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narrative illustration  assignment 2                          

weighting 60%           due date week 15                                                                     12/6/2012

In the first assignment you examined some definitions of what illustration is and does, and some concepts associated with illustration genres and narrative.  After this you selected media conventions and explored the use of these ideas in types of formats. This second assignment allows you to extend this exploration, so you will be analyzing, relevant genres, audiences and experimenting with how a narrative can be organized, but this assignment gives you greater freedom over the choice of narrative and format. You may choose to develop more work in the same genre or style you identified to explore in the first assignment where you made a specific examination of sequential visual narrative as a convention within contemporary illustration  producing,

• Story books
• Comics 
• Graphic novels

Or   you may explore different approaches to narrative and formats.

 Consider the following possibilities,

• Games
• A series of political caricatures for a publication
• A series of illustrations for a  public relations campaigned
• A series of illustrations for  packaging concepts that develop a character or narrative for a product
• Illustrations for a clothing brand that explore a sequential narrative or theme
• Illustrations that explore a narrative or theme for an event
• Illustrations which explore visual concepts and narrative for a product e.g. snowboards
• A series of illustrations that compliment an educational idea.

Irrespective of the concept you select to explore, good illustration is illustration which,

·         demonstrates a knowledge and control of selected media conventions, genres and techniques.

·         demonstrates a considered relationship between visual content and informational/textual content

·         demonstrates a considered relationship between visual content and a specific audience.

·         demonstrates an innovative use of media, technique and genr

Procedure

• Identify a narrative concept that can be adapted in as a visual narrative.
• Identify a specific genre of representation and a media convention that you want to explore in this project.
• Conduct a media convention analysis of this content.
• Identify current illustrators who are using these genres of representation and media conventions.
• Identify a format for the exploration of content e.g.  children’s book, graphic novel, comic,  ed text book, manual, culinary book,  games, political caricatures for a publication, a series of illustrations for a  public relations campaigned, packaging concepts that develop a character or narrative for a product, Illustrations for clothing brand that explore a sequential narrative or theme, Illustrations that explore a narrative or theme for an event, Illustrations which explore visual concepts and narrative for a product, a series of illustrations that compliment an educational idea.
• Complete audience analysis exercise
• Identify the most suitable narrative for development and  develop a visual beat-script or an equivalent method for the organizing of content
• Experiment with framing sequences and transitions or other methods fro the management of narrative and concept hierarchy
• Experiment with the application of;   - Genre and Media conventions

                                                                     -  P.O.V

                                                                       -   hierarchy and narrative sequence

                                                                     -  Image/text relationships

                                                                     -  Typography

                                                                      - General layout 

• Complete refinement exercise and develop a refinement strategy and develop finished art.
• Prepare digital documents to prepress print standard
• Submit final outcomes and support research

World and Character :task one

As an illustrator you generally begin with some understanding of the media genre that you are dealing with and will use to develop a visual narrative.  Once you have established clearly the type of genre you will be using in a narrative, the type of audience you will be dealing with and the format most likely to be used for publication of the work, you can begin examining strategies for the improvement of the profile of the character and the setting that the characters will occupied in the text.

Character profiling

In order to develop a textual depth to the character's personality and visual appearance it is important to develop some sense of the characters prior experience in order to build a three-dimensional psychologically believable image.  This approach is commonly used by screen-writers or authors and is referred to as the development of the characters back-story.  You can develop the profile of the character by adapting a character from another fictional context or by developing an observed personality from real-life.  I have included a questionnaire for you to fill out, it may seem irrelevant to begin with, but the detail that you think about in this process has a way of influencing your visualisation and later media exploration.  Use the following questionnaire to build a profile of each of your main characters.

Character Questionnaire

What's the character's name?

Does this name have a meaning or history?

Do they have a nickname?

What is the origin of this name?

What's the date of the characters birth?

Physical appearance

how old does the character appear ?

What's the eye colour?

What's the weight?

What's their skin tone like and what's their skin type ?

Do they have any distinguishing marks?

Predominant features?

 Type of body?

Shape of face?

hair colour?

Is the character healthy?

Do they have any physical disabilities?

What kind of clothes that they wear?

Attitudes and beliefs

Is the character cautious?

Is the character flamboyant? 

Are they socially gregarious?  Or shy?

What are the characters priorities?

What's the character's philosophy of life?  Do they have a religious belief?

How you feel about themselves?

 Do they have any psychological vulnerabilities?

Mental illnesses?  Obsessive compulsive disorders?  Phobias?

Are they happy with their current situation?

Satisfied or dissatisfied?

Are they resentful of life or other people who have done better than themselves?

 Has their psychological experience affected their physical appearance?

Current situation

What's the characters current situation like?

Are they currently in a relationship with another?  Do they have any children?

Where do they live?  Are they happy with this situation?

Are they working?  Did they have close friends?

Sidekicks?  Are they a dominant or subservient personality?

Do they drive a vehicle?  Live in a particular house?

Background

where were they brought up?

Do they come from a small town or big-city?

What was their family life like a child?

What was their financial status like?

Whether any formative psychological or social experiences in the early part of their lives?

Do they have any siblings? 

But they part of a functional or dysfunctional family? 

What was their birth order?

This analysis should give you a really good idea of the visual attributes of your character.  At this point it can also be useful if used photography to formulate a visual idea of exactly how you character may look.

The characters world

The genre at times dictates certain physical features about environments, but at other times you need to have a strategy which allows you to research and prioritise various types of physical qualities and the characters setting.

I've provided a questionnaire for you to fill out in order that she might develop a textually rich and believable world or setting for your characters.

The world

where is this environment?

Is this a normal human world?  Or a fantastic context?

What era is this?

Is this the future of the past?  Or hybrid time zone?

What's the architecture like in this context?  Is it futuristic or historical? 

What type of technology exists in this context?

Is there a specific atmosphere in this environment?

Are there any characteristic natural phenomena in this environment?

Is this world spatially similar to our world or as a distorted?

Are there any unusual animals or creatures in this context?

Is the environment governed by the same physical laws as our physical world?

Gathering a collection of relevant photographic material that relates to the physical environment is an invaluable tool for any illustrator developing pictorial information about environmental world.  These images can be treated in conjunction with the specific media convention which interprets them, but they are of indisputable significance as background material for the generation of creative ideas which have a textural significance to the narrative.

Use these to strategic tools to build some contextually relevant back-story to your new project

Media convention analysis: task two

Because people have such a lot of trouble understanding what genres are, in media studies we sometimes use the term media convention to describes the genre or style work in illustration. This means explicitly the formal features of the work, how it looks, and some of the common themes that are associated with this convention. Whenever we talk about values in media analysis where referring to the priorities that makers and users, in this case illustrators and the audiences, apply to the judgement of a performance or production. So keep these two ideas in mind when you undertake following task.

·                     What are the stylistic features of the media convention you are examining in this project?

·                     What are the common themes associated with this style or convention of work?

·                     What are the common audiences associated with this type of work?

·                     What do illustrators and the audiences who used this type of work value and work of this nature?

·                     What stylistic features of this media convention can you adapt in your project

Audience analysis: task three

·                      Identify your ideal audience, write a brief hypothetical profile which describes them e.g. consider age gender, ethnicity etc.

·                     Describe the tone of your address to this audience e.g. irony, humour, sincerity.

·                     Consider the relationship between your audience and your media convention, is this the best relationship?  Give reasons why this is so.

·                     Describe the context in which your work will be received, does the context dictate additional limitations or possibilities for the reception of your work?

·                     Describe the tone of your address to this audience, e.g. irony, humour, sincerity etc

Format/Distribution strategy analysis : task four

·                     Identify a format for the exploration of content (e.g.  children’s book, graphic novel, comic,  ed text book, manual, culinary book, etc)

·                     analyse the conventions associated with a particular format you are exploring e.g. graphic novel, zine, product pamphlet etc

·                     find some examples of work produced in a similar way to your proposal.

Refinement strategy: task five

As you are approaching the final few weeks of practice, it is important that you develop a refinement rationale to support the final development of work leading up to the final submission and assessment.  There are specific criteria in the brief which referred to the development of a refinement strategy and this strategy should be a summary of following points;

·                Review your contextual research and identify any improvements that could be made this

documentation

·                Review your current media experimentation and identify the most successful outcomes to date.

·                Identified at least two variables from these experiments that could be further extended over the course of the following weeks and write a strategy for the exploration of these issues.

·                Draft a specific statement which clearly identifies the final series of work you will be developing in this project.

narrative illustration assignment 2formative assessment                                                  

due week 15                                                                                         weighting: 60% 

                                                                                                                        12/6/2012

Assessment procedure

Assessment will be graded in reference to the following criteria. Analyze the student’s performance and award a grade for each area of inquiry A B C D write a generic comment and an overall grade which summarizes the overall performance.

How successfully has the student:

·    Identify and explored a range of narrative concepts within an illustration

      context.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

·         Identify a specific media convention and explored these concepts in media                                                                                        

·         Completed contextual tasks 1-5 and documented your reflections on

      research questions.                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                           

·         Develop a series of experiments which test media convention , audience, format

      and formal variables                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

·           Developed finished artwork and prepress documents                                                                             

·          Developed outcomes consistent with research hours                                                                                                        

Write a generic concept which accounts for the quality of the students performance  and award a final grade