PROJECT REPORT

I started this module with big ambitions - I aimed to undertake a large range of different briefs, some self-initiated and other live/competition briefs. I identified in my statement of intent that I wanted to step out of my comfort zone a bit more this year, by not focusing only on comics, but also my other interests, such as music. I wanted to enter the Hookworms gig poster brief, Secret 7” and initiate other music-based projects, such as a series of posters for gigs in Leeds, or an animated music video, since I’d enjoyed experimenting with this during Level 5.

However, despite my ambitions, I struggled to manage my time effectively to complete everything I’d wanted to. I spent most of the first semester focusing on Context of Practice, and didn’t start many of my Extended Practice briefs until the second. Because of this, I haven’t achieved as much as I would have liked this year, or attempted the briefs I thought I’d do, but have still completed a range of briefs; large and small, self-initiated and client-set. Since Level 4 I’ve identified three main themes within my practice: character, narrative and humour. I’ve continued to develop and incorporate these into my work through the briefs I completed, as well as pushing myself to build my digital skills and time management.

Although I managed my time poorly at the beginning of the year, with time pressure of deadlines I was able to complete work to a decent standard under that pressure. This was particularly evident with the summer ball poster I produced within the day’s turnaround. I have also identified what kind of brief I like and am best at working to: self-initiated. I lost my passion for drawing during the year, forgetting my need to be in control of my own creativity and attempting to respond to briefs that were not appropriate for me. I enjoy working much more when it is a brief I have set myself, although I do need to keep my time better. I started drawing zines about my mental health, initially just for me personally, outside of uni, but once I’d finished one I realised I had set myself a brief without noticing. My practice is very personal - even narratives I create with the intention of sharing, like Doom Mates, have my own injection of humour and personality in them.

This course has taught me, finally, that I don’t want to be a professional freelance illustrator. I have ambitions to one day own a shop/gallery space similar to Colours May Vary, that I can curate myself, as I much prefer being my own boss. But, I also have ambitions to become a graphic novelist alongside this, pitching my concepts to publishers in my own time and not working to anyone else’s vision.

In spite of my rocky start (and middle) to Level 6, I feel that this year has actually taught me the most about who I am (or am not) as an artist, and has enabled me to re-discover my passion and strengths and identify my limitations (and accept them). I feel more confident progressing to the next stage of my life knowing that I can create work in my own time to my own standards.

DESIGN BOARDS & PROJECT REPORT

DOOM MATES CONCEPT BOARDS

FINAL PMDD ZINES

Summer Ball Afterparty Poster!

I planned to submit a similar design for the actual summer ball poster (with more formal type) but didn't plan my time well enough to meet the deadline. 

BUT, I had a day to complete this poster as they needed a poster for it ASAP, and I'm happy with what I've done!

It's quite rough but for a day's work, not bad. Plus I got to play around with Kyle Webster's brushes on Photoshop a bit more. I actually enjoyed working to this brief, as it was quite open and I could pretty much do what I wanted with it. It also shows how well I can work to time pressure (eventually).

Self Portrait 2 development

I started drawing a simple self-portrait but then had the idea to create a series inserting myself into famous work of art:

• Molly with Pearl Earring
• The Birth of Molly
• The Creation of Molly
• Internal Scream
• Mophelia

27 Club Exhibition!

My piece in the exhibition! It was commended by Connor Campbell of It's Nice That.

I enjoyed doing this simple open brief - I could have been more conceptual and innovative with it but I enjoyed going back to analogue media and just having a bit of fun with it.

Submission Rebriefing

We had the rebriefing today and honestly I've not really done anything for this module yet, because I've been preoccupied with CoP. But now that's over I can finally get down to business!

I've decided not to do the Hookworms brief for a few reasons:

• Time constraints
• I don't actually really like their music that much, so I'm finding it hard to think of ideas.
• Louis did some amazing work for them already and I feel the kind of style they go with isn't really what I do.

BUT, I've been thinking of other options:

• A comic cookbook - a short, simple 'cookbook' illustrated with funny comics that could be instructional or at least contextual (related to cooking). I like cooking and have a few simple recipes I can make well - I'd like to share that in an accessible way, aimed at students who just eat pasta and ready meals etc, because cooking can be fun as well as nutritious.
• Webcomics - I've set up an Instagram account separate to my main one to start putting short comics on. I've done a couple simple ones, just focusing on ideas:

STATEMENT OF INTENT

BRIEFS

• Hookworms gig poster
• Jonathan Cape comic competition
• Webcomic series
• Gig poster series
• Music video storyboards
• Graphic novel proposal/concept boards/first chapter
• Series of self-portraits

RATIONALE

I want to push myself more this year to do things outside of my comfort zone. I want to focus on other interests, like music, aside from comics, so I will undertake the Hookworms brief and perhaps a series of other gig posters of events I want to go to/have been to in Leeds. 

Character, narrative and humour are the most important things in my practice, so I will only do briefs that enable me to incorporate these. 

I'm hoping to plan my time better this year - I've written down the dates of all the brief deadlines (in sketchbook) and will create an action plan and timetable of work. I need to plan my time especially well for the self-directed briefs, as I have to set my own deadlines, which I've not been great with in the past. I'd like to improve my digital skills as well, and maybe experiment more with traditional processes like screenprinting for the gig posters.

Artist Research: Cari Vander

Ugly Face Wednesdays

Cari Vander photographed a series of self-portraits. 

They're playful and not serious!

I'd like to do something like this for a self-initiated project:

Have a dedicated day to draw a portrait (I like drawing people/characters) of me or someone else(s?)

Task: Thought Experiment

My practice is all about character and narrative. When doodling I'll usually draw girls and create female characters. I also prefer drawing with pen on paper, rather than using a tablet. Even though I'm a perfectionist, I like the fluidity and personality you can achieve with hand drawn lines. I also feel pressure to work digitally as many comic artists do.

I'm scared of failure and not being "good enough", either to my own standards or to others'. This makes me procrastinate on work if I don't think I can 'get it right' first time.

I like using 'messy' analogue media, but I often avoid it during briefs because it's time consuming and there's less margin for error unlike digital. And because I procrastinate a lot, working digitally allows me to correct errors easily. I do still find Photoshop a bit overwhelming though!

I drew this portrait going back to analogue media, which I haven't used for a while, and chose to create a male character, as I don't often draw men. I wanted to use inks to loosen myself up a bit and try not to worry so much about so-called perfection.

Self Portrait

Extended Practice Intro Presentation

Project Report

Design Boards

Application of Illustrations

Evaluation

End of Module Student Evaluation

BA (Hons) Illustration

Module Code: OUIL503 Responsive

Name: Molly Halson

Student ID: mh259901

Please identify where the evidence for each of the learning outcomes is within your submission and how well you feel you have met the learning outcomes. Please also grade yourself in relation to the learning outcomes using terms: poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent (Note - This is so that the team have an understanding of how well you feel you have done. It is not an indication of the actual grade you may receive.)

Learning Outcome	Evidenced where? Blog, Visual Journal, Roughs, Final Illustrations, Storyboards, Development Sheets etc.  (No more than 75 words)	Your grade Using words: > poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent
5A4:  Make appropriate use of a range of research methods to investigate a topic and produce work relating to the critical, cultural or social context of art and design. (Knowledge & Understanding - Research and Critical Awareness)	Blog, boards	Good
5B3: Generate ideas, concepts, proposals, solutions and/or arguments using the language, materials, processes and techniques of a designated discipline. (Cognitive Skills - Problem Analysis, Problem Solving)	Blog, boards	Very Good
5C3: Respond to set briefs or proposals in a professional context. (Practical Skills - Visual Quality and Conceptual Development)	Blog, boards	Satisfactory
5D3: Exercise self-management skills in managing their workloads and meeting deadlines/apply interpersonal and social skills to interact with others. (Key Transferable Skills, Organisation, Communication and Evaluation)	Blog	Poor

Summative Evaluation (See Evaluation Guidance on next page for more information)

I really struggled with a lot of this module. I definitely found it hard to make and keep my own deadlines and juggle this module along with all the others. I’ve always struggled with my time management and being thrown into a very self-directed module (and year) has been a huge challenge. I’ve also been struggling with depression over the last couple of years, and so that has been affecting my motivation throughout. I am trying to control this better though. I really enjoyed SB2, as I loved my collaborative partners and we were able to solve problems and disputes maturely and diplomatically. I found that having two partners made me work harder and keep to deadlines better as I didn’t want to let them down. I wanted to practice my digital skills more in this module. I thought I would do this by doing Illustration Friday every week, or maybe the film society too, but I put too much pressure on myself to make them perfect and ended up just doing what I know best – pen. I need to push myself more and step out of my comfort zone. I regret not doing a more substantial brief, as I believe that I could have created something I was proud of, had I tried harder. However, I did experiment more with animation and digital in SB2, and although I’m definitely still learning, I’ve also learned some new skills! And hopefully I can take those on to future modules.

SB3 Project Report

SB2 Design Boards

SB1 Design Boards

Final 6 Illustrations

The two I'm happiest with are 3 and 4. I really experimented with my digital skills with these two, and I think they look the most polished.

If I did this project again I'd allow myself more time and maybe choose different scenes - I wanted to do different scenes and work on my skills drawing landscapes, but I didn't have enough time and decided to make it easier for myself by cheating and using elements from the other images to create the other scenes.

I do think I achieved the narrative though! I think they work not only as a set of images, but have the potential to become an animated music video that suits the song I chose, which is what I intended.

Finally picked my song

I realised that the reason I was having trouble/taking too long to pick a song was because I was focusing too much on the lyrics. This song is instrumental, so I can come up with a unique narrative based entirely on the music. Even though most music videos don't illustrate the lyrics, it's arguably more of a challenge to create visuals that keep with the music's tone when there are no words to be inspired by.

I was listening to this band while I did my CoP essay as they're instrumental and didn't distract me from my work, and I find this particular song very soothing, so I was listening to it as I went to sleep. I was looking out the window, and actually came up with an idea for my music video as I was watching the stars:

D&AD NAS submission complete!

NAS Final Animation

Luke's Story from Molly Halson on Vimeo.

I did rush this as I only left myself a week to animate, but I'm still proud of what I managed to do in that week!

I used the NAS colour palette they specified in the brief guidelines, and tried to emulate an RPG feel with pixellated textures made from Adobe Capture textures, scanned from objects around me.

Overall, I think I captured the essence of Luke, and I hope it portrays what I hoped it to - that autistic people are really just like everyone else, with goals and hobbies just the same.

Music Videos

The music video that inspired me to change my project proposal was for the song Let's Go by Stuck in the Sound, animated by Alexis Beaumont & Remi Godin.



I was inspired by the really emotive narrative, and realised a music video (or storyboard/6 scenes of) could be a perfect way for me to tell stories, as well as provide an opportunity to build my animation (GIFs) skills and digital drawing skills. The events of the narrative also correspond to the sounds of the music cleverly, for an example: an explosion when the chorus starts.

Other music videos with good stories/visuals:


Animated by Boneface


Animated by Rory Kerr and Paul Ruttledge

Adobe Capture + animation aesthetics

I found the app Adobe Capture today and I've been using it to make textures that I think will be useful in making my animation! Since I'm trying to mimic the Zelda games, as Luke mentioned he liked them, I think it will help make a game style or RPG look.

This is some of the visual research I did, and some of the textures I made from things around the room.

These are the colours NAS specified. I'm going to focus mainly on blues and greens.

Animation storyboarding + notes

Character Designs NAS

OUIL505 Proposal

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	05
OUIL505 ILLUSTRATION 2: Applied Illustration	Credits	30
Module Brief  Title: Product, Range & Distribution

STUDIO BRIEF 1: Project Proposal

Project Rationale

What do you intend to do and why?

I want to create a set of illustrations that form a narrative set to the song Resonance by Home, which has the potential to become and animated music video. I’m going to do this because I have a passion for music, and the format of an animated music video incorporates that passion into my practice. I chose this song specifically because I find it emotive, and it is instrumental which presents more of a challenge to create imagery, as there are no lyrics to inspire me, only sound. I want to create the illustrations digitally, as I haven’t experimented enough with digital media although I like it, and considering these illustrations would be potentially distributed digitally in a video format. I will apply my illustrations to a range of band and music merchandise.

THEMES / SUBJECTS

GENERAL THEMES: Music Individualism Conformity SPECIFIC SUBJECTS: Character & Narrative

PRACTICAL & CONCEPTUAL APPLICATION

SPECIFIC DISCIPLINARY AREA: Animation Music videos Character & Narrative AUDIENCE/CONTEXTS: Music lovers PRODUCTION/Distribution Methods: YouTube, Vimeo, merchandising sites like MerchNOW

CONTEXTUAL REFERENCES

ILLUSTRATORS / DESIGNERS / STUDIOS: Eat the Danger animation studio Boneface – illustrator/animator Distributors of band merchandise like MerchNOW

CREATIVE SKILLS

I want to develop my digital skills using my graphics tablet and Photoshop. I have been starting to use these methods more during level 2 but I want to develop them further. I will also develop my storyboarding skills, and apply my skills with visual narratives.

KEY TEXTS

Home - Resonance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GW6sLrK40k Queens of the Stone Age – I Appear Missing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9OfBcjyxKY Music video animated by Boneface Stuck in the Sound – Let’s Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Gg9CqhbP8 Music video directed by Alexis Beaumont and Remi Godin Courtney Barnett – Dead Fox https://vimeo.com/172404474 Animated by Rory Kerr and Paul Ruttledge http://merchnow.com/

NAS collab audio files for animation

All three of us have now completed our audio files for our animations!

I found condensing the 13 minutes of interview down to be a challenge! There was so much that I wanted to include, and if we had more time to animate and the brief allowed us to have more than two minutes of footage, I would have included more.

But I think I managed to capture the essence of Luke and communicate partially how he experiences the world in a way that others will be able to empathise with - which is what we're hoping to achieve.

My procrastination actually came in handy for this part of the project, as both of my partners completed their audio files before me, so I had a theme to work towards. I knew what they'd chosen to include and the kind of messages they were getting across, which made it a bit easier to narrow down Luke's words.

They also both chose accompanying audio tracks which sounded vaguely similar in tone, and although I knew I wanted something which sounded quite adventurous and whimsical, I was able to match to tone set by the songs my partners chose.

With The Light - NAS research

As part of my research I ordered this manga comic about a family of a child with autism - it's been quite insightful, as although I was very young when my brother was born, I do remember some things being similar to my family's experience when my brother was young.

The book discusses the stigma and challenges not only the people with autism face, but their families, so it might be quite a useful angle when approaching the animation?

NAS collab research - The Reason I Jump

My mum gave me a book to read called The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida, a boy with autism who was 13 at the time of writing the book.

He would be considered quite severely autistic, as he is unable to speak and used a computer, and alphabet grid and a transcriber to write the book.

This book has been very useful in my research, as it gives me an inside perspective from someone who actually has autism, about how people with autism experience the world, and what they want people without it to understand about them. This has been invaluable considering the aims of the brief are to portray autism in a more positive light, and our specific aim as a group is to normalise autism and show people with it as perfectly functional human beings.

This book is also helping me to create my audio file for my animation, as I've been feeling overwhelmed at the thought of condensing 13 minute's of Luke's interview to about 30 seconds. The book is constructed as a Q&A format; so Higashida answers common questions he faces about his autism and tries to communicate why he does things differently to what people might expect.

This has caused me to consider what I personally want people to understand about autism, and what I think Luke wants people to understand, based on his interview.

Again, I think just discussing his hobbies and daily life and normalising autism is the way forward. I'm feeling more able to pick out important bits of the conversation to form a 30 second narrative about a normal guy, who happens to have autism, who wants to be understood a bit better.

I hope that our target audience - people who don't really know what autism is or have an experience of it - manages to identify our aims through these animations.

Choosing a song

Luke mentioned the Zelda games in his interview so I'm trying to find a song that kinda matches the theme tune - whimsical and adventurous in tone.

Meeting with interview candidates NAS

We held an open call for people with experience of autism to come and talk to us so we could record their personal experience and get a soundtrack and a focus for our animations.

6 people showed up - 3 with autism and 3 with experience of autism (autistic siblings). The interviews ranged from about 7 minutes to 20 minutes.

Luckily, as there are 3 people with autism and 3 of us in the group, we decided to use them as it was more personal and we want to show that you shouldn't treat people with autism differently. We all picked one person who we felt we could animate, based on visual cues they gave in the interviews. I chose Luke!

Moby New Statesman Brief

I did this brief very quickly in the midst of all the other work I'm doing. Quick roughs/ideas:

I wasn't too happy with the final thing. It was very rushed as I did it in the early hours before the deadline, and I could have adjusted it after but I didn't really want to. I do like the colours though, and want to try this colour scheme out again at some point.