Reflective commentary

Produce a reflective commentary that summarises your progress to date and reflects on how you have processed the feedback received at the Critique (Feedback Point 6).

Thank you for your feedback on point 6, my neck is feeling slightly better, more good days than bad so that’s encouraging. Although I am now having bouts of vertigo which is causing some issues, but hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon.

I am currently working on the watercolour masks for some of the spot pages, I have noted the one you suggest from the Pecha Kucha presentation. I am looking to add this to a few throughout the book to add some difference. I have decided to use a digital watercolour brush for this, I think the transparency is better, I’m just working on colours that would suit the spots the best. I have just completed page 18, which is a spot page, and I have left some of the new elements outside the area to add more depth to the piece, once the watercolour mask is added this will work as you have suggested, and I think will add another dimension to the book.

I can see your point on the characters blending into the background on some spreads, this is something I was thinking how I could fix going forward. I think an outline would work well, and have seen in Helen Kellocks work that she does this, and how much I like the look of it in the illustrations. I will start trying this out on some of the pages where Thomaz in particular gets lost in the illustration, mainly because of his light colouring, but this will counteract this, so thank you for that.

Although the story is completed I am still working on some of the wording to make sure it fits with the age range of 3-5 year olds, I will definitely look into adding this to the next Pecha Kucha presentation in project 9.

I have added some more to my personal statement, I have put more into the creative process section, and added in more about my surface pattern, which feeds into my illustration work, I thought it was important to write about this, which you have also added in the feedback so that is good timing.

Yes any help with character poses and design would be a help thank you. I do use a light box so I can re-draw certain parts of the character to make different poses, a bit like a cartoon – animation designer would use. I have also used Procreate for this as well, as I find you can highlight areas and move them too. I am working more on my characters especially Rory’s friends, they are still a work in progress, but moving a sketch about is easier, then painting it in watercolour after I have gotten the pose is the best way to work.

I have come back to page 12&13 and have decided I don’t like the way it turned out, I am looking into changing the composition, I don’t think i’ll add the house into the spread, I’ll close in on the characters and make their poses stronger and doing some actions, I think? Yes making some of the characters bigger in the foreground would also help with the depth, and adding a pencil line around some of them to make them stand out more would help. I will re-plan that spread back into my projects and hopefully come up with something more dynamic.

I will take a look at Penny from The Amazing World of Gumball.

I am working more on page 26 the final scene, it is one of the spreads I wanted to re-work completely, have a really good dynamic composition. I have sketched out an idea and have done the hand painted layer of the background, which you will see in this project 7. I plan to add some characters, animals, botanicals into the piece to finish the book of well.

I feel I am on track, I have only got one more spread to complete, a few need to be re-worked, but I feel I can move onto the typography/ font and story now, which is the next part of the process. I have also had some ideas for my presentation, and also some thoughts about finishing some of the spreads in slightly different ways. I have definitely got more of a vision for how the book will turn out now, and how it will all come together.