Evaluation

The assignment brief was to create a piece of work of your choice. You could have chosen to do photography or some sort of graphic piece/style.

I chose to do a graphic piece of work to show my interest. Also I wanted to do a graphic piece of work because I like to draw. Also doing a graphic piece would show that I can use photoshop to create a comic strip. I have also chosen the graphic path for my final major project because it shows what I can create on  different software's including photoshop and illustrator.

The research that I did was to research different comic strips and graphic novels. This was to get me some ideas on what my project was all about and what I wanted to create in the first place. Also I had to research an artist called Angela Anaconda to get some ideas for my project. I also took my own photos of my bedroom to use for my comic. This was because it looked like the scenes that I wanted to portray through a comic. This was so I could use my own photo of my bedroom to stick into my comic strip.  This was to make my comic strip seem/look more real. Also it looks better with a background in each of the scenes pretty much as it looks like a realism piece of work/artwork.

The research that has inspired my design was my secondary research because it showed how other people made their comic strip using their own drawings and graphics. Also my primary research was inspiring because it showed what other people thought/think of my overall design/idea. The artist that inspired me with my design was Angela Anaconda because it showed how she uses mixed media to create her final piece and her final artwork piece. She also inspired me because it shows how she creates her pieces of work using photos and her own style of artwork.

My primary research was when I created a survey monkey questionnaire to see what other people thought of my final piece ideas. I didn't get that many replies which was annoying. This kind of affected my final piece because I didn't know exactly what other people would have liked me to do by their responses. Also it would have helped if other people gave their overall opinions that I could use for my final piece. Also it would have helped for more people to have answered my questionnaire because it would have meant that I had more of a sense for a target audience. This wasn't as helpful as not many people replied.

My Secondary research was all to do with graphic novels and comic strips. Aswell as looking at books to do with how to draw faces and characters. Also with this research I could get a sense of how other people do their style of work- that I could have used to create my own piece to follow in their success. Also my secondary research was helpful because it showed how different pieces of work make one successful piece which I liked. Also my secondary research shows how the artist sees the piece that they created which also inspired me.

I have made a comic strip using my drawing skills and my graphic skills. I made my final piece by sketching out a rough drawing of my idea. Afterwards I created my character through drawings first before edited and making it better through photoshop. That way I could develop my character more aswell as use the techniques that I have learnt.

I have chosen the colours in my comic strip because I feel as though they are eye catching for the comic. Also I have chosen the colours that I have because I feel like it works with the comic. Also the bright colours gives the comic more emotions then a black and white version. The tears wouldn't work or look right if they weren't blue. Also in my opinion comic strips are better in colour as the emotions can be expressed through different sort of colours bringing out the main character, and its personality. I got my images/photos of my bedroom for my comic strip by taking some at home using my phone. I took quite a few photos as I wanted to choose the best one with having a range of photos. The way that I got my photos onto my comic strip was to shift things around on my comic strip to make the bedroom background fit onto each box that I wanted a background on. I had to shift some of the layers around by putting them on top of each other to make everything on my comic strip clear and for it to make sense.

The software tool that I used to create my final piece was Photoshop. On Photoshop the tools that I used was new layer- to create a new layer, the move tool to move each of my items and my character for each scene of my comic. I also used the box tool to create the scenes for my comic, I used the text tool to use when I wanted to add some text to my comic. This made it more interesting. For each of the box shapes I right clicked and chose and used the warp tool to create the different interesting shapes. I used the fill background tool to use to colour in my character to make it brighter and more cartoon like. I used the pen tool to cut out my character for my comic strip.

I think that I have developed some new skills throughout this project. The skills that I have developed whilst using photoshop was how to use a new layer for each item that I used for photoshop. Eventually being used for my comic strip.  Also I have developed using some of the tools in photoshop such as the pen tool which cuts out an image without cutting the actual image out. I feel as though I have developed with using photoshop because I feel a little bit more confident with using the software.

My time management for my project was good. I feel as though I used it well to create my final piece within the time limit that I had.  I don't think I fully followed my schedule because I didn't do all of the things that I planned to do on my schedule because it was better if I left them out. The thing that I had on my schedule that I didn't do for this project was to research different types of target audience which I never did. This was because I felt as though I didn't need to do this due to lots of other research that was more important. The target audience that my comic strip is aimed for is for children- girls aged 6-10 years. I have chosen this target audience because I have used pink and purple in my comic strip and girls like the colour pink. Also I think this because of the character being a girl.

I am happy with my comic strip because I feel as though I have used the different techniques well that I have been taught. Also the comic strip looks exactly like my rough drawing which is the way that it was supposed to look like. I like the colours that I have used in my comic strip because it makes the whole story more interesting. It gives the audience the feeling of why the comic is in colour instead of a black and white on. I wanted to make the comic colourful otherwise the photo of my bedroom in the background wouldn't be clear enough if it was in black and white. It would make the comic sad and boring due to the colours.

The things that I would change if I did my final piece again is to try and attempt to put a background on my comic to make the page brighter and more interesting. Also a background would fit for my comic because I feel like it looks a little bit bare with just a white background. I would also change the text. This is because it is too small and the colour doesn't work against the background. I would change my text also because you cannot see it with the background and making it bigger would be better so you can see it properly and better.

I did have problems when I was making my comic strip/ my final piece. It was annoying when I had these problems because it stopped me from finishing and finalising my work. The problems that I came across whilst I was making my comic strip was that I had too many layers that weren't named/labelled. Also another thing that I had a problem with my final piece is that I lost my work. This was very annoying. It was because the software kept on freezing up on my work aswell. I also had the problem of making the bedroom background fit each of the three boxes that I wanted to have a background on.