Final crit feedback

it was good to see what everyone else thought about my finished book, and interesting to see options that i perhaps did not think myself. 

Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this brief and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I feel I have gained many skills in this project that will be beneficial to me in further projects, and will hopefully improve my practice and work quality. One area I feel I have improved on in this project is Photoshop, I used it to tidy up my illustrations, add the silhouettes of the pigeons and  to add textured layers to parts I wanted to make seem more realistic (e.g.- the pigeon cage, I added the texture of netting as a overlay.) I am happy with the way my illustrations turned out after using Photoshop, however with practice I think I could have applied the edit to a more proficient level. The process of book binding has been introduced to me during this project, I now feel confident to be able to carry out the process of making a book, which I feel will definitely come in handy and with practice I will be able to produce a book to a high standard. Though my attempt at book making for my final book is satisfactory, there are definitely areas I could improve on as some elements did go wrong due to my lack of thinking (-eg I didn’t think about which page was going to be in the middle and therefore showed the book stitch.) I have also learned how to set up a InDesign document with the correct set up for making and printing a book.
2. What approaches to/methods of image making have you developed and how have they informed your concept development process?
Paper and pencil Using background material and pen Water colour, pen, colour pencil Watercolour, colour pencil Cut paper, pencil sketch and colour pencil Pencil and silhouette Collage, paint pen, tracing paper, fine-liner Collage, fine liner For my final technique I combined a range of my development experimental work, using elements from media developments I liked the best. E.g. the cut paper, pencil sketch and colour pencil combined with the collage paper and pen. I used the pencil technique as I thought this added a detailed and delicate approach I wanted the figures to be created in, and combined it with the collage paper technique from the other media development as I like how the 2 complimented each other and create a contrast and different focal points.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these? I think one strength in my book is the use of Photoshop, I think by using it to tidy and brighten up the pages make the book look clean and crisp like a professional digitally printed book. I think if I produced the book all by hand It would not have the same quality effect. Another strength I think is my development work, though I have not got massive off different media approaches, I think I have pushed forward and practiced my favourite styles/style a number of times until I had finalised the technique I felt was perfect for my book.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future? The main weakness I had in my work was at the very end point, when putting my book into InDesign I was unaware that some of my quotes had been cropped to short, and due to other problems that had occurred when putting my designs onto InDesign (double page spreads not big enough to fill the page) I was running out of time to get the document finished to be ready for my printing slot and therefore did not re-read all my quotes and did not pick up on the mistake before printing. In future, I will always make sure to re-read my work before printing. Another weakness I had in this project, and one, which seems to always be one of my downfalls, is the amount of time I spend on certain aspects of my project work. One example is the amount of time I spent drawing the pencil figure illustrations, I was unaware of how long I was spending on completing each, though I enjoyed doing so and I started create them in good time, I should of thought about how long it would take me to complete the rest of the illustration (collage and photo shopping) I feel this weakness also applies to other areas of my project and studies, I tend to happily spend all my time doing one thing and perfecting it, leaving me little time to complete other areas, which are of equal importance.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? make sure I give myself a realistic workload- I feel i had slightly underestimated how long it takes me to produce detailed drawings, though I really enjoyed the process, I become unaware of I how long I was spending on each and therefore began to run out of time to get everything finished, even though I started in good time.
Check things though thoroughly before printing Book sessions in good time (printing/book binding) When blogging a post, make sure I annotate at the same time so I don’t have to then go back and do it at a later point. research my chosen concepts further in the future, to make sure i am illustrating(justifying) the subject matter as best i can.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance				x
Punctuality			x
Motivation				x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced				x
Contribution to the group			x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

time managment

Book binding.

first i had to cut down the black paper that i used for the cover of the book. i chose black because i think it makes the book look professional and it also ties into the outline colour of the pigeons. 

aligning up the crop marks and marking a mark of them on a piece of paper which i then added marks to to mark where the holes will go. 

adding the holes with a pin. 

threading the book together.

Indesign and Printing final illustrations

Before printing I had to add my illustrations into the Indesign document I had previously created with the correct set up- facing pages, correct bleed, 20 pages, 150mmx150mm etc. 

I was happy I had set up my Indesign document a few days before as I was starting to get stressed and worried about the time I had left before my printing time. 

However one problem I did have when adding the illustrations onto the document was with the double pages illustrations, I had not taken into account the spacing around the pages, making the measurement of each page bigger the 150mm (300mm doubled)which I had drawn my illustrations too. 

So when I added them, the arrangement of the text was not right which

Meant I had to re add it in Indesign. Though I thought this would be fine as I had made the text the same font and size, when they were printed the text looked different to the rest of the text on other pages. 

photoshopping my illustrations.

increase whites and blacks of the skin on figures using masking tool and paint brush tool.
added texture to some of the clothes and backgrounds of my illustrations to add to there realism.
altered levels of whole illustration to make image crisper.
altered levels just selecting the white background to get rid of any finger marks and dark areas.
added text- used ruler marks to make sure each text boxes where identically inlined on each page.

i started off just using the mouse to edit the illustration but went on to use the wacom tablet, although this was difficult to get used to at the beginning, it helped me add finer details with the pen. i will deffinetly concider using the wacom tablet more ofter in further briefs now i know what effects i can create with it.

using watercolour and pencil crayon instead.

I felt photoshopping the backgrounds did not give me the look I wanted to create. I felt the detailed hand crafter method next to the digitally draw background looked out of place. 

Though I new hand crafting the backgrounds would be time consuming I thought I would be able to create the look I was looking for better by hand. 

I would also be able to use similar drawing techniques ( shading)as that of the figures, making the illustrations look complete. 

However, I don't want to totally dismiss photoshop editing of the background completly as I think photoshopping will polish off the illustrations and make them look professional. 

problem analysis -Adding the pigeon silhouettes to my drawings.

though out the drawing and collage process of my illustration, i was conscious of the fact that a problem i would come across would be trying to accurately place the positions of the pigeon silhouettes onto of the collage material due to the texture i would have to work on top of, also i felt it would be difficult to concentrate on producing a clear silhouette line in amongst a busy background.
i decided it would be easier, and it would give a crisper outline, if i added the pigeon silhouette on photoshop. however, the problem of not having a accurate outline sketch of a pigeon to work from was still a problem.
i remembered from our photoshop workshop, that i could copy and paste textures on-top of a image- so i experimented with this and used the lasso tool to cut round the existing shape the pigeons from my photo reference material and then inserted them onto my illustration, this will provide a outline for me to draw round which i can later remove, leaving just the silhouette I've drawn ontop.

experimenting with photoshop to add background detail.

as 3 of my illustrations relied on background information for the concept to work (e.g. the pigeons i needed to show were sat on a pigeon hut in the background) i needed to think of ways i could produce these backgrounds.

matt suggested photoshop would be a good way to do this as it will be quicker then drawing by hand and will also give me a progression clean finish. i liked this idea, i also thought this would be idea to differentiate between the figure and the background as i wanted the figure to be the focal point, therefore making the background less detailed will focus attention on the figure.  however i'am not 100% confident on photoshop and am unsure how to make a realistic looking background.

my attempts: 

i tried to go for a faded look to this idea so it would focus attention on the figure, however i think the quality of my photoshop drawing is weak and does not resemble as hut as well as i would have wanted. 

i like the simples of this background, however you cannot tell its meant to be a hut and it also takes attention away from the silhouette pigeon as they are both block colours. 

this is my favourite out of the experiments and it is simple, yet you can tell that it is a wall. however i still feel like i need to improve on photoshop to make it look more realistic, instead of just blocks of colour.

deciding how to represent/create the pigeons.

i wanted to make the pigeons as simple as possible as i wanted the majority of the detail and focus to be on the most important part of the illustration-the figure as the book is primarily focused on them. 

using block colour to create a pigeon shape:

like how this is simple yet effective, the negative space gives the shape a clear outline and makes the pigeon shape obvious. 

however this idea does not work well when the pigeon is placed inside the rest of the illustration as the detailed busy background of the figures do not provide a clear outline for the pigeon. 

i then experimented with strokes on photoshop to give the coloured shape a outline. i think this idea is most effective as it is more crisp.

playing around adding text to images on photoshop

playing around with photoshop.

illustrations with collage.

i am happy with the way my collage has turned out, i think it adds depth to the illustrations and adds a realism to the material of the clothes.
problems i have encountered:-
when using the scalpel on fine paper material, there was a tendency to tear, it also left the edgy rough which made it look un-neat.
some paper material i used has a slight gloss to it (magazine pages) this meant any pencil etc i used on top to add tone did not show up very well.
it was hard to cut a accurate silhouette of the clothes garment to fit into the pencil shape i had already draw.

experimenting with photoshop to add the collage clothing

hand craft- 
slower process
show more skill
tricky procedure to get around small details with pen knife
allows me to use pen detail after adding collage to show tone and shaded areas.
photoshop- 
quicker.
allows me to multiply collage material so i never run out
more accurate then using a pen knife to cut out the shapes
allows me to undo cutting errors
more clean cut
crisper image
allows me to alter saturation etc of collage material

after experimenting with photoshop, i have chosen to stick with hand craft collage because i want to be able to draw on top of the collage to add more depth, which i feel i would not be able to do to a hand crafted standard photoshop. however, i am still going to scan the finished collage/pencil pieces into photoshop to polish off the final pieces, adding backgrounds and text etc.