Hello!



Hello! My name is Emma Margaret Simpson and I am a third year illustration student studying at Southampton Solent University. Welcome to my blog documenting my Final Major Project. Here I'll be sharing my processes, thoughts and ideas with you as the project develops.

Thursday 29 May 2014

I've moved!

If you're looking for my FMP journal, then you've come to the right place and should skip shead to the rest of the posts.


However, if you want to keep up with what im doing now, you should head to my main blog:

Or visit my website to view a gallery of my work and find my contact details:

Friday 9 May 2014

Contents

Introduction:



Journal:













Week 13
A week off for Easter




Finishing Off:

Bibliography

Websites


https://www.behance.net/gallery/Creative-CV/13124889

https://www.behance.net/gallery/Resume-Self-Promotion/7918319

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Sheen/11169163

http://www.bigpicturepress.net/

http://www.bigpicturepress.net/our-books/welcome-to-mamoko/

http://www.bjornlie.com/

http://buhobooks.com/2012/11/02/fairytale-food/

http://www.catherinemcginniss.com/

http://www.damonsmithdesign.com/

http://designwoop.com/2011/09/resume-inspiration-30-of-the-best-resume-designs/

http://www.disney.co.uk/tangled/

http://elperroquebailaclaque.blogspot.co.uk/

http://emmablock.co.uk/Hansel-and-Gretel

http://emmamargaretillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moglea/4131849400/in/photostream

http://www.folioart.co.uk/illustration/folio/artists/illustrator/nicholas-stevenson

http://www.greatbeastcomics.com/

http://www.greatdreams.com/animals.htm

http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/animals2.htm

http://isabelnecessary.com/

http://www.jessicadas.com/

http://www.juliapott.com/

http://www.keenandesign.com/

http://naomiwilkinson.tumblr.com/post/21332214352/my-submission-for-the-puffin-design-competition

http://nielsen.artpassions.net/

http://oanabefort.4ormat.com/

http://www.phoenixarises.com/spirits/symbols.htm

http://www.pinterest.com/emmamargaret321/

http://www.sandradieckmann.com/

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/index.html

http://www.tessredburn.co.uk/

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/10/illustrations-by-budi-satria-kwan/

http://www.twelveskip.com/guide/graphic-design/733/25-great-high-quality-and-modern-examples-of-creative-cv-resume-design

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/beatrix-potter-peter-rabbit/



Books

 Crick, J. (2009), Jacob and Wilheim Grimm Selected Tales, OUP Oxford

Mizielinska, A. and Mizielinski, I. (2013), Welcome to Mamoko, Big Picture Press

Nozedar, A. (2010), The Signs and Symbols Source Book, Harper

Sonheim, C. (2012), Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals, Quarry

Tatar, M. and Byatt, S. A. (2012), The Annotated Brothers Grimm, W. W. Norton & Company

 Weidemann, J. (2012), Illustration Now! Volume 3, Taschen GmbH

 Perry, M. (2008), Over and Over: A Catalog of Hand Drawn Patterns, Princeton Architectural Press

Other

 Cinderella, Disney, 1950

Once Upon a Time, American Broadcasting Company (ABC), 2011-Present

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Disney, 1937

Sleeping Beauty, Disney, 1959

Tangled, Disney, 2010

Creative CV

Here is my finished Creative CV:


Since the first version, I have changed some of the elements to be a pinkish red rather than all brown. Both of the colours I've used are form the colour palette that I'm currently working with for my book, as I want everything to tie in well together.
I've also corrected a couple of grammar mistakes and added bullet points to the work experience and education sections.

(I have written the "about me" section as though I have already finished the course, as I won't be sending any out until that time.)

I've also designed the back of business cards in the same style:

I'll be using crops of my current work to go on the back of these so that they tie in with my work when I have then on my shelf at the exhibition. 

The future

Now that my time at uni is coming to an end, I need to start thinking about what my plans are for my future career.

I am planning on working as a sole trader doing freelance illustration and continuing with my small online shop selling cards, prints and other items of my work.
Due to already having a shop and selling at craft fairs and markets, I have already registered as self employed and sorted out that side of things, so I can get straight on with what I want to do without worrying about that.
My first step is try and get my work seen by as many people as possible. I plan on creating a new piece of self promotion and sending it out to lots of book publishers, magazines etc. I aim to make a start on this during the two weeks in the beginning of June where out work is being marked. I'm not sure yet exactly what I plan on sending, but it will consist of work from this current project, and will be in a similar format to what I produced for the Self Promotion unit.
I would also love to have a book published, and will be sending the finished artwork of my current book to any suitable publishers once uni is finished. I'll be starting with Nobrow as they recently re-opened their submissions and I want to get my work sent to them as son as possible before they close them again. 

I have already begun to establish a small online shop, and last year I was accepted to sell my work at Renegade Craft Fair in London, and I also have some of my cards stocked in a few small retailers. This is something I thoroughly enjoy and I would like to take this further in the near future. At the moment my shop sells a small selection of screen printed cards, prints and stationery. However during this project I have really enjoyed working digitally and using fairytales and narratives as inspiration, and I have a few ideas for products to add to my shop. These include small fanzines based on fairytales, colouring books, paper dolls of my character designs etc. I'll be making a start on this right away and hope to apply for Renegade again this year as well as any other events that might be suitable for my work.
In July my partner and I will be moving to Dartford to allow him to work in London as a film editor, and being close to London will be very useful for me to visit small shops that may be interested in stocking my work. It will also allow me to sell at various markets and fairs in London, as showing my portfolio to potential employers.

In order to achieve these things it is important that as many people as possible can see my work and are aware of what I do. I believe having a good online presence is very useful for this, and that is something I have worked quite hard n over the last 2 years. I have a profile on all the suitable social media sites (Behance, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.) and regularly update with images of my work and what I'm doing. I also have a newsletter with a number of subscribers, a blog and a few "online friends" in the industry. In November last year I attended a "Bloggers and Illustrators" meet up in London, and met a few people there that are already working in the industry. These contacts will be useful in the future for advice and guidance if needed.
Earlier in the year I set up my own website, linking to al my other sites and showing a gallery of my work. I think this has helped to tie everything together and create a more professional image of myself as an illustrator. I have plans to update my website after this project, and add more of my work to the galleries.

As for personal work, I aim to continue along a similar theme to what I have been doing. Earlier in the project I purchased a book of the Grimm's fairy tales, and I would love to read through it in depth and try illustrating some of the stories I am less familiar with. I would also like to produce more typographical work and repeat patterns, as these are both things that I am interested in but haven't had much opportunity during this project.

I'm looking forward to getting started on all of these things and am eager to begin working as soon as possible. By the end of the year I hope to have expanded my shop, sold at several events, and begun working freelance.


Reflecting

As the deadline for this presentation document is approaching, I'm looking back over the project so far and reflecting on how its gone.

Overall, I'm really pleased with how everything has gone, and the final images are looking how I hoped they would at the start of the project.
Certain aspects of the project have been more difficult than I expected, particularly the planning the layout of the fairytale land. However I feel I managed to find a good way of resolving this issue, by creating a rough 3-dimensional version of my plan, and photographing it from different angles. This also helped me to avoid the pages being too repetitive, something which I had not thought about at the start. I've also managed to get around this issue by using different colours to represent changing seasons throughout the book, which is something I would not normally have done as I tend to use limited colours.
I feel this project has helped me to develop my own style, combining techniques and styles from previous projects to achieve something I'm pleased with. I've also begun to draw using a brush and ink rather than a fine liner during this project, which is a technique I now much prefer to how I was doing it before. During the project, particularly the early stages, I have discovered an interest in character design, and in fact I believe that the characters have turned out to be the strongest part of the book.
Throughout the project I have been to numerous tutorials and work in progress meetings with various tutors, all of which have been really helpful in providing new ideas and inspiration for my project. Speaking to tutors at regular intervals throughout the project has helped everything go quite smoothly, as I could work on any suggestions they had straight away before getting too far into the project to be able to change anything. 
I am quite surprised at how well I managed to stick to my original time table, and I stayed on track throughout the majority of the 17 weeks. My initial timetable however did not consider time for things such as my Creative C.V, Portfolio etc. but I managed to get those done over easter. 
Keeping this reflective journal has also been very helpful to my project, and its something I will continue to do in some form or another (perhaps in a notebook rather than a blog).

Looking back at my earlier blog post reflecting on my feedback from Negotiated Study, I set myself these goals:

- More variation in lines (thickness etc.)
- Make the colour less precise or more offset.
- Experiment further with type
- Perhaps print onto other textures such as wood?

As for the variation in lines, I have been working on this throughout the project, using brush and ink instead of pen (as I mentioned earlier in this post) and that has been really successful for me.
Half way through the project I did experiment with off-setting the colours more, but as discussed in the blog post and at a tutorial with Jonny, I didn't feel it was right for the busy images I was creating for this project, so I've stuck to solid colour.
I haven't had much of a chance to experiment with typography in this project, although if I get my book printed and bound in time, I plan on looking at possibly illustrating some quotes form the stories to display on the wall, so this may change soon.
This goal was set with the assumption that I would be screen printing my final outcomes, which turned out not to be the case. However I have instead looked at using paint and ink textures within the digital illustrations so I have still managed to experiment within this area.

I still need to print my final images and bind by book together, as well as finalising my plans for the exhibition. But so far I am happy with the majority of what I have done, and have really enjoyed this project.

Adding colour

I've now added the colour to pages two and three, so they are both now nearly ready to print. And I've made a start on page 4:





I may make a few changes as I colour the rest of the images, and I haven't added the textures to these yet, but that will be done once all of the images are coloured and I make a final decision on what textures to use. I recently thought about using a handmade paper style texture as the background instead of the plain off-white, so I'll be trying that over the weekend.

This is going to be my last post sharing my work as this blog is due to be submitted this evening.
Once its all been marked I'll be back to share my final outcomes but from then on I'll be going back to blogging regularly on my other blog.

Thursday 8 May 2014

Posters continued

I have now completed the other 4 drawings for the posters that I want on the walls at the exhibition.
They are only black and white at the moment, but I'll be colouring them with the same palette as before, keeping them consistent with whats in the book (everyone's clothes will be the same colour as in the book etc.)

Sleeping Beauty: 

Cinderella:


Rapunzel:


Little Red Riding Hood:


All thats left to do now before printing is to give everything some colour.
I'll be colouring the pages of the book first as they are the most important, and once they're done then I'll move on to these.

Introduction Page

As well as the end papers, I also need an introduction page for my book. I wanted something that fitted with the look of the rest of the images, but included text to explain how to read the book.

I started off with a few notes in my sketchbook on what I wanted it to say and how I might lay it out:


I took these ideas into Photoshop to create a very rough plan of what I was going to create, using a basic font and images form earlier in the project:



I created a new drawing of Little Red Riding Hood to make her the right size whilst still matching the way she looks in all the other pages (her costume had changed slightly since the character design used above). I also drew a small version of the kingdom on top of a hill, with the palace on another hill even further back. I used those two images as well as elements that I'm using on the pages (birds, trees etc.) and put this together:


The text reads:

This is Little Red Riding Hood.
Can you find her on every page and follow her adventure
as she makes her way through the magical kingdom?

When you get to the end, go back and start again
with another character. Keep going until you’ve
discovered everyone’s stories!

Who's feeling a little shy?
Who's giving Cinderella a helping hand?
Who's being followed by the witch?
What does Little Red Riding Hood drop behind her?
Where is Sleeping Beauty going?
Who's living up in the tower?
Who's making a few new friends?
Can you find the three butterflies on each page?

...

I've included the copyright information on this page as well, on the left hand side.

I removed the "Once upon a time there was a magical kingdom filled with heroes, villains and pretty princesses" as it didn't fit as well with everything else. I think having "Once Upon a Time..." as the title will be enough, as its more to the point and sets the scene effectively.

I'm quite pleased with how this is looking, and I think it works well with the rest of the pages.
I may have a few slight changes to make as I have yet to decide on the colours of some of the buildings as they haven't appeared on the pages I have fully coloured so far.

I also need to design the dust jacket for the book, but I will be doing that next week once I have bound the book and can measure the spine length etc.
Between now and Monday morning I'll be getting on with colouring the pages and finishing off the posters, and getting everything ready to print.

Wednesday 7 May 2014

End Papers

As I'm getting quite close to printing and binding my book, I need to decide on how the end papers are going to look. So this afternoon I came up with a few ideas and had a go at making some in Photoshop.

This is the first idea I came up with, using the trees and the birds that feature in the book and creating a repeat pattern:


For this one I was thinking of the bird and butterflies all flying around the hedges. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped as I think its a little too fussy and its hard to make out the birds and butterflies:


Finally, I made a map of the world that the book is based in. I adapted the designs of it slightly and added the river and some footpaths to make it look more like a traditional map:


At the moment I'm deciding between the first and third designs. I definitely want the design to be just the brown line on the cream background as opposed to using lots of colours. The cover of the book and all the pages will be very colourful, so I think it will be nice to have something a bit different on the end papers.
Whether or not I use the map as the end papers, I will be creating a coloured version to go on the wall along with the character prints I'm making.

I also need to work on the introduction page of the book, which I will be doing this evening and tomorrow.

Finalising my Portfolio

This morning I have finalised which pieces of work will be going in my portfolio, in which order and what sizes they will be.
Here's a little plan I put together of how the pages will be laid out:


The majority of the work in my portfolio is from the current project as its the stuff I am most pleased with. However I have tried to use a variety of the work from that project such as full double-pages spreads, character designs, a close-up scene, a piece of typography etc. so thats its not repetitive.
I've also used my best pieces of work from the Negotiated study project earlier this year, and the sequential narrative project in year 2, as well as some book cover designs and animal sketches produced as personal work. 

I have a total of 17 images for my portfolio at the moment, which is a few less than the optimum 20, but I hope to have new work to add in over the next couple of months.

Explaining the storylines

Seeing as I am unable to share a full sized version of the images on here, I thought I would summarise some of what happens in the book and how the characters interact with each other, as its quite difficult to see it all in the small versions of the images.

(I've included screen shots of the parts of the book I am talking about but bare in mind these are much lower quality than the final images are)


- The bird in the foreground on page 1 is later revealed to be the fairy godmother, who helps out Cinderella in getting a new dress and a carriage for the ball. The bird is back in the foreground again on the penultimate page. In both cases this character is meant to be looking over the rest of the characters, acting as the fairy god mother for the whole of the fairytale world as opposed to just Cinderella. 


- The green and the blue birds are the ones that find sleeping beauty after she pricks her finger and falls asleep. And they later go and find the prince to get help.


- The prince that awakens Sleeping Beauty is the one that is holding a bow and arrow on page 1. During the first few pages he is shooting arrows at a tree, and one of the arrows lands in a heart shaped marked in the tree bark, meant to symbolise cupid and a theme of romance.


- The pink bird helps out several of the characters throughout the book. Near the beginning she delivers an envelope to the evil step sisters, an invitation to something, but when they leave the castle they end up getting lost in the trees, leaving Cinderella free to meet the fairy godmother.
She also finds a key which she uses to unlock Hansel & Gretel from the gingerbread house.



- Hansel & Gretel start the story walking hand in hand through the woods, and Hansel leaves a trail of bread crumbs behind them. Meanwhile the Witch is watching them from behind trees etc. and she lays out a different trail of breadcrumbs, causing them to go the wrong way and stumble across the gingerbread house. They then are tempted into eating the house, and get caught by the witch and locked inside. After the bird frees them, Hansel & Gretel run away and are further helped out by a swan who takes them to the ball. Meanwhile the witch returns to the house and finds the bird sat in front of the empty cage, and is then attacked by the wolf who has run from Red Riding Hood's cottage.


- In total there are 5 birds that all help out various characters throughout the book. This is because birds a re a recurring theme in most fairytales, and are meant to represent salvation, freedom and spirit.


- Red Riding Hood is being watched by the wolf in the first page of the book, and later talks to him in front of the castle. Upon learning where she is going the wolf goes ahead to the Grandmother's cottage and waits inside (I have omitted the part of the story where he kills the grandmother). When she arrives at the house we can see the wolf through the window, and soon after she walks in he attacks.


- Early on in the book Red Riding Hood drops some apples on the ground whilst she is walking. Hansel later picks one of these up, as does the Queen.


- The woodsman (the character with the head of a bear and carrying an axe) spends the majority of the book wondering through the fairytale world and cutting down trees. On page 4 he is watching Red Riding Hood (this is supposed to be a case of "love at first sight"), and later he hears the wolf attacks and runs to rescue her.


- Another case of "love at first sight" is on the first page of the book where Prince charming spots Snow White for the first time. He then spends most of the rest of the book going to pick a flower for her and searching around the land for her, until one of the dwarves finds him to ask for his help. When he arrives at the dwarves house he finds that the woman in need of his help is in fact Snow White, and he awakens her and gives her the flower.


- On the first page, the Queen is looking into the magic mirror and sees a reflection of Snow White ("mirror mirror on the wall"). She then picks up the apple that Red Riding Hood has dropped, poisons it and heads to the dwarves house where she gives it to Snow White.
At the end of the book when she returns to the castle she looks in the mirror and to her annoyance sees a reflection of both Snow White and Prince Charming together.


- Snow White begins the story happily wondering through the land (meanwhile the Queen is plotting her death), before she meets the seven dwarves. They take her in and she helps them to work on the cottage (she is gardening as the Queen approaches). After she has been poisoned by the Queen the dwarves then help her, placing her on a bed and seeking help from the Prince.


- The dwarves all begin the story spread across the page, and come together as they meet Snow White.
One of the dwarves is a little shy, and is always hiding behind a hedge or a building, until the end when Snow White is rescued and he celebrates with the others.
Another dwarf is carrying a basket of flowers which she later puts in a vase in their house.
A third dwarf is a little mischievous and at one point climbs up the house and sits on the roof where he talks to a butterfly.
Another dwarf is the one that spots Snow eating the apple and runs to fetch help from the Prince.
All of the dwarves interact with each other and take part in various activities such as cleaning the windows of their house.


- Rapunzel's story is the least connected to the rest as it all takes place in the tower. The characters follow the story of the Prince seeing the enchantress climb up Rapunzel's hair and later calling up to her and doing the same. The enchantress sees this, climbs up and pushes them out from the tower.
Tehy two characters are then separated form each other until the Prince sees her long hair on the ground and follows it until he finds her. The enchantress then falls from the tower as she no longer has Rapunzel's hair to help her down.


- On each page, there are 3 butterflies for the reader to find. They are spread across the pages and often interact with some of the characters or hide in the trees.


- At the end of the book, all of the good characters come together at the palace (the building on the hill in the distance) for a ball. All of the characters are now in their respective couples, apart from the dwarves who all dance around together.

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Making posters

As well as putting together all of the pages, I've also been working on creating some large illustrations to act as posters/large prints for the wall at the exhibition.

I am planning on using an image of the fairytale world, as well as one illustration for each of the six stories. However the character drawings that I have done so far are too small and not detailed enough to work as posters so I've been re-doing a couple of them.

So far I've completed the one for Hansel & Gretel and made a start on the one for Snow White. I read through my dummy book and picked out a snippet of both of the stories that I like the most. For Hansel & Gretel it was the image of them walking hand in hand, and for Snow White its the moment on page 3 where she meets the 7 dwarves:


Luckily I already had a larger version of the Hansel & Gretel image form earlier in the project when I was working on character designs. I put them in some scenery and added colour to the image and this is the result:



For Snow White I re-drew the characters at a larger scale with a little more detail in their clothing and faces. I also changed the back-drop slightly so the "shy" dwarf is peering round a tree as opposed to the edge of the castle, and they are standing in a little clearing in the woodlands.
I've not finished adding colour to this one yet but this is how it looks so far:


These are the sections of the story that I will be using for the other 4 stories:
Cinderella: meeting her Prince at the ball
Red Riding Hood: Her first encounter with the wolf
Sleeping beauty: Asleep in the tower with the 2 birds
Rapunzel: The prince climbing up her hair


I'll be working on these in between adding colour to the pages, however the pages are currently the most important as they need to be printed as soon as possible in order to bind the book. But I would hopefully like to be able to print everything in one go so am aiming to get these done by next monday when I go to the photography room to print the pages. 


Monday 5 May 2014

Dummy Book

After completing my pages over the weekend I printed them out and created a new dummy book:



I read through the book several times (as the reader is intended to, picking one character and following their story through the book, and then starting again with another character and so on) and made notes of any changes I wanted to make.


A few of the characters needed to be made a little bigger or smaller, and some needed to be moved around slightly so that the order made more sense.
I've now made all of these changes and am ready to start adding the colour to the pages, although I may still make a couple of changes as I go as things will look quite different once colour is added.

Pages 6-11

Over the weekend I finished putting together the rest of the pages, without adding colour so it will be easier to make any necessary changes.

I'm quite pleased with how they are looking, and its great to see all the elements coming together.
As before, at the moment the pages are looking a bit repetitive, but once the colour is added and they are printed out and viewed at full size, this should be improved.

Page 6:


Page 7:


Page 8:


Page 9:


Page 10:


Page 11:


On some of the pages, certain elements are more in the foreground, to add a bit of depth to the image. For example, in page 7 Snow White and the Queen are brought into the foreground just as Snow is about to eat the apple, a key point in that story.

I'll be printing these into a dummy book to allow me to look through everything properly and make any necessary changes, and then moving on to add the colour.



Week 15 (in brief)

- Piecing together pages 6-11

Friday 2 May 2014

Piecing things together

I've spent today continuing to put together the other pages for the book. I decided to piece the rest together before I colour anymore, as that way its easier to make any changes as I go.

So far I've done pages 2-5 (as well as 1 & 12 that I completed earlier in the week). This part of the process is pretty long as there are lots of elements to remember to include, and lots of fiddling around to get things in the right place, but so far I'm pleased with how they're all looking.

Page 2:


 Page 3:


 Page 4:


Page 5:


As with the images I've already done, these will be fully coloured and given a bit of texture. The seasons will be changing throughout the pages, with page 2 being autumn with leaves falling, page 3 with some bare trees and lots of leaves on the ground, page 4 with more bare trees and clouds in the sky, and page 5 has snow on the trees and buildings. The colours will also change to suit the weather, from browns and oranges through to white and pale blue. From page 6 onwards there will start to be touches as pink and green as it turns to spring, all the way to bright green and yellow for summer at the end of the book.

So far, I think page 5 is the most successful in terms of layout, the characters are spread all across the page and there's quite a lot happening. Page 2 is the one I am least happy with as all the characters are quite crowded into the bottom of the page, however I think this might look better once colour is added and there's more contrast between each character so they can stand out from each other.

I've tried to change around the perspective a little form page to page (as discussed earlier in the project)  but its quite difficult to fit all of the characters in, so at the moment some of the pages are looking a little repetitive. However, once the colour is added and different characters start to stand out in the foreground etc. I don't think that will be the case anymore. As well as this, the idea of book is to find certain characters etc. as you read through the images, rather than to look at each image as a whole, so that should help even further.

I've got 6 more pages to put together so I'll be working on those over the weekend and hope to start colouring early next week, in order to get them all ready to print on the following monday.

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