades of the same colour really reminds me of Goh' unique art.

All oh his paintings seem to be so random and without much sense but I personally find it interesting how Tan' leaves each of his artworks up for interpretation and the sense of mystery works really well with the paint-y look. I feel like I can take a lot from this artist in terms of adapting my work to both be and feel suited for a set audience .

Bastien Grivet

Since I really wanted to push myself with my illustration, I decided to look at Grivet and analyse the mesmerizing way in which they paint and combine colours. Despite the chaos and explosion of colours and textures, everything feels organised and planned.

This shows a huge amount of confidence as well as a vast understanding of colour theory in order to achieve this whimsical but not eye straining look. I have noticed that although every artwork seems reach close to every colour on the colour wheel, the prominent transition between warm and cool shades is always present, which really pulls everything together into a harmonious and atmospheric piece of art.

I especially love this artwork which seems to represent an almost godly event that has a golden tree at the centre, with waves of colours spiralling around. These sort of fluid effects are something that I wish I could implement in my art more since it breaks the repetitive look of uniformity and adds the perfect level of disruption and feeling.

I have looked at this artist's ArtStation account and apparently they have posted a pack with some of the brushes they use for their art that is up for sale. It is obvious how each of these brushes is a shortcut towards creating very eccentric and distinctive textures and details and I will look into purchasing them myself since I think they would help me a lot with my backgrounds/environments.

I really like how ArtStation allows artists to sell not only brushes but also prints, 3D assets , etc. This is a great way for big artists to make a living and smaller artists to experiment and try out new things.

[mi5014-abbiesmith]

Final Thoughts

This module has been challenging throughout but the end products I am very proud of. 

When starting, I had very little idea of what I wanted to do other than something new. The initial research was one of the most fun parts of this module as looking into this kind of topic was something I could really dive into. I still had no real direction but I think having that rich starting point helped a lot. Finding the Silent Pool myth was a coincidence, in that it was in a book my family sent me to use and it was close to home so I felt more of a connection to it. Again the initial research into this was fun. Moving from there got more complicated. 

I had a lot of problems figuring out what I wanted to take from my chosen myth. It would have been easy to just make the original myth, not changing anything, and in trying to avoid that I think I confused myself and made it more complicated than it needed to be. The initial concept was interesting and I think while I didn’t go with it it helped me understand what I didn’t want to do. Working through this was my first big problem. I think I also got bogged down with what deeper part of myth I wanted to look at; the pursued and pursuer; women in myth; fabrication of myths or the changing for someone's own benefit. I think I understood after a while that I can work from these ideas without having them being the focus. 

When I got past this I again got stuck into the problem of getting stuck into the same style that I draw a lot of characters. With some guidance, I managed to get out of that by pushing my designs and taking inspiration from places I haven’t before rubber hose animation. The other problem I had was that I had a lot of ideas for one character and not the other, and found my attention diverted unequally. I also at this point was only working on the aesthetics and not the backstory. It wasn’t till I finally worked on these backstories and the concepts it all feel into place easier. Having something to fall back on while I designed was helpful and in hindsight I should have done it a lot earlier. 

The designing and modelling process went well, but again there were problems with Maya. For the most part these happened at the very end of the character design, with Maya crashing at the end of the year and my own laptop working but having extreme problems with rendering. I do think I have made it over these problems, but it was something that took a lot of time since my computer couldn’t render more than 20 frames approx before crashing and being reset. 

Overall, this module has been interesting. I feel like I have had a lot of things to work through to get to this point but what I have come up with it so much more than I thought I could make at the beginning. Making both a male and female character was one of my main goals and I achieved this as well as making these quite stylised which I never would have thought I would do. 

[grad602and604-jacquelinekan]

Position the Research

The Art of it All aims to explore the history behind graffiti and talk about how it has changed to create something characteristic of that era. When I was thinking of a research topic graffiti popped out to me because I was puzzled as to why there is so much distaste within the public sphere for it unless created by an artist that was well-known. This spiralled into so many other questions that encouraged me to analyse the topic further. In a world catered to the freedom of expression, what dictates the presentation of art in different forms? Why is one style of art on more of a pedestal than others?

Entering second year, my focus was trying to figure out my design style and the approach that I wanted to take to progress into my professional career. Within my practice, I have always been attracted to unique graphics and stylised characters because it just makes content stick out in my mind. However, I often felt a sense of dissatisfaction in the back of my mind because I would compare myself to people in the industry who already had experiences which in hindsight is very illogical. Within the university, I would combat this by pushing myself into the deep end making me think critically and enjoying something I never thought I would although it was definitely really daunting. Outside of this, what really helped me connect more with my work was freelancing and passion projects. Doing work outside of the brief really helped me as I was able to be a little more free and less analytical.

Before starting my research I had no idea how expansive the history behind this art form would be. I have always enjoyed more analogue processes and whenever I would translate things from paper into digital spaces, I would never be truly satisfied. That is what draws me to graffiti the most, not only is it a medium I have never explored but it is also such a freestyle of art that never has to be perfect and it’s mainly about expression. It is also such a big part of pop culture that has a rich background to it that I think more people should know about it. Through evidence and findings from research articles, journals, websites and more. As well as looking at case studies to solidify a viewpoint through notable figures such as Banksy and Keith Harring I hope to achieve coming up with a resolution to the research question “Why does the word graffiti have such a negative connotation and where does it stem from?”. 

#designresearch