Hi Becca,
How's your half term been? I've had a look over your samples and have written some feedback for you.
First and foremost hang on to the textures and charm of collage in your work!
Killer Fashion
I really like this Illustration Becca. However there is too much charming collage going on. Charming collage always works great providing you don't overload the image with it. Geometric straight shapes done using Illustrator/photoshop would provide balance and contrast so we can appreciate the collage more, but it has to appropriate to the element you're representing. The pink lipstick at the front of the gun is lovely but the silver case it's emerging from needs to be straighter and more perfect (as wobbly can look amateurish as opposed to professional) - have you considered producing this part in Illustrator? The handle of the gun would look better straighter as opposed to ergonomically friendly! Looking at the perfume bottle could do with looking 3D as it looks like a sticker. I think your use of textures provides a very organic, human feel to your image that you need to keep. Are you influenced by Eric Carle by any chance?
Junctures 2
Once again a really nice image however not without it's faults though. In terms of the idea I am questioning whether the icon/symbols (eye, faces, skull, dummy etc) are necessary above the spinning ones. I realise this may be evident on a real fruit machine but in relation to art I think we can afford to remove these. As long as the main icons are visible on the spinners then you've communicated them to the viewer already - just don't say things twice is what I'm getting at. What do you think? Looking at the hold 3 buttons be careful of elements that need to straight and precise as opposed to charming (like in the Killer Fashion image) again. Are the face characters both men? I'm not sure whether the longer haired character is a man or woman? lol.I think if it is a woman then accentuate parts of the face to make them more feminine and then you've done it!
Junctures 3
There is no doubt in my mind that you have a mind that is capable of coming up with lateral ideas. This image looks to me like a wheel of fortune? I think choice of colour is an issue in this image, the muddy grey is a bit dull if I'm honest, the red's are lovely. Looking at the heads I can see a white outline around them - is this inadvertant or done on purpose? I think you could do with losing this line tbh. Like in the Killer fashion image why not have a go at representing some symbols as precise computer rendered to balance out the collage?
Dia de los Muertos title page
Have you looked at Nicky De Saint Phaille's work before? This reminds me of her work.
Not a favourite of mine this mainly as it is far too busy even with a fainter opaque background. I think what destroys this image is the black line around the shapes, it can make things look cheap and tacky.
Twinkle page 9
Very experimental use of shapes for the animals heads, not sure they work though. I love the cat's whiskers and their' eyes! Once again the use of an outline (even though it isn't black) could afford to be discarded. Do you work with other textures? I think it would be well worth having a go to come up with a wider resource of textures to dip into and put into this image. Just look at the different things going on - grass is different to animal hair, tree bark is a different texture to leaves. Just have a real play and could up with more diverse, contrasting textures! What about the colour of the sky too?
Twinkle page 6
I think this image could well do with a bit of collage going on. It looks solely computer rendered. Compositionally though I think it's good that this is lateral resulting in memorable (important in Children's books) just don't like the way it's been put together - bring back the charm! lol
Twinkle
Having looked at twinkle again I'm not sure about the shape of the head. I'd collage it personally and perhaps make him/her look a bit rougher?
Summary
More and different textures
Balance computer rendered shapes with collaged (where appropriate)
Don't say things twice
Get rid of outlines!
Hope this is helpful for you. Please ask me any questions to elaborate further once you've soaked up my feedback. Then we'll move onto to emailing more newer work over for me to look at! Ps do you have a skype? We can talk on there too if you like?
Cheers
Liam :-)
Some very helpful advice here from Liam. Specially from the 2nd year pieces which I do love but want to make them stronger for my portfolio. We had a breif chat about my Twinkle book and I explained why I've only used 1 texture and colours etc etc. This was my reply
Hey Liam, thanks for the feedback. I don't have skype, I use old fashioned MSN (sad I know).
Firstly, Junctures. After looking at them properly again I agree with everything you've said. I think the fruit machine would look much better without the icons etc. I think I just put them in to fill up space tbh! which I know I shouldn't do.
and the roulette wheel, I tended to go for the grey colour as I wanted to stick to original roulette wheel colours, (red,black,green) but I thought black might be a little too dark? Do you think I should try changing it to black? And i've only just noticed the white line around the faces, Not sure what that is but i'll deffinatly be getting rid of it!
The killer fashion piece was a piece I did when I was first starting to develop a style and I realise that it is a little messy and Ian mentioned that I could maybe re-do some of it to make it look a little neater, my Works never been very neat (not sure why, I think it's just the way I am!) but i'm working on it!
Gonna start to re-visit these pieces as I do like them and would possibly want them in my portfolio.
With the twinkle pieces, I tended to stick to the same texture 'cause every time I tried to add different textures they just didn't fit together at all, and I was struggling with it a little bit, but Ian said he thought it looked alright as Its for a childrens book and he didn't want me going too over the top with different textures. (There are a few different textures on other pages). But I'm gonna keep practicing with textures, starting to put together a little texture book and hopefully I can start using more than 1/2 textures in different pieces of my work.
Ian also thought it was best for me to leave some background colours white as it took focus off my characters and elements, which I agreed with, everything looked too clustered.
And the outlines on the twinkle piece I've used as things started to look too flat without them :\ but I might try getting rid of some and see what things look like then :)
And my half terms been very busy, Ian gave us 2 more projects to do just being we finished! Hope you are well :)
Thanks again!
Becca.
Some very helpful advice here from Liam. Specially from the 2nd year pieces which I do love but want to make them stronger for my portfolio. We had a breif chat about my Twinkle book and I explained why I've only used 1 texture and colours etc etc. This was my reply
Hey Liam, thanks for the feedback. I don't have skype, I use old fashioned MSN (sad I know).
Firstly, Junctures. After looking at them properly again I agree with everything you've said. I think the fruit machine would look much better without the icons etc. I think I just put them in to fill up space tbh! which I know I shouldn't do.
and the roulette wheel, I tended to go for the grey colour as I wanted to stick to original roulette wheel colours, (red,black,green) but I thought black might be a little too dark? Do you think I should try changing it to black? And i've only just noticed the white line around the faces, Not sure what that is but i'll deffinatly be getting rid of it!
The killer fashion piece was a piece I did when I was first starting to develop a style and I realise that it is a little messy and Ian mentioned that I could maybe re-do some of it to make it look a little neater, my Works never been very neat (not sure why, I think it's just the way I am!) but i'm working on it!
Gonna start to re-visit these pieces as I do like them and would possibly want them in my portfolio.
With the twinkle pieces, I tended to stick to the same texture 'cause every time I tried to add different textures they just didn't fit together at all, and I was struggling with it a little bit, but Ian said he thought it looked alright as Its for a childrens book and he didn't want me going too over the top with different textures. (There are a few different textures on other pages). But I'm gonna keep practicing with textures, starting to put together a little texture book and hopefully I can start using more than 1/2 textures in different pieces of my work.
Ian also thought it was best for me to leave some background colours white as it took focus off my characters and elements, which I agreed with, everything looked too clustered.
And the outlines on the twinkle piece I've used as things started to look too flat without them :\ but I might try getting rid of some and see what things look like then :)
And my half terms been very busy, Ian gave us 2 more projects to do just being we finished! Hope you are well :)
Thanks again!
Becca.
After this we got chatting about influences etc. And hopefully I'll be able to send him some more work in the next couple of weeks!
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