Artist Research

There are a few artists who I am currently admire and follow through social media as my inspirations. These digital artists promotes themselves through various social media, such as Instagram, Tumblr and other art sharing websites (ArtStation, Deviantart, etc.) as well as YouTube and Patreon.

Ilya Kuvshinov – Freelance Illustrator

His works consists of female portraits which is his primary content in producing and identifying himself as an artist within the community. Other works includes studies (life drawings) and fanarts from various TV and pop culture entertainment. His way of promoting himself and exposure is primarily through Instagram and has a Facebook page. Patreon is one of his sources for financial income. 

Ross Tran – Digital Artist

Personal work of his own character

Fanart of a Japanese animated film, Spirited Away. A Studio Ghibli film by Hayao Miyazaki

Character illustrations as well as fanarts of characters from popular TV shows and games. His original illustrations focuses on an original character he had designed for a project, which he continues to expand upon. Uses YouTube to expand his exposure and interaction to the audience, as well as collaborating other artists for various one-of projects and self-promotion. Uses Instagram to post works he is currently doing and sneak peeks for his latest YouTube videos.

Feng Zhu – Concept Artist/Designer

Concept art and character design

The primary online platform he uses is YouTube to show online tutorials, Q&A, advice and provides free lessons. He doesn’t post as much in terms of his work, as his schedule as a teacher as well as a concept artist doing works for AAA products within the film and game industry gives him little time to post online. He has a blog that showcases his students’ works, as well as posting on his Facebook page. 

As a digital artist who is striving to improve, I see their works as inspirations as well as learning their methods and techniques from videos they post (Ross Tran and Feng Zhu) on YouTube. Also, it is something to visually look at that I find appealing, as it might spark ideas for my own works. Other source of inspirational information is YouTube videos, particularly from Feng Zhu, as he gives free online videos of many topics, such as designing characters, drawing environments, being efficient at working and how does the industry in design entertainment works in terms of marketing and employment which is really resourceful to know. Social media is perhaps the most optimal way to market and to self-promote as we are in the digital age of image sharing and connectivity with others who shares the same profession and interests with you. 

Video of Q&A with concept artist and designer, Feng Zhu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8V88OvCx10 

Reflection on Group/Indvidual Tutorials

Individual and group tutorials for this module (as well as with previous and other modules) were crucial to the development of my skills and progression. The weekly individual tutorials with each tutor had opened up a lot of discussions and advice of where I can move forward with my plans. Each tutors has offered their own perspective of what they think is right and in general they all share the same solution/outcome with each discussion.

With their knowledge and experience within the industry, each tutor shed some opinions of the things I can go forward with as a digital artist and ways I could optimally advance in my field of specialism. While I sometimes disagree and questions some of their advice, we mutually agree on most things we talked about, such as the content I should put on my website, various alternatives to meet the outcome and overcoming technical and practical problems, most importantly decision making, which I think the tutors played a major role in. At times when I’m uncertain on the project, I would seek advice to see if the discussion my tutors gave me may shed some new perspective on my projects, which had greatly helped me to keep my momentum going for the project.

Group tutorials are ok as each person can give their opinions and insights to the work we had done, though personally I think individual tutorials are better in terms of interaction and discussion as there are more input such as critical analysis.

These tutorials with Fumio, George, Delores and others throughout my modules were very useful and I am glad that the discussions I had with each one has opened up the possibilities of how I can improve my work as it is crucial to update them of my current progress so they can be aware of the development.

3rd Year Collaborative project

For this collaborative project we decided, as a whole year group, to create postcards based on our favourite book or poem (a sentence from a poem or a scene from a book, etc.) and will be using the method of screen printing with a limited colour palette of 2-3 colours. The decision of choosing the type of item we will create for the project as well as the process of making it has took some time, though there has not been any significant problems in our communications as a year group and made a private Facebook group to discuss the next steps and potential changes to our project.

Specifications for the Collaborative Project:

- A6 landscape

- 3mm white border

- Three layers of colours for separation – Rose, Turquoise, Payne’s Grey

- Website name in bottom left corner of the image, not intersecting the border

I do not read a lot of books myself so I will not be choosing any fictions books, so the other option is to choose is children’s books, as they are very simple in terms of storytelling and narrative. The children’s book I will be looking into will be “The Three Little Pigs” with its easy story that can be easily illustrated. My knowledge and experience in screen printing is not great so I will not be able to do complex layer separation with the limited colour palette in Photoshop (as this process is not in my strengths). I will try my best when it comes to the process of colour separation, though this will depends on how detailed/complex the illustration will be. 

Group organisation on our private group on Facebook for all of us to communicate and to resolve any potential problems in regards to the collaborative project. 

Thumbnails and Ideas

Quick thumbnails using basic shapes to illustrate the characters

Chosen illustration and outline

Finalised outline which will be put forward for the process of selecting negative spaces and correspond them to appropriate colours within the limited colour palette. There will be different tones of grey which will determine the shade of the colour (light and dark tones). 

Colour separation

Turquoise layer separation

Rose layer seperation

Payne's Grey layer seperation

Separating each space for the colours was somewhat of a long process as I find it slightly difficult to manage them, which is the reason why I made a simple illustration for my postcard as I do find it difficult on more complex images which I had done in previous projects from last year and from 1^st year.

Final image with all the layers visible ready for screen printing. The varying grey tones were changed to black at the last minute as I asked to see if there are any necessary changes needed. It appears that the group were unsure how well varying tones would print and was advised to have it all black, or use dot-tone to keep the shading and so I decided to make the layers in black colour just to make it easier for both me and the others who are in charge of handling the files and printing them. 

The process of all our postcards getting printed.

Conclusion and thoughts on the project

During the process of making the postcards after the announcement of the specifications, it all comes down to our individual responsibility and initiative to get it done and have it emailed to one of our classmates who will collect all of our images/Photoshop files in preparation for screen printing.

There have been a few updates during the development of the project over time through our private Facebook group page such as clarification on recent changes, as well as reminding those who needs to know what to do if they were not present at the meetings where we discussed about the project. The organisation of this project is somewhat loose, though as I pointed out before, this all comes down to our initiative and time management as there is no outside help from the tutors, as this is our responsibility as a year group to ensure this project is under control through organisation. 

I had no trouble with the work as everything was explained with clear instructions of the specifications we need to meet. Initially I thought things might not work out as well, where in the beginning of this project most of us are pretty indecisive on what to do and kind of shrug the project off until later on when some of us need clarification of what is happening. The project did went off on a slow start but we all managed to pick up the pace when we decided on what we want to make by voting. There could of have been a lot more contribution between each other, though with simple instructions to follow, this project was easily doable by using our initiative. 

London Book Fair - Thoughts and experience of the event

15/06/2017 is the day we went to the London Book Fair and had spent most of the day exploring and looking into various companies, publishers and distributors before attending to a panel of art directors and talking to one of them to discuss about our physical portfolios and giving advice, which was the intended focus of the day.

Before that we get to explore the entire event and see what is there, although there is one problem that all, if not, most of us kind of encountered. When we tried to talk to any of the people whose stands/stalls we find interesting, they seem appear uninterested when we mention we are students or have a portfolio we would like them to see. Me and a few others, seems to get the same response, regardless of how we approach them, where the people at their stands are more of a representative of the company or distributors and they have no interests in looking at portfolios. It struck me that they all seem to be more interested in corporate deals and trades with other companies at the event. It was really hard trying to find anyone who we would give our contact details and business cards to and most of us ended up on the same conclusion where the majority of the people at the London Book Fair seems uninterested in us students and our portfolios. I resorted to put most of my business cards as well as the promotional item I had recently created (4 mini postcard set) on our table that the university managed to get for the event. Others did the same thing with their business cards as it is perhaps the best way to get people taking our promotional items.

It was really busy and we had a good browse of what companies and distributors are there, though like I said before, it was really difficult to get anyone to look at our portfolio, its either that we approached the wrong person or in general the people at their stands are just not interested in looking for potential people (us) to hire. I kind of felt that it is a little unnecessary to have come to the event early, only to be told by a lot of the people we spoke to that they are uninterested. However the art director panel we came for is the one we expected to get some very useful information so we waited until that time comes.

ART DIRECTOR PANEL

During the panel with a few art directors we get some good information on how to submit work to them as well as how each work as a team. Each one, depending on their field of specialising (i.e. graphic novels, children’s books, fiction, etc.) offers their own approach and perspective on the questions given by our Tutor Kieren before we proceed to talk to the art directors personally.

The person who I directly spoke to when we went to see the art directors was Nick Stearn, who is an art director at Bonnier Zaffre, a fiction publishing house based in London. I shared with him my interests in illustration and the type of content I like to create as we go through each images in my portfolio to support my conversation about my ideas. The ones that strikes him the most are the children’s book illustrations and one of my personal work, which he believes they are the strongest images. In the end he asks what field of specialism I would want to work in (publishing, covers, concept art) and I actually told him that I am somewhat torn in between characters and narrative illustrations as I do like to do bit of both. He said that at the moment, the narrative illustrations are the strongest ones than any of the character illustrations I have done and personally felt (as an art director for fiction books) interested in these as he can see them as book covers, in-book illustrations, etc. He told me that if I were to concentrate on characters, it is best to look into game companies who specialises them, while the narrative illustrations are best for books, storyboards or animation. Giving me tips on how to improve painting characters and how to use brush strokes to paint in Photoshop is something I will take into account, along with his earlier feedback on my narrative illustrations and where to look into to show my content. It was a friendly conversation and I didn’t feel nervous as I knew exactly what to say and what to expect from this small 1-to-1 talk with an art director and to end our conversation we both traded our business cards (me giving my handmade promotional item as well).

The above illustrations are the ones that the art director, Nick Stearn, liked out of my portfolio.

At the end of the day of the London Book Fair there has been valuable information given to me in regards to what content I should continue to create from the talk with the art director. While there hasn’t been much success in the first half of the day to try and get people to see our portfolio who appeared to be uninterested, the art director panel near the end of the event makes up for it. Though I really wished that the people there would be opened up about looking into portfolios, though I guess it is not their jobs in dealing with portfolio work and are just there to represent their company/distributor/publishers, or only to deal with people who are interested in dealing with corporate trades or contract deals. 

PROMOTIONAL ITEM - Handmade mini postcards

For the day of attending the London Book Fair I decided I want to create some handmade content (promotional item) that I can hand out to people who would be interested in my works. After the reassurance that my website is now running as normal after the complications I have gone through, I initially planned on printing a second batch of business cards with the addition of my website URL on the card under my social media information. However due to the time I had left before the London Book Fair it is not possible as it would be too late for the 2^nd batch to arrive, so instead I decided to create handmade mini postcards with my website at the back, which will be a good addition to my current business cards as I can give them both as a set to people.

A set of 4 mini postcard images, 2 landscape and 2 portrait illustrations, looks ideal as a mini set that can be handed out as a small promotional item along with my business card. The Illustrations chosen for these handmade postcards will showcase the content I create (like a sneak peek to what I produce) to the people I give them too. 

Chosen images for the mini handmade postcards.

The printing process wasn’t as difficult compared to the printing for my physical portfolio as I was confident in choosing cartridge paper for the creation of this promotional item. The only issue I have come across was the back-to-back printing with the website name and the illustration on InDesign, as the placement of the text on the back would need to be correct otherwise it would mess up the text placements that will correspond to the landscape and portrait images. 

After printing the dummy version with the text at the back of the images, I created and printed a belly band that will hold the set of 4 mini postcards together so they will packaged as a promotional item. The process of printing cutting out the cards and assembling them as a package (and printing/cutting out the belly band) took some time and I was aiming to produce around 20 of them, though due to defects (from the printing process) as well as cutting them out using the guillotine, cause the overall number of producing them to a finished standard dropped to 15. Personally this is still enough for it to be handed out as a promotional item as I will include my business card to go with them. 

Mini postcards with the dummy band to package them in place. 

Finalised product with my current business card attached to it.

This item will be displayed at the shared table the Illustration course have at the London Book Fair along with other classmates’ business cards/promotional items for people to pick up if they are interested. 

The creation of this promotional item stems from the absence of my website on my current business card, which in turn led me to create an additional item outside of my current plans for promotional items for this module. I believe that this last minute action does have its strengths where I treated the London Book Fair as a mini deadline to get things sorted for such a big event. The final product of the mini postcards could have been better in terms of the paper quality, I would have preferred printing using better paper online, though due to the remaining time that was left before the event I resorted to using cartridge paper that is decent enough for the printing of the images in the studio.  

Portfolio Selection - Preparation for the London Book Fair

Selecting images for my physical portfolio is critical as I want to show artworks that will showcase my abilities in digital painting and the type of content I produce. In preparation for the London Book Fair, I carefully selected several images that are aimed towards the market of book covers and children book/fiction book illustrations. The target audience at this London Book Fair are art directors, publishers and authors so I think it is best to select some of the narrative based illustrations I have done outside of university work. Characters can be included though I think they will need to be put into context (narrative illustrations or storyboards) so the viewers can visually relate it to the theme of storytelling and see the potential end product that they might have in mind when seeing them.

Looking into my collection of narrative based illustrations I have created, there isn’t really enough content for my portfolio as most of these were produced outside of university hours in my spare time. There are a few works which I had retouched upon so they can be added to the portfolio (e.g. children’s book illustration) though due to the time I have left before the London Book Fair I do not think I am able to produce enough content to get to the bare minimum amount of images.

Here are some of the illustrations I have selected to be put into my physical portfolio for the London Book Fair. 

For the physical portfolio I have bought an A4 Prat Paris folder with built in crystal clear sleeves, sadly I had missed out on a discount which I could of got the portfolio folder at around half of its original price tag so I ended up purchasing it at its full original price. This is something I wouldn’t mind, though optimally I would have preferred to get it at a discount though I am expected to invest some amount of money for really good quality products to display my artwork so, to me paying at around £40 for the portfolio is ok as this is an item I will be keeping throughout my future art career. 

Dummy prints in my portfolio folder to work out where the images goes in terms of order as well as transitions from one artwork to the next to ensure that the sequence of viewing each image one after the after runs smoothly when viewing.

The only thing I need to do for the physical portfolio is to add/produce more illustrations as much as possible before the London Book Fair and I would need to spend some time printing my artworks on good quality matte paper using an inkjet printer. 

In addition, I have added text to one or two illustrations to put them into context, for example, one of the images I have retouched on is from a children’s book module, and decided to see what it would like with and without the text. After doing so and printed them to see the physical outcome, I had chosen the one with the text as it fits with the purpose of the portfolio, to showcase some artworks in the context of storyboards and narratives in which art directors and publishers would want to see. 

Original illustration for Children's book module from last year (2016)

Retouch of the Children's book illustration (2017)

Retouch illustration with the text for narrative/storyboard context.

Another illustration (children's book) that has been retouched in preparation for the London Book Fair.

The print quality for my images needs to be high quality in order to show my illustrations at the highest quality possible and had chosen a matte quality finish paper for the best results. Glossy paper feels unsuitable as the reflective coating on the paper can cause glares when people view them. Beforehand I have 100gsm matte paper to print, however the paper feels a bit thin and the quality is noticeable in terms of colour, so I made a last minute decision to get matte paper in order to increase the colour quality to a higher standard. Using the 100 gsm matte paper on the inkjet printer to print made the colour quality terrible and looks to appear as if it’s been faded, however, using a laser print shows a much better result (in terms of colour and detail) so I think it is more suitable to use the laser print for that kind of paper, but I personally feel that the inkjet printer is more preferred option for printing images at a professional standard. In the end I had used a 170 gsm Canon Matte Photo Paper to print in my Inkjet printer and the quality result is at a much higher standard than the previous with the Ryman’s Multi-purpose Matte Paper. 

Using the Ryman 100gsm High-White Multi-Purpose Matte paper to print using my Inkjet Paper. The faded colours were very noticeable and looks unsuitable for my liking for a printed image for my portfolio. 

Using the same paper but printed using a laser print paper. The noticeable differences between the colours are very high and it seems that using thin paper to print via an Inkjet Printer makes the image quality terrible, so a laser print printer is best for thin paper while Inkjet is better for thick/heavy weight paper. 

For the order of images in my portfolio there are a mix of portrait and landscape images so the most optimal way of presenting them was to assort all landscape images at the front and then all the portrait images. Tutors suggested the idea so the portfolio doesn’t look “cluttered” in a way that you would have to keep rotating the portfolio around every so often which I do agree with as it will be a little annoying having to keep rotating 1 page or so to view the images. In terms of image placement (the order of images) I have carefully placed them in specific order, in such a way that the transition between each images runs smoothly. 

Online Presence - Building my Website and Social Media

After looking into various online platforms and looking back at the workshop where we had compared and looked into portfolio websites, it is a little hard to choose the one I feel suitable and comfortable with, though in the end I had personally gone for Foliorop, a portfolio website that looks professional and clean. I had looked into the features that it offers in the free version, the pro version and the agency pro version and it appears the free version offers everything I need to the very least, from custom templates, custom logos to unlimited features. More importantly it allows for a custom domain name which I would want.

Other websites I had looked into such as Wix and Carbonmade, were other potential online platforms I was considering using for my online portfolio, however the aesthetic and presentation on those websites is not exactly my type, as I want a very clean, well presented platform to show my work professionally. Wix comes very close for my choosing, though in the end I decided to go foliodrop.

Foliodrop

Carbonmade

Wix

I had started with the free version first to see everything goes well after a while and then I will consider upgrading to the Pro version to extend on the customisation of my website’s aesthetic to my liking.

The free version only offers the basic black or white template which is ok for me as it does makes things look professionally presented with the colours of white and/or black.

At the moment there is still some work to do in terms of sorting out text, headers, fonts and the limited images I have currently uploaded to the website. It feels empty at the moment due to the lack of original work I have done so far to showcase my skills in digital painting and the type of content I create, though that will take time to produce more work.

Managing the customisation of fonts and galleries were a little confusing at first, though after looking online for video tutorials on how to set things up had made things easier for me to navigate around.

As of 12/03/2017 I decided I want a domain name and have bought my own: “www.tobyleeillustration.com” from the website known as “Godaddy” which I can use, however, I am experiencing problems in connecting my domain name to foliodrop. It was so confusing in managing and connecting it to the website and it felt frustrating. I had pursued online tutorials to try and get it fixed, however I cannot see the outcome whether it works and connects to foliodrop or not as apparently it will take roughly up to 24 hours, which will seriously hinder me from giving my domain name/website to potential clients or viewers, especially for the London Book Fair. As of now it is uncertain whether it works or not and I do not think I will get it sorted in time, as this is my first time handling the online connectivity between my domain name and foliodrop. This is the last step to ensure before my website can go live, though at the moment I would need to wait to see if it successfully connects or not. 

After having doubts about the website whether if it is functioning properly or not with the domain name I decided to speak with Emma, the course technician, to see if she knew anything about connecting domain names to the website. After discussing with her with what I went through, from purchasing a domain name and managing the connectivity between the domain and the portfolio website, she told me that everything is fine and it is just a matter of time for the search engines such as Google to track down my website. We had gone through various steps again to ensure everything is properly done as she has done something similar, and with her experience and knowledge of managing domains and connecting them has me assured that what I had done to get this far is all good. From this point she told me that in order to be more visible on search engines I need to have more people clicking on my website in order to increase its exposure.

Knowing now that everything is done correctly, I will go back to my website from time to time to update it with recent works and information for viewer’s interest, as well as upgrading to the Pro version on foliodrop to gain access to more customisations and options.

In conjunction with my website to post my original/personal works, I already have an account on Instagram and Tumblr/deviantart for various other works (sketches, fanarts and work in progress). All social media accounts are all networked and linked to one another and at the moment most works that are posted are similar (final artworks and fanarts) the only difference there is between them (in terms of posted content), Instagram acts more of a visual diary, where I post on a regular basis (every other 2-3 days) of my works, current illustrations I have been working on (WIP) and fanarts, whereas Tumblr (and deviantart) is more focused on posting final artworks/fanarts. My original website will focus purely on my original works, whereas other social media will contain a mixture and variety between original and fanart content. 

My current Instagram account.

My current Tumblr account.

Connecting each social media account and my website with each other will allow people to navigate between each one, as well as building up followers from each platform if people only have an account on one social media or another. In order to maintain interest for the people who are following me on each social media, I would have to post regularly, which I am currently doing so on my Instagram account. Also, the type of content will need to be consistent as there is a reason why people are following, is because they are interested in the type of work you produce. I am sort of split in between, as I do original works and fanarts (though recently there has been more fanart content than original content as I do these to practice my digital painting) though I am leaning towards producing more original work so I am slowly transitioning from fanarts to original content (in terms of quantity).