The Final Stretch - Evaluative Blogs #7

After a lot of debating back and forth with tutors, we decided that the orange and blue colour palette didn't work for the Yeti and Loch Ness Monster and so I developed a different palette which kept the same blues to tie them all together. I think this worked well as they all work as a set, but are different enough to stand individually. At this point, the overall designs were approved by Y and I could start putting the final pieces together! This involved preparing the backgrounds on the lightbox, the gradient needed for Mothman took a couple of attempts as my brush upkeep has been a little lacking and the first wash had bristles all over it, and the colours weren't quite right. Below are the samples that I used:

I prefer the samples of textures to the painted backgrounds, I have much more control over the paint when I don't have lines to follow and it definitely shows. I think that there are still problems with the technique I use for painting the big backgrounds as the paper (both the watercolour paper and the printer paper underneath with the lines on) buckles, and the resulting piece doesn't line up correctly with the digital line. It's maybe worth thinking about adopting the same technique I have for the characters wherein I have a flat digital colour with the texture superimposed - rather than watercolouring it outright. Or perhaps the fact that it doesn't line up gives my work some charm?

Anywho, once I'd put all the watercolours in, I realised that the line was too thin and so I utilised a handy little Clip Studio tool which thickens the line for you - easy fix. Also, Mothman's background looked more like a sunset rather than light pollution and so I experimented with layer effects and gradients until I landed with something that resembled my reference photos. Loch Ness and Yeti were okay, the challenge with them would come later when printing as purple often translates into pinker tones. The Devil, on the other hand, needed a little reworking. Y and S both agreed that the bushels in the background weren't believable enough and asked me to return to my references and rework it - this turned out to be easier than I thought. Once the line was sorted, I transferred the image into Photoshop and used a mixture of the stamp and spot healing tools to move the paint around to fit the new lines, it was a successful operation I think. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough foresight to save the unedited versions so you'll have to use your imagination, or refer back to the image at the beginning.

And there we have it, four finished pieces! Now all that's left is to create the supporting statement and submit them for the Batsford Prize! I've learnt a lot from this project. Mainly that you have to push your initial ideas really far to get the most out of them, these pieces have definitely evolved from my concept sketches in the depths of my sketchbook - critical thinking has been crucial in the success of the project. Some times you have to go back to go forwards, and that definitely helped, especially with the Loch Ness and Yeti compositions - they have changed the most throughout this process, and they are better for it.

I appreciate you reading this far,

see you next time,

Mort