Medium: Color Pencil and Ink Pens on Paper Completed: July 18, 2022 Exhibition Text: During MIAD Illustration class we were assigned a project in which we were to create an album by randomly picking 3 subjects. My theme was food poisoning, my demographic was 10-12 year old hyper preteens and I had to accommodate all of this to my genre, R&B. Inspired by Rui Komatsuzaki's art-style. |
Inspiration:
Rui Komatsuzaki
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While doing the planning sketches I was told that my ideas reminded them of Rui Komatsuzaki art style, because of this I played around with his art-style and incorporated it into my art project. His work depicts characters i crazed states with bright splashes of color. The color blending in his work is very smooth and precise, something I wanted to replicate with color pencils. I really wanted to incorporate the crazed look on the characters face, more so the eyes, eyes really are the most expressive part of the body especially in art. With my theme of murder, this style seemed almost perfect, especially if I want to accommodate to pre-teens.
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Planning:
Day 1:
When we were introduced with this project I honestly wasn't sure what i'll do since all the themes mentioned were very random and forced you to really think out of the box. When I was taking out the paper from the mystery box, I was hoping for something easy. Ended up getting food poisoning which seemed very complicated, however I am happy I ended up getting something that would force me to be creative. When I got food poisoning, I first thought about the time my aunt got sick after we went eating at a restaurant, I figured I had to do something relating to that, but I wondered if I could do something that wasn't necessarily a sickness but more so...murder? I came up with the title of the album right away, "Poisoned with Love" and that greatly helped me come up with ideas. However I wasn't sure how to make murder, kid friendly since this was catered to 10-12 year olds. My first sketch revolved over a man with a suspicious burger that has been poisoned, and in the back there's a dead person. I followed a more comic like style in the sketch in order for it to come off more childlike, I also added cute ghosts and choose the burger for it to be more kid-friendly. I also had ideas for song titles off on the side to get more inspiration. |
Day 2: For day 2, our teacher told us to do storyboards of our ideas to prepare for a in class critique. I decided to do 6 storyboards that depicted different renditions of my first idea. While working I looked at many album covers of R&B artists and noticed that many were very simplistic. I tried to imitate that in my 2nd and 4th sketches however, I didnt necessarily like them. I did like how simple they looked, but I wanted it to be fun, as that was my whole idea for it to cater to preteens. Still my favorite continued being my first idea. During the critque, my peers decided that my best and more interesting sketch was my first idea. They said the style I used was very nice and it did seem like a R&B cover. |
Day 3:
For day 3 I began figuring out my color palette. I did a replica of my sketch at a bigger scale and colored it with watercolor. I really wanted a gloomy look but when I finished coloring, I did not like it at all. I didn't like the character, the colors and the whole composition of it. I went with a one of my other sketches from my storyboards and re-did it at a larger scale and colored it. I liked it, but still felt like something was missing. |
Process:
Day 4:
I decided to take my first idea once again, but this time do it digitally. I feel as though I work better digitally since its easier to manipulate things and erase as you please, especially since R&B covers have lots of aspects of graphic design, this was the best approach. I started off by doing the line art, this would then make it easier later on to transfer (trace) it to paper. I changed quite a bit from my first idea, i kept the ghosts since I felt they would accommodate a lot with 10-12 year olds. However, I did remove the "dead people" that were present in my day 3 sketch, since I thought they made the piece look crowded. |
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After the line art was finished, I started playing around with colors in order to figure out the color palette. Right away I like the colors I picked for the burger, the yellow and purple hue in the background of it really makes it stand out and that mysterious presence to it all. I ended up going with the first option since I liked the yellow background against the purple my only concern now was if I would be able to recreate the lighting effect with color pencils.
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I began doing the line art using 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 ink pens. I thought this would be the hardest and most time consuming part of the process but honestly it was not, I made sure to be very careful with each stroke and I left a couple plank spaces mid way through some lines since I've seen a couple comic book artists do that and wanted to also incorporate that into my line art. I'll admit some lines came out very wonky however I felt I couldn't fix them once it came to coloring the drawing.
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Day 5:
On day 5 I began the coloring process. Although in my reference picture (the digital drawing) the colors picked were were cool toned, I used more bright and warm toned colors since those were the only ones I could find in my color pencil pouch. I first began by adding a thing layer or a light beige color little by little I added shading with a red/brown color, interchanging between the two colors so it would be a seamless blend.I then took a pink color and lightly added blue to the cheeks, I also added purple to shade the skin. I followed the same process for shading the hands. |
Finally for the last step I colored everything else, I ended up adding more shading to the hair compared to my digital version. Everything came out a lighter color compared to the other drawing, however this made it easier to shade and add dimension to things.
The lighting that I was worried I wouldn't be able to depict I was in fact not able to do, I may go back and try to attempt to do it in the future because I do feel like that's the one thing that is missing. I also wished I would added more accessorizes to her, like heart earrings, since she at times looks a bit plain. |
Critique:
Critique compared to inspiration:
Differences: Rui Komatsuzaki's colors are a lot more vibrant compared to my colors. This may be due to the difference in mediums since Rui works primarily digitally while I did mine traditionally with color pencils. However, I could've still done the colors a lot more vibrant to formulate his style had I done more layers of the color pencil. Similarities:The overall copy of his style came out very close. I say this because when I see my character and his, they both have this deranged almost crazy look that I tried to copy from his style. I also left out putting any highlights in the eyes since most of his characters look almost soulless, and I wanted to portray that.
In class critique: The professor at MIAD liked the general composition of the piece as well as the colors, he said it reminded him of comic book styles. A student also told me they had wished I would've done cool lighting in the face, like a vignette, since it looks like the hamburger is letting out this bright purple hue that that doesn't go anywhere else in the piece. They also wished I would done the colors brighter.
Differences: Rui Komatsuzaki's colors are a lot more vibrant compared to my colors. This may be due to the difference in mediums since Rui works primarily digitally while I did mine traditionally with color pencils. However, I could've still done the colors a lot more vibrant to formulate his style had I done more layers of the color pencil. Similarities:The overall copy of his style came out very close. I say this because when I see my character and his, they both have this deranged almost crazy look that I tried to copy from his style. I also left out putting any highlights in the eyes since most of his characters look almost soulless, and I wanted to portray that.
In class critique: The professor at MIAD liked the general composition of the piece as well as the colors, he said it reminded him of comic book styles. A student also told me they had wished I would've done cool lighting in the face, like a vignette, since it looks like the hamburger is letting out this bright purple hue that that doesn't go anywhere else in the piece. They also wished I would done the colors brighter.
Reflection:
When we were assigned this project in illustration class I was honestly very overwhelmed by it, even when I began the sketching process, however as time went on I was able to get my creative side out, even if it took a couple days. The advice I got from both the teacher and my fellow classmates helped me formulate my ideas. Overall, it was a very fun project and I am happy with my final product. However I wished I did at least try to do the purple lighting I had plan to do, I think the reason I avoided doing that was because I was scared I would ruin my piece since I haven't worked with color pencils in a while.I did really like the whole composition of the drawing,
Connections to ACT:
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Rui Komatsuzaki can stray further and explore more gruesome aspects however due to the purpose of my projects, I had to limit myself in what I can do, and instead opted in a more kid friendly type of horror.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?My general approach really was to do something fun and eye-catching, something you can see from far away.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Horror has no limits and can even be taken to the cartoonist of styles, in general art can be interpreted however you want, there are no right or wrongs..
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea around my inspirational approach was to find a style that can accommodate what I want to portray. Having a cartoon-like style will really help in conveying a horror based album to children.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Colors make the piece, in a sense that it helps in conveying the feeling of the piece and enhances it. For example, since my piece was catered towards kids, I wanted very bright colors because that's what is eye catching.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danganronpa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rui_Komatsuzaki
Rui Komatsuzaki can stray further and explore more gruesome aspects however due to the purpose of my projects, I had to limit myself in what I can do, and instead opted in a more kid friendly type of horror.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?My general approach really was to do something fun and eye-catching, something you can see from far away.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Horror has no limits and can even be taken to the cartoonist of styles, in general art can be interpreted however you want, there are no right or wrongs..
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea around my inspirational approach was to find a style that can accommodate what I want to portray. Having a cartoon-like style will really help in conveying a horror based album to children.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Colors make the piece, in a sense that it helps in conveying the feeling of the piece and enhances it. For example, since my piece was catered towards kids, I wanted very bright colors because that's what is eye catching.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danganronpa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rui_Komatsuzaki