Reflection
Progress so far
Not realising how much time it takes to produce one page or even a double page:
- To complete a character drawing
- Breaking the character down and getting screenshots
- Importing screenshots into the Photoshop template page and rearranging each page
- Discussing the character to add a little life to the page, in addition to explaining the choices behind the design and what makes it a female.
- Explaining the simplest way to recreate the character to the reader.
Then realising each one is not perfect at the minute and some of the backstories and explanations could be expanded upon!
In addition to this there is always room for additional research;
- Why certain poses are more successful than others in showcasing a character not just what they are wearing
- Characters background stories - something I have only touched on slightly before and believe I need to amend quite a few of the ones I currently have.
Overall I feel a little deflated at how long the process is taking but I am definitely speeding up once the character is complete, I need to be aiming for one rough sketch of a character per week, in order to give myself more of a range and be more selective in the one's I decide that will make the final cut. There are currently a couple of possibilities that may be removed.
Gathering feedback from some colleagues, friends and family could assist in this, by perhaps getting them to follow the guides that I have created. I will look into this next week.
What to do next
- Complete the unfinished pages/characters over the next week.
- Gather feedback as discussed above - going to give two weeks, as heavy work load next week and the college have an exams week, which I will be able to test out on a diverse range of students afterwards. This will allow time to gather a questionnaire.
- Begin creating a character each week as I have currently been working on and continue to implement them into a template design.
- Complete further research into how to draw guides and character designs, specifically to see if I need to adjust the PDF's in terms of level of difficulty or in what should be learned when starting to draw.
- Most importantly stick at it, and in-between character creations to modify the characters I already have, as I feel especially the Demon Within is just a bit too rough to be in there as it stands and Deanngle's wings need more detail.
I have a new found respect in the current drawing books that are available, yes some are better than others, but the amount of time and effort put not only into the drawings but the information that is contained along with them. On some of the previous blogs I noted that in creating some of the pages it felt like I needed to discuss more about the process of the drawing; at one point I was considering adding additional pages to cover some of this in context. E.g., Different perspectives, poses, shapes, faces, etc. Though thinking about this now, is this needed to be able to recreate my drawings? There is already an abundance of this information not only online but also in books already. Either way I am still not certain about this idea.
I have updated the learning agreement slightly to reflect the decisions and research in Version 5. That can be found here.
I have updated the learning agreement slightly to reflect the decisions and research in Version 5. That can be found here.
