my learning journal

For the second term of field, out of all the options I had to choose from, I chose to do Kablamooo. The first week coming into this new topic which was completely different to what I normally do. We had a brief introduction to the second term and what was expected from us to design and produce fro the deliverables which were: a comic based on collaged pieces with a narrative, an A4 folded comic with a poster on the back and a comic made based on a story of your choice and that should be printed in a multiples of 4.

From the beginning of Kablamooo, we were constantly being shown artwork, artists and documentaries to help us with our comics, and I also researched into different artists and comics which I found extremely beneficial in the designing and making of my comic. From the A4 folded comic, I wanted to carry on the story of my dog, Oreo as he has so many amusing stories he has done and learning from James’ lecture ‘there is no stupid idea’, so I decided to go with this idea and run with it, and from this I took inspiration from many artists and comics such as Jen Mussari, Robert Crumb, Garfield Comics etc to create different forms of typography and drawing techniques such as cross hatching and dot work.

The second project of field I really enjoyed as I felt like I had a lot more creative freedom to create a comic based on anything I like. I also feel like this has helped my skills aswell as I was able to be more imaginative with my ideas, also more knowledge of different techniques and artists which can help me in the future.

Looking at this project as a whole, I can say I really enjoyed this project as I feel I was fully engaged and interested in the subject matter. I have learnt about so many new techniques, artists etc which have related to the layouts, comic rules such as what to do and not to do in a comic. It was also like a refresher from Graphics as some terminology popped up throughout such as leading, typography etc.

I am very pleased with how my comic has turned out in the time frame I had to do it within, I challenged myself with doing a 12 page comic but I came across a blip, my story finished before the 12 pages and I struggled on how I could fill it up and James suggested adding advertisements in the comic to fill it to a 12 page comic which was very useful and helped me overcome this challenge I had.

All and all, I really enjoyed the second term of field, I feel like I have learnt a lot from James and how to make a comic and I can also take this through to my subject area which is useful to create a digital comic. I will also carry on making comics in my spare time as I really enjoyed it.

I started off firstly pencil sketching out my comic to get a rough idea of how I want it to look before finalizing it and going over it and adding details to it in fine liner.

I took inspiration from many artists through out this project, for the lettering I took inspiration from Jen Mussari with how she creates movement and texture into her typography so using her as inspiration I used this throughout my comic, an example of this is that when it came to bath time, I wanted to create a sense of drips throughout the text which I think I created perfectly using inspiration from Jen Mussari. I will be taking the technique of Robert Crumb into my work with how he used a black and white technique and also his cross hatching technique as I think this is a good technique to use in comics as it creates texture and depth throughout my comic. The black and white artwork of my comic relates to the 2 comics I researched into like FukuFuku and Felix the Cat, by doing this I feel like it relates to the comic artists and also relates to the research I did which then led me to create my comic in black and white. I also added dot work and cross hatching inspired by Robert Crumb and how he used it in his own comics, I found these techniques quite useful to experiment with and to also create some texture depth to the artwork I did.

One of the things I took from one of the workshops James did was that my story actually finished on an odd number so when James suggested to add in some advertisements in the comic to fill it up and to break the comic story up a bit, I found to be very useful and beneficial for myself to finish this comic book off.

This is the final outcome of making my own comic based on my dog Oreo, the reason I decided to base my comic on my dog Oreo is that he has so many little stories which I think are amusing and that would also be amusing and funny for other people to see through a comic form. He hates his bath times and showing this through a comic I think is a funny and amusing way of showing how he is like when it comes to him and bath time, I think he is the only dog who hates water.

For my comic idea,I wanted to carry on from my folded A4 comic I created previously in a workshop based on my dog Oreo and his daily adventures and how naughty he can get. So I did some research on different comics that have animals related in them. So I researched into Garfield, FukuFuku Kitten Tales by Kanata Konami and Felix the Cat.

Some of the reasons I chose these to do research on as it relates to my comic idea of creating a comic based on my dog and this has helped me with how I could lay out my comic and also pick up some art techniques with how I could design and layout my comic. One of things I will take forward into my comic is that I will be making my comic in black and white rather in colour as I have to sell these comics in University, so keeping the cost down of making these comics is vital as creating multiple comics in colour will cost alot more and I will have to make profit from these also.

Today James discussed about possible gimmicks we could put into our comics to entice people to buy them such as posters, stickers, gifts etc. Some examples of these are:

James also discusses about different artists who do comic art and this has showed me how broad comic art can be.

Benjamin Marra

James Jessop

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein

These are more modern and older versions of comic art. One of the techniques James mentioned that Roy Lichtenstein used was bengala dots to create the colour tones within his work, the technique draws to me as it gives some sort of texture without it being raised at all. Benjamin Marra is more of a modernized kind of comic artist and his work is very striking and detailed orientated, you are always looking at his work and finding something new you haven’t seen already. The colours he has chosen work well to compliment each other and not to clash.

We had a lecture on lettering, word balloons, bored, signs, sound effects etc. There were many things I will take forward into my comic design. I found this very useful for my comic and in the future when I decide to create another one and this has expanded m knowledge further and this can help me in my subject area.

I also researched into different typographic artists that I could use throughout my own comic and I found quite a few I could possible use.

All three of these artists have a playful aspect to there work. Jen Mussari shows sound and action by the type she uses and how she adds the extra effect to create movement. Erik Marinovich puts more texture into his typography which makes it more appealing to the eye. Chris Piascik is very playful with  how he uses his colour and placements of the type to create a sense of pace.

Henry Darger – Watching this documentary on Henry Darger I found quite interesting to learn about what kind of person he was when creating his comics but I found his work quite unsettling and made me quite uncomfortable as I didn’t find his work to be art but some people would disagree with me.

Robert Crumb – We watched this documentary and how he became famous for his comics was quite interesting as his father was pushing him to go draw and sell his work but when he did become famous from his comics, he didn’t care about fame or money, his work is all he cared about. He played around with some very controversial topics which would be considered okay to do back in the day but not in this current day. Some of his work made me quite uncomfortable as he had an obsession with women and over sexualised them in his comics which in today’s society would cause a lot of problems. His artistic techniques really appeal to me, the contrast of the black and white focuses on the artwork and details that have gone into the work, the different strokes used such as cross hatching to create a three dimensional effect, and dot work which I may consider into taking it into my comic.

We were given the task to be paired up with someone else on the course and find 10 pictures from books, magazine etc for each other to make a ‘comic strip’ and create a narrative to go along with the pictures given to us.

These were the images given to me and I created quite a dark mythical kind of narrative to go along with the pictures given to me. I did find this quite difficult to do at the beginning to figure out a narrative but once I studied the pictures I had and created a narrative to fir these images. I found this quite useful as I was able to come up with a which narrative from images we see everyday which inst necessarily easy but it was a goof challenge to do.

Developing Small Booklet

I developed the small booklet even further by adding more images and also adding a poster on the back of it. The poster I related it to the comic narrative to keep the link between dogs. I really enjoyed doing as it gave me a chance to explore one of my ideas.

For the first week of Kablamoo, James went through the project deliverables and told us the outcomes that are expected for the ed of this project.

James went through a slide show showing us various comic book styles and artists through out the decades. He also added that between 1920 – 1930 that was the golden age for comic books.

I really like the style of Roy Lichtenstein as its what I call more of a comic book style kind of art and it is what I relate to more. Also with The Beano, this is something that I have grown up with so this is more recognizable as a comic book than William Hogarth’s.

We also made a small folded comic. Using some of the techniques James had mentioned, I used cross hatching and dot work in this comic I made.

James also showed us some of his work, I find his work really interesting and out of the box with how he comes up with ideas that are quite random but turn out really well as a comic.

From the painting I did with the cardboard cutouts, I have to redraw this as a new piece and create another painting of this.

I firstly started by priming my board again with emulsion, this will ensure the vibrancy of the acrylic paint, and I roughly sketched out the same image again.

I then quickly did a base layer for the jellyfish to make the colours look rich and pigmented.

This is the end result of the final painting, I slightly changed the placement of the ‘coral’ so it is more in the foreground.

James showed us some of his paintings to showcase what painting techniques he has used and from there he showed us a variety of paintings techniques that we could use in our own paintings.

• Undertones – White skin tones – use green undertones, Dark skin tones – use yellow ochre or burnt umber undertones.
• Sunset – using pink undertones.
• Edging – a layer of painting which creates an edge and a 3D effect.
• Glaze – glazing consists of applying a transparent layer of paint over another thoroughly dried layer of opaque paint, usually with a wide, soft-bristled brush.
• Dry Brushing – which a paint brush that is dry, but still holds paint, is used. Load is applied to paper or primed canvas. The resulting brush strokes have a characteristic scratchy look that lacks the smooth appearance that washes or blended paint commonly have.
• Encaustic painting – is a mixed media technique that involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments have been added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface — usually prepared wood, although canvas and other materials are often used.