Character Shoot

I asked two girls to model for me since I have two characters, Jan and Janet. However on the day I planned to shoot one of them said they couldn't come. This was unfortunate, I had to think fast and change my entire shoot plan. I decided to treat this shoot as an experiment and tester shoot. I did the make up and looks for the extreme super villain version of Jan and did a few shots.  I tried to make it work with just one model but it just did not capture the mood I wanted.

I really wanted to do some shots of my model teepeeing my house. Teepeeing is when you cover someones house with toilet paper, it is a prank lots of people do in America. I thought this would be a funny way to show Jan is a rebel. However it was raining so I could not exactly throw toilet paper all over my house. Instead I threw it around my living room. It didn't turn out as good as I hoped, infact I really did not like it all. But it was good practice and better than doing nothing.  

I used the bamboo graphic tablet to draw over on of photos in a similar way that I did the other day. I felt like it turned out pretty interesting. Hopefully when I do get the chance to shoot both my models I can do a similar thing. I would like to create a set of photo illustrations that I can lay out in a comic book style format and print. 

The following image is one I create with the bamboo tablet. This was my favourite of the shots I took in my teepeed living room. 

Image authors own

Practice

I wanted to draw some action figures/poses to potentially use for my shoot so I asked one of my friends to do some poses for me. I took some photos planning to draw them into action sequences.  I put them onto my computer and started playing with them on photo shop. One of my tutors asked me if I knew about the graphic tablets that you can use a stylus to draw with onto the computer. I was instantly so excited about this idea and went to the CLR and rented one. 

The following images I used the tablet to create... 

I want to somehow incorporate this technique into the final images. However I want the actual photos to more subtle.  I also want my characters style to be very interesting. I think I am on to something I just need to further develop these thoughts and ideas. 

Character Project.

I decided to go with the character project because I thought it sounded like fun.  I began creating my character by collecting a bunch of images that inspire me and that I think would create an interesting character. As I collected the images I began to see patterns and form ideas.

I was initially inspired by an illustration. This made me begin to think about cartoons and animations. I thought what if my character was a cartoon character? That would be quite fun and interesting. I looked into a bunch of cartoons such as Adventure time, Ahh! real monsters, and Beetlejuice. I particularly like these cartoons because they are weird and the characters look interesting. Also In the live version of Beetlejuice Lydia is played by Winona Ryder who is definitely a muse for this character.  

While researching furtherer I remembered a graphic novel Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. The main characters in this graphic novel are two girl best friends. I adore these characters and their friendship. They have a real angsty and dead pan attitude which I absolutely love. This story and these characters are probably going to be the main influence for my characters.

Illustrations

I began drawing illustrations for a few of Umit Benan looks from his latest collection for A/W15. I really enjoyed doing them. I was thinking about scanning them into my computer and making layouts or something interesting with them. I also was thinking of maybe turning them into a little gif like I did with the original photos. I talked with one of the tutors about my idea and showed her my illustrations and she suggested that I stop illustrating and begin to experiment with laying them out and begin using the historical images I collected that relate to the collection. She gave me some suggestions of where to begin and it was very helpful. It gave me the incentive to move on to the next step and really begin thinking as I was moderately clueless of how I was going to take this project further and move on from just drawing. 

I was trying to think of ways to merge the historical and reference images with my illustrations and with the actual images of the looks. I decided to go to the photocopier and make copies of the illustrations and lay them out in different ways. I then had the idea to print the illustrations on tracing paper so that I could put the historical images in the background and they would show through. I scanned the tracing paper images with the historical images on top and the results were actually really cool and I am really excited about them. I am going to try laying them out in a few different ways seeing what looks good. 

(Image authors own) 

Umit Benan

I decided to look at Umit beans A/W15 collection. He looked at fishermen and in particular fisherman in the Bosporus in Istanbul. I really liked his collection because I thought it had a very strong sense of identity and a very vivd character and story. The mood was set very well, the street cast models fit the persona impeccably.

I find Umit Benana as a designer interesting because he used to want to be a filmmaker. I also once wanted to be a filmmaker so I understand his desire to create stories.

I am now going to google historical details of fishermen such as the sou'wester (the hat they wear) and the ganseys.  

Detail

The brief for this project is to make a look book. We have to decided weather it is for a magazine or a specific designer. We also have to look specifically at a particular historical detail that comes out in the collection. AND lastly it must be form the most recent menswear collections for A/W 15. 

First thoughts included excitement about looking at menswear again. Its fun because it is completely different and something new and also cause you get to look at boys the whole time. 

Second thoughts included how am I going to present a look book? What will it look like? will it be printed? a video?  

Third thoughts included how am I going to decipher a specific historical detail? and what designer should I look at and what kind of historical details are there. Why are there so many different designers? There are definitely to many to choose from. Who's historical details are the funnest and interest me the most? 

 

For my second thought I had an idea to make gifs. During our briefing talk we were challenged to try and do something different from the boring average look book. So I began thinking about what I could do that is different but also within my abilities to create. I know how to make gifs using the internet so I thought this could be an interesting start. 

Here are a three that I made of two collections I liked. I did two of the same collection to see what it would look like with type over it and without... 

(Gifs authors own) 

The third thoughts I am still working on. 

Crit Reflection

As usually I felt a little timid before presenting my work in the group crit. The worst thing I do is continually compare my work to everyone else's and internally freak out when it is so different, I can begin to feel like I am doing it all wrong. Also I hold the fear of it being taken wrong or not explaining it in a smooth good way.

The crit overall was super informative and gave me lots of ideas to help push my work further and develop it more.  The main constructive criticism I got from my peers was to research the photo shoot aspect of my project further, which I agree completely would of helped push them further. Also they recommended that I look at a publication that I would fit my piece with. I need to definitely do this because it will help inspire my layouts and develop my knowledge of publications. One of my peers said that she thought that if I wrote an article to do with the topic it would be really interesting. I had started one but did not feel I had done enough research to make a full article. However they said that if I just wrote it how I explained it while presenting my work it would be good. It would be interesting, opinionated, and have personality. This idea to write the article how I explained my project to the group really helped me think about how to approach writing the article. Now I really want to write because I think that it would look really good paired with some of the photographs and layouts I've made.

I appreciated the positive feedback I received for my film. I was also very happy that people shared my humor and enjoyed it. It is always nice to get a reaction from your work weather it is laughter, tears, screams, or disgust.