EOYS
Art Book Development
In preparation for this year’s major project, I visited last year’s exhibition to gather ideas and understand what was expected in the final year. This was useful as it gave me an insight into what to expect and what I needed to achieve.
I took some business cards home and also took some photos of the exhibitions.
I really liked the dark backgrounds in the two photos above, and decided that I would use a dark background too. Particularly in the artbook, poster and business cards as the images would stand out against the background.
Content
I thought about the content of the book. (See above) I wanted the content to flow through the characters, their development and on to the environments and the artwork. As I am dyslexic, I wanted the images to speak for themselves, with minimal written content. I shared these ideas with Abbi to see if she was happy with the flow of the book.
With the content decided, I used Adobe InDesign to set up the book. We started with the cover of the book. I was to design the front cover, and Abbi was doing the back cover.
Front Cover (above)
Back Cover (above)
Content Page
Next, we did the content page. That way, I could check back and make sure we had covered all the aspects of the book that I wanted to include.
Early Concepts
The first few pages of the book were to show early concept sketches for the main characters. We decided to make these pages white because this displayed the concepts the best, as they were hand-sketched in a darker colour.
We placed several examples of each illustration on each page and balanced the negative space around each element, aiming to achieve a clear and informative display of each process.
Early Concepts Continued
We also included a few coloured early concept pages to show how the characters had developed throughout the process.
The illustrations were arranged in colour on a dark background. We also arranged them in different sizes, orientations and made sure some images bled off the page to add interest to the book.
Final Images
Final Drawing of Elizabeth
Final Drawing of Simon
Final drawing of Kitty Cat Edwards
Storyboards
Next in our book, we showed how the story evolved by including images of our storyboards. These images show the development of our narrative structure.
Animation
After the storyboards, we wanted to show how the animation process is edited. We took screen grabs of some of the animation scenes, which you can see below.
Above you can see the development of Kitty Cat Edwards.
Here you can see the process of animating Elizabeth. Starting with the sketch layer, moving on to the line art layer. Finally, progressing to fills, shadows and highlights.
Backgrounds
As we were running out of time, we decided to outsource the backgrounds.
Assets
The assets for the short animation were drawn by Abbi. Abbi drew furniture and decor that would be in keeping with the Georgian era.
Scene Set up
There are two main scene environments in the animation short. The first is the bedroom, and the second is underwater. I took screen grabs from some of the animation and also used some of my illustration ideas for postcards and the poster, and arranged the images either 2 or 3 to a page. A main scene to fill the entire page with two or three smaller images inserted on top of them to add a little interest and to show different scenes without taking up a lot of pages.
Synopsis
We finished the end of the art book with a short synopsis of the storyline.
Poster
I always had a clear idea of how I wanted the poster to look. As I’ve already mentioned, I wanted a dark background and wanted all the printed material to reflect a similar theme. I wanted it to be attractive, to have the branding from my project and to communicate my skills as an animator and illustrator.
I drew the main character, Elizabeth, in Procreate for the poster. I knew the dimensions of the poster were to be 100cm X 150cm, so I was able to set up a canvas in Procreate with the right DPI that could be scaled up to be printed out. The final image was imported into Adobe InDesign and set up with bleed so that it could be sent to the printers to print out.
I wanted the poster to be simple yet dramatic, without too much clutter. I included simple background that was dark but dappled to reflect being underwater. This background was also used for my Art Book. Elizabeth was positioned in a prominent place at the front of the poster.
We did play around with a few fonts before we decided on the final one for the poster. We also looked at a few colours.
I quite liked this version. I liked the simplicity of the font with the mix of upper and lower-case letters. I thought this design while simple, elegant and professional.
This was another version that was designed. We looked at some Gothic fonts as the storyline lent itself to the Gothic genre. We also changed this font to pink to match the colours in Elizabeth’s hair. However, we didn’t like this version.
Our third iteration of the poster was a different Gothic type font for the words Bitter Sweet, keeping the font all white. Again, we just didn’t like the overall aesthetic.
The above iteration is our final version of the poster that we were both happy with. The font we decided upon was called Lumenharrma.
Business Cards
Like the poster, I always had a clear idea of how I wanted my business cards to look. I always had intended to use the image on the front of the artbook for my business card.
Again, as I said in writing about the poster, I wanted it to be attractive, to have the branding from my project and to communicate skills as an animator and illustrator and obviously, my contact details.
The front and back designs were carefully thought out to serve complementary functions – one for branding and artistic impression, the other for direct contact and accessibility
The icons for my contact details – ArtStation, YouTube and Instagram had to be redrawn using Illustrator by tracing over a downloaded JPEG of each logo.
Then Adobe InDesign was used to compile all the elements together in software that is suitable for Digital Printing. I sourced a template that stated the dimensions should be 85mm x 55mm with 3mm bleed all round. The bleed allows the cards to be cut to the exact size without any white showing around the edges.
The front side of the card (above) serves a more functional role. It has a clean layout with clearly labelled contact icons: email, Instagram, ArtStation, and YouTube.
Each icon is visually distinct and aligned with its corresponding information, ensuring quick recognition.
The use of the dark background maintains consistency with the rest of the project and also enhances legibility.
I chose a bold, modern typography to emphasise my name “CHLOE SNOWDEN,”
The words “Animator & Illustrator” were spaced out in a minimalist, sans-serif font. I think that communicates professionalism and is also clear.
I added a QR code in the top-right corner. This allows viewers to instantly access my online portfolio and links without needing to manually type addresses.
The placement, which is in line with my name and title, ensures it doesn’t clutter the layout while remaining easily scannable.
The back side of the card, (above) has my illustration of Elizabeth. Overall, I wanted the card to strike a balance between artistic flair and professional presentation.
CV
For my CV, I wanted to build upon last year’s CV, which is above. I had decided to finish my degree this year instead of doing a placement year. Therefore, there wasn’t too much to add to the CV.
I decided to read over the one from last year and make some amendments.
For my new CV, I changed some of my contact details. I set up a new email address as I will no longer have a UU email account after the summer. I wanted a separate email from my personal email for potential work opportunities, so I used Gmail to make a new email address.
I also added details to contact me on ArtStation and YouTube as well as Instagram.
I then decided to add a little more detail to the ‘Education’ sections of the CV.
I also realised that I had entered the dates I was in school incorrectly, so I needed to fix those to the correct year, which was 2014, not 2012.
At this stage, I hadn’t completed my show reel, so I took the link out of it with the intention of putting it back into the CV when the show reel was completed.
I wanted the CV to be reflective of the colours and style of my major project, so I decided to remove the pink strip and replace it with the same background that I used in my poster. It is also the background that I used in my art book.
Once my show reel was complete and uploaded to YouTube, I inserted the link into the CV.
Prints
Showreel
I used AdobePremiere Pro and After Effects to make the showreel. I re-edited the start of my showreel from last year and changed the dates. I then imported all the images into Adobe Premiere Pro. I wanted to include some of my sketches, so I scanned in some hand drawn sketches and included them. I also included some of my digital drawings. I usually screen record my sketches. This allowed me to visually show the process. As these were in portrait and not landscape, I used 2 layers in Premiere. The first layer I enlarged the image and added a 20% Gaussian Blur. The I positioned the 100% scale video on the top layer. This way, the entire screen was filled and there was no black lines along either side of the images. I used Epidemic Sound for the music and downloaded a theme that I liked.
Portfolio
Character art for the cartoon network theme
