This afternoon we went into Uni for a talk by Jonny. He explained a lot of the logistics of what happens after we finish uni, in terms of taxes, agencies, invoices, payment etc. He also talked to us about the degree show and potential ways that we can display our work. I have a few ideas at the moment but I'll be looking into that in more detail a little later on in the project.
I had a tutorial booked for the afternoon, and in between that and the talk I sat in the studio and carried on with the planning for my book. I used the storyboards I had created yesterday to figure out some potential layouts for the fairy-tale world. I was quite surprised at how quickly I stumbled upon a layout that worked, although I still have some adjusting to do.
During my tutorial with Jonny I showed him all the work I had done since I last spoke to him, and explained where I was at with the project. He was quite pleased with most of what I had done, and particularly liked the palace designs I had done and the method that I used for them. I also talked to him about the colour mis-registration that I tried out earlier in the week and I explained how I was pleased with the result but felt it would be too much when used on a busy scene. He understood this but also agreed with me that the texture is definitely something I should use, and said I should explore that a bit further (creating my own textures using relief rubbings, rollers etc.).
We had a look at the sketches I had made for the fairy-tale world and I explained how I was planning on cropping in on different areas for each page. Just before my tutorial I had realised that this may not completely work as there are a few pages in the middle of the book where the same scene is needed so it may get a little repetitive, and Jonny noticed this issue too. We discussed a few ways to potentially solve this, some of which wouldn't work too well with the idea of the book (being able to see all of the characters on each page is quite important), but one idea that I did like and will be trying out is changing the angles and perspective. For example, one image could be drawn with a lack of perspective, in the style of a map, and the image on the next page could be drawn from a lower angle with a more realistic perspective. That way the scene is the same, but without it being too repetitive and boring.
Jonny suggested I carry on with storyboarding and aim to have a mock-up book done by next week to show to the tutors (although there were no tutorials spots left next week so I may have to e-mail Jonny a digital version to see what he thinks). So the drawing of characters and scenery is going on hold for a while whilst I figure these things out.