the third anatomy workshop

Sculpting the spine and a few muscles 


This is just a little update of what happened in my third anatomy workshop that I attended this week and how my model is progressing. So in this session we started to get some work done on the spine which consisted of us being told exactly how it functioned, how it is able to bend and what happens if something in this area goes wrong. All of this was really interesting stuff to listen too and from this we moved onto modelling the bottom half of the spine that connects to the pelvis. One this was complete we actually moved onto modelling some muscles that connected to the spine and run down to the top of the femur. For this we used a different type of wax which was a lot softer yet more difficult to model, and attached it to what we had sculpted so far.

Unfortunately I was in a bit of a rush to catch my train at the end of the session so I didn't get to take any photos of what our model looked like at the end of class, however I did manage to take some at the half way point so you can see what it is beginning to look like in the photographs below. I will make sure to take some more next week so I can keep documenting my progression.

Thinking how to present my characters

Looking at some existing model and character sheets 


During a conversation I had with my tutor after I got my feedback for BA3a and we spoke about my project and he told me it may be best for my to avoid doing a art book type final piece so I have been trying to think of different ways that I could possibly present my character designs instead. After a little time having a think about my different options the most obvious thing that stood out to me was if I created model sheets of my designs. An art book, either for a video game or a film is a large amount of work created by a multitude of different artists that shows more finalised concepts that actually anything that came before as that work would be far too rough to put into a book so in actually think model sheets would be a better way to present my characters. So essentially I think at the end of my project I will now be aiming to produce a few model sheets and probably a final piece to sum everything up.

I have done a little bit of initial research into this type of design production so I can have some influence earlier on in the process before I actually start doing my character design. I have tried to get a good collection of different model and character sheets from anime, video games, and animated films that have different art styles so that I could have a good look at how each character has been layed out and what elements have been added like expressions or different clothing designs, things like that. I think these will come in handy to refer back to when a get a little further into the design side of my project so I will keep having a look at them for reference.

Haikyuu by Production I.G

Hercules by Walt Disney Animation Studios

Alice Madness Returns by Spicy Horse 

Tarzan by Walt Disney Animation Studios

Overwatch by Blizzard

Big Hero 6 by Walt Disney Animation Studios

Gravity Falls by Alex Hirsch 

Noragami by Madman entertainment 

Wreck It Ralph by Walt Disney Animation Studios 

Continuing with BA3b

Thinking about the art style of my characters 



Now that I am settled back at university, have had a few lectures and a little bit of time off after handing in BA3a I thought it would be a good idea to get cracking on the next part of my project. This half is going to focusing much less on researching and more on things like drawing and getting my design work done, so essentially this is the more creative half of my final year. However the entire term isn't just going to be filled with my drawing, I will do little bits of information gathering scattered throughout my project if I feel it is necessary or I lose motivation.

So essentially I know I need to start back where I had left off previously which was me having a play around with possible art styles for my candy based characters. I have posted the collection of possible art styles I drew out in BA3a below as so refresh my mind as to what I was doing last and where I can go from here. Looking back on these designs I am certainly leaning towards the look of the characters down at the bottom left of the page as they have the sort of style elements I am looking for in my characters as they are very expressive looking and that is one of the things I am trying to achieve with this project. But obviously this is just a starting point so I need to develop my chosen style from here until I find something I am comfortable with, I wont spend too long on this thought as I will end up going off track and wont make any actual progress.

My last piece of design work from BA3a

I know roughly what kind of art style I am hoping to achieve for candy based designs as it is one I feel very comfortable with producing and really enjoy drawing and that is expressive looking characters that have a mixture of both a cartoon and anime style. Anime in particular is a huge influence on my artwork as I have been watching it for years and am absolutely obsessed with it. I have always found joy in watching these colour Japanese cartoons and am hoping that I will be able to incorporate the use of expression and kooky character designs that can be found in anime into my own work. I decided that before I started drawing anything new that I should have a look back at some of my favourite anime shows for a little design inspiration and so that it would hopefully give me the push I need to expand my design ideas. I have lost count of how many anime shows I have actually watched by most of the ones I usually go for are character centric and colourful so these are great influences for my design ideas. I have popped a couple of mood boards below of some of the different shows I have watched and take a lot of inspiration from.

I think using anime as a influence will also really come it handy when it comes to me drawing my characters faces and their body language as usually, in a lot of genres of anime, the characters have really fantastic reactions to things which are usually a little over the top but they help make the character more expressive which I have always loved so that is something I could look at later on in my project. I am honestly really looking forward to designing my candy inspired characters as I can already visualise basically how I want them to look so now I just need to get my design ideas down on paper which is the next step I need to move onto now. 

Our second anatomy workshop

Making a pelvis 

Earlier today I attended the second part of our anatomy model making work shops were we moved up the model a little in order to begin working on the pelvis. This is a core part of the human body that needed to be done piece by piece in order for us to learn it's shape and how it works so we spent a lesson focusing on just this area. I have posted an image of the area of the body we were looking at for my own personal reference below in case I need to refer to it and it's separate parts names in the future.

The Pelvis

So we were supplied with a plastic male pelvis each for us to use as a reference, similar to what we did when we modelled the femur, and then, using the same wax as last time, built it up little by little. I have to say I am really enjoying these classes at the moment as they are just so much fun to be in. Our tutor Ron pops round the room to make sure we are on the right track with what we are doing so we have that little bit of guidance but apart from that it is very much a solo thing and it really nice to see your progression each week. I stupidly forgot to take any proper photos of my model this week and only managed to take the image I have posted below but hopefully I will be able to post some better photographs of my work next week. There isn't much to write about in these particular blog posts as so much of the work is practical so hopefully if I have some photos it will be easier to see what I have been doing but as I said I can't wait for next weeks session.

Getting some drawing done

Random character design 


I have been able to find some spare time before beginning my work on BA3b to do a little bit of my own drawing so I thought I would pop one of my finished characters designs on here to show what I have been up to. I have been really inspired to draw this particular character I thought up for a while now and I just wanted to get the idea out my head and down on paper so that I could visualise them better and so I just quickly sketched the character out and then went over the pencil sketch in Photoshop. I wanted to make male character who looked quite feminine and liked to wear pastel colours and the result of that idea can be seen below. I don't know why but this is a concept I was desperate to turn digital so I got to work on it pretty quickly. I am actually quite pleased with how this came out and hopefully I will be able to do some more sketches of this character in the future and maybe even go over this piece a little more, like adding in some shading here and there.

Thinking about my online portfolio

Creating a website 


So as we finished our previous term, we were told that we were going to receive one final mini brief for us to complete in BA3b but at the time we weren't told what exactly what it was going to be so we were all a little unsure as to what to expect but finally when we all headed back to university after the hectic Christmas break we were told what we needed to do. To be honest, I was really pleased with what our assigned brief was as this is something I had been a little nervous about in the past due to the lack of guidance we have had in this area so far but finally it seems we would be touching on the area of portfolio making and employment. We had been asked to create our own website which be filled with all of our university and personal work, which is fantastic as we can finally make a start at getting everything together and presenting it in a neat and professional manor so that possible employers can now see our art work so I was obviously really looking forward to working on this brief.

I am really pleased to say I did manage to complete my website within the desired amount of time and got it to a standard that I am proud of , however, I forgot to document my process by taking screenshots which is a bit of a pain but I can simply talk through it and leave a link to my finished portfolio below. So I had a look round a quite a few website builders and what sort of quality of portfolios they could make and a large amount of them were fantastic looking but cost quite a large amount to keep running each month which really didn't suit me as I preferably needed to find something free. One of my fellow students mentioned to me a website maker called 'Wix' which she had said is incredibly simple to use, easy to pick up, and can create a wide array of different styled and laid out websites so I decided to have a look at it. After playing around with it for half an hour and decided that this would be the website builder for me and got cracking on building my portfolio.

I knew what sort of design I wanted to go for and how I wanted to lay it out so I just had a practice with some of wix features, chopping and changing bits and pieces, editing and adding pictures, before I was finally happy with how it looked. It didn't take me very long to do to be honest as the website builder was so easy to use and overall I think it came out looking really nice. I made sure a few people had a look at it before hand before it went live and they all said it was simple, sweet and suited my art style which was exactly what I was going for. As well as making a website I also made myself a Facebook page where I can put all of my art work so people can view it and it is also a way in which people can contact me if they want to which is great! There isn't really a lot else to say about this so  I have popped a screenshot of the homepage below and also the link to my portfolio as well so you can have a proper look at it.

http://harrietwilson.wix.com/portfolio

Model making classes

Creating a human figure out of wax


So earlier today I went to the first session out of new model making classes we have been given were we will have the opportunity to sculpt a human body model out of wax. This just a very quick post about what it was like in the session and what I thought of it. I was really excited about attending these classes I am really keen to try and improve my anatomy skills, as there is some room for improvement at the moment, and I am really happy to say that the session was brilliant. 

We started off with a copper wire base each that our tutor Ron had made for all of us and were taught all about how we would be applying the wax and exactly what temperature the wax needed to be kept at in order to stick to the wire and hold it's shape which was really good to know in case we wanted to attempt something like this ourselves at home. Each table was given its own sculpting tools and apparatus and also, a plastic model of a femur bone, which was what we were going to be modelling first. Having the plastic model there as an example was really helpful as we were able to see exactly how it''s shape worked and how we would need to model the wax. Our tutor made sure we went through stages, little bits at a time, so that we built up the bone slowly and learnt what it did. 

the Femur bone

So in today sessions we complete making two femur bones, one for each leg, and in the next session we will complete the same process, just with a different part of the body, and will build it up bit by bit. So far I am really happy with attending these sessions. It is so nice doing something more hands on for a change as most of our work is done digitally so I am looking forward to going again next week. I will try to upload some photos of my model as I go along so I can some images of it's progression from start to finish. 

Finding out my BA3a results

What did I get and what was my feedback?


This is just a super quick blog post about my results for BA3a and what sort of feedback I received from my tutors about my work and what they thought I could possibly improve on in the future. So I received a mark of 63% which equals to a 2:1 which is actually a lot better than I thought I was going to get which I am really happy about and should put me on a good track for what my final overall grade should be. Although Mark did say to me that one thing I needed to cut back on was worrying about my grade. He said he visually see I get a little too anxious about it and need to just focus on completing the work to do good standard and focus on passing instead of getting hung up on getting a first which is actually really good feedback as I know it's something I need to work on. As another area of feedback we also spoke about my attitude towards my artwork and how I tend to feel quite negatively about it and why. Mark mentioned that I should try and stay as positive as possible, even if something isn't fantastic, I shouldn't ever point that out myself, I should keep it either as neutral or positive as possible so this is something I can work on as well. 

Apart from this he basically told me just to get cracking with my project work and that It is looking really nice so far. He told me what I need to do now is focus far more on the actual production of my art work, making sure I am getting some good content of sketches and digital piece and then I can do a little research if need be. I need to follow a pattern of art then research then more art and a little more research, ect, so that I am keeping my work following which I am certain I will be able to do. 

Getting back into the swing of things

New anatomy classes and lectures 


So now that BA3a is all handed in and finished all we can really do now is have a little breather after the mad rush that was the Christmas break and wait for our feedback. It is a little nerve wrecking now that we are in the waiting stage but luckily we get our results back sometime this week so there isn't a lot of waiting around to do. Luckily for us though there are some new classes that have been added to our schedules which will help keep our minds occupied during this stressful time. Prier to our previous requests which were made in our last term by a lot of the 2D students that we asking for more skilled based lessons and tutorials we have finally been given a chance to learn about one of the most important things for a character artist to know, anatomy.

There are new lectures every Monday that will be about breaking down the human body bit by bit and learning about every single little thing that each bone and muscle does and how it helps that makes the body move. This something that I have always wanted to learn about as I think it would be really beneficial for my character designs, anatomy is something I can struggle with, but I didn't really know where to start so I am really excited about the prospect of learning all of this. As well as lectures every week we will also be having workshops, which we can sign up to, that will be all about crafting a model of a human body, piece by piece, out of wax. This will allow us to see how each bone in the body looks like and what it's shape is like and how it moves which is all really useful information for us to be able to incorporate into our designs work. So these are fantastic opportunities for the tutors to have laid out for us and I soon as I found out about them I signed up immediately.

An example of the sort of thing we will be studying

So earlier today we had the first session of our series of anatomy lectures and I am pleased to say it was really really interesting. Our lecturer, Ron Spriggs, has a incredible knowledge on human anatomy and how each bit functions and so he is going to be able to take us through a different part the human body each week so that, piece by piece we will learn how it all functions. This week, as it was a introductory session, he took us through everything very briefly so that we got a general overview of how different main chunks of the body functions and then, in the weeks to come, he will zero in on certain sections and go into them more in-depth. Thankfully I took some notes as it was a lot of information to take in that I could have easily forgotten the next day so I will be able to look back over them if need be. Fair warning, the spelling in my notes may not be fantastic, some of the words were a bit of a mouthful to say, let alone write.

Although it did make me feel a little bit queasy on some occasions, I really enjoyed the first one of these anatomy lectures and I am looking forward to going to the ones in the future. I probably wont post every single time I have been to a lecture as a lot of it will probably be quite similar but if anything worth putting on my blog comes up then obviously I will. I am now also really interested to see what the model making class will be like on Friday and what exactly our human models will end up looking like when they are completed. But for now I just need to read over the notes I made in this lecture and wait around for my BA3a results.

The second part of my third and final year

Moving onto BA3b

Finishing the first half of my final year

How I felt BA3a went


So BA3a is now over and my god the time has just flown by. I can't believe I am now half way through my last year at university, the days have just gone by too fast, It's crazy. I felt like this term may end up dragging a little as it was so long and I had a hell of a lot of work to do but it was the completely the opposite effect. Even though this term has whizzed past I am really pleased that I was able to sort of my time keeping this time around and make sure that I hadn't left anything to the last second or end up swamped in too much work near the deadline like in BA5 and BA6. I feel really quite happy with myself that I have been able to complete everything at such a good pace and that the work I have produced is up to a good standard. I honestly feel a lot more confident and positive about what I have done this term and I feel less anxious and negative about my work which is wonderful. I am feeling rather calm now that I know I have completed everything that was set for me and that all I have to do is wait for hand in, but it hasn't exactly been a smooth ride and there are a few things that have bothered me about BA3a.

I feel like our course this term, honestly, has been a little chaotic. I have felt really quite lost in several occasions on what we have meant to be producing or working on which really isn't fantastic since this is our third and final year and we should be being told exactly what we need to be doing in order to aim for a first and pass this course. I think we haven't been receiving as much support, feedback and information on our work as we should be and why this has been the case I don't know. As well as this I think quite a lot of people have had quite a lot of stress from doing both our studio work and research report and having added mini briefs on top of all of this really wasn't helpful at all.
I found that I was spending so much time fretting over them that I would neglect my other, far more important work like CS and studio but when I started working on that, I was lagging behind with the mini briefs. None of the work I made for the mini briefs I would say is portfolio material, even though that was the whole point of them, as I ended up having to rush them just to get them out of the way so I could focus on my studio work. Overall I just don't think they were necessary.

But thankfully they won't be a part of our course next term so we won't have to worry about any mini briefs and can properly focus on our studio work. I am actually really quite pleased with a few pieces of work I have been able to produce over this term and I feel like I am improving little by little which is fantastic. I am hoping this is something that will continue through BA3b and will allow me to produce some really nice candy based character artwork for my art book. I am looking forward to it.

Bringing all my work for BA3a together

Creating my design document 

So after spending a good amount of time over the Christmas break to finish off any outstanding mini briefs that I had to complete as well as reading over my essay for any typo changes and creating new blog posts, I was finally able to get on with creating my design document. This is something that was mentioned we would have to produce at the beginning of the course so to be honest I was pretty prepared for this part of the process. I had looked over the previous students design document examples that had been posted on the VLE for reference to make sure I knew what sort of thing I would need to be producing and started thinking about layouts and themes quite early on and now that I had completed everything it was time for me to get on with it.

The first thing I started working out was the colour scheme and font that I wanted to be using throughout my document. I didn't want to leave it plain white as that is fairly dull and I think my document, especially since I am doing a project based around candy, should be colourful and fitting. So I picked out a pink and blue theme that merged with my theme nicely as well as keeping my document look neat and tidy and after that I started having a think about font. I had already chosen my writing font but it was the font I would use for my titles that I was struggling to pick and so I got my peers and family members involved to ask their opinions. Overall number 5 was the most suggested and so I decided to go with their decision although personally I thought all of them could fit the candy based theme.

After the font, theme and colour scheme were all chosen, It was just a case of my then laying everything out all of the work I had completed for BA3a as neatly as I possible so that my document look presentable and full of work. We were told right at the beginning of our term not to go completely overboard with the amount of pages and that keeping it concise was what to aim for and so I made that the main focus of my document. I was able to keep my writing brief yet informative so that I wasn't babbling on for no reason and let the images do the talking which was able to save me on pages and keep my document short and sweet. A large amount of my actual content for BA3a actually consists a lot of research, not so much design work  as I was planning to do most of my art work for BA3b which I really hope wont be a problem and I wont lose marks for as my tutors said this would be okay a little while ago so I just hope nothing has changed since then. Anyway I have popped my finished design document below.