Conclusion of module

I have found this module to be one of the most interesting, yet challenging modules that I have worked on so far in my academic studies.
Unlike a lot of the previous modules, this newest one has allowed me to have the most amount of freedom to date, and I feel as if this module has a allowed me to explore, and has enabled me to keep my focus, and to produce higher quality work, due to the subject I am undergoing being a passionate topic of mine.

I decided quickly after beginning the module, to base my module around the creation of a wildlife zine, focusing on British wildlife, and I produced a detailed learning agreement on the topic, highlighting information and criteria.

My completed zine contains 20 pages, and contains at least one illustration for each per page, with some animals having two pages featured.
I began the development of my zine by researching a large amount of animals, which enabled me to gain a good understanding of them, helping me more accurately portray them on paper.
Once I had assembled a sufficient amount of research, I created many different illustrations, and this module has been one of the largest for me since the first in my opinion.

I don't feel as if I have illustrated so much for a module, since the very first one in 2013.
I feel as if I have made leaps and bounds in terms of progress, and I will provide some examples of my work below.

The pieces featured above contain just a handful, of the many drawings that I have worked on for the module, and not all of them are found in the finished zine.

Of course I have done so much more over the project than illustrating. I have produced an extensive wealth of research into all aspects of the creation of a zine, the animals featured, illustrative processes, other artists work, and also time management.

Just a few of the around 100 blog posts making up the bulk of the module's work.

I feel as if all of the research I have done has been very beneficial to my module, and has allowed me to gain a deeper understanding into the work required in the production of a zine.

Despite my many successes in the module, a few things about the way in which I have planned out the module has disappointed me however,
For example, when I began the drafting and research into the production of my zine, I made up a time plan, which went on a week by week basis.
My time plan can be seen below in full, and it can also be found on my learning agreement that I produced much earlier on in the project.

When making my time plan, I underestimated the workload that would be required to create the zine, and I spent far longer than anticipated producing illustrations, most of which ended up not being used, as I never felt that they were good enough. I took so long trying to perfect each drawing, that I ran behind schedule, which made me realise that it would be unlikely for me to produce a fully printed copy of the zine, in time for academic hand in.
This being said however, I will have enough time between hand in, and the market stall in London, for me to produce hard copies of the zine to sell.

All in all, I think that this module has been my favourite to date, and I love the current level of creative freedom that I have, with the ability to make my own brief, and also the ability to tailor my practise around my interests, I feel as if this negotiated module prepares me well for the major and minor modules next term.












Thomas.

Completion of the Zine!

It has taken months worth of work, countless hours of research, development, and assembly, and I am really happy to say that all of the pages, including the cover of the zine, is finally complete.
The zine contains 20 pages, and features a wide range of different animals and species. I will post all of the pages below in order from 1-20.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13

Page 14

Page 15

Page 16

Page 17

Page 18

Page 19

Page 20

Below are the front, and rear covers respectively also to go with the pages of the zine.

I will be printing the zine ready for transportation to the London market in May, however like I said in an earlier update, I won't have time to print the zine in tie for academic hand in.

I will print the final zine in-between handing, and the London trip/festival of illustration, and I will sell it at each location.

In order to provide an easy visual representation of my zine for academic hand in, I have created an actual size mock zine.
This zine features all of the pages, including the front and rear cover, and is in colour so one can get a good idea of what the final will appear as. it uses the same paper grade and colour tones, the staple bound spine. The only difference is the mock zine has separate pages adhered onto the paper using blue tack.

Thomas.

Page #3 (Fallow Deer)

For page #3 of my zine, I wanted to base the page around the theme of the Fallow Deer.
The Fallow Deer is a beautiful animal, and is a species that is almost a symbol of the country, with its association with wealth and ownership tied into our culture.

Raby Castle's parkland features a large Deer herd, and the Deer found currently at the park are decedents of the original Deer purchased by a past member of the family.
The Deer are used for food, and as biological lawnmowers, keeping the grass to a short length.

http://archies.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Fallow-Deer-3.jpg < image reference at this link.

I created a few illustrations of the animal (below), however I had some trouble deciding which images to use.

Like with the construction of pages 1 and 2, I will be using Adobe Photoshop to assemble the page, and I will be creating each page separately, in order to rearrange pages if needed, and to allow me to focus on one page at a time.
All my pages are in an a5 size, however I will be printing onto sheets of A4, which will allow up to 4 pages to be displayed on one double sided sheet.
This method allows for the production of my zine to be very cost effective.

I began the construction of the third page, by scanning my illustrations into photoshop.
Once these were scanned in, I enhanced the colour as the high quality scanner tends to wash out some level of colour and tone in the images that it takes in. I accidentally made the file appear grayscale, and as I went to change it back, I hesitated, as I actually looked at it and paused while I thought about which colour scheme complimented it most.
After a little while of thinking, I decided to keep it greyscale.

I then moved the two images around on the canvas, and made them fit alongside each other, and work together.
Since the Deer will only have 1 page featured, I had to make the careful decision of which illustrations I would use, as I didn't want the page to be too cramped, especially as text was another thing that would need to be taken into consideration.

Once I was happy with the placement of the illustrations, I started to think about the folklore of the Deer, and came across quite a bit of information.

http://www.druidry.org/library/animals/stags-and-deer < image reference at this link.

image reference at this link > google.com

The Deer is one particular animal that has a lot of mythology, and folklore surrounding it, however Deer are split into different types, with red, roe, and fallow being just a few.

A lot of Deer folklore is spread between these variations, most notably the red deer, as I came across a lot of folklore revolving around this particular type of deer.

http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythology-folklore/deer/ < image reference at this link.

Also, a lot of the folklore that I came across was Native American, or from a county other than the UK, and so it was very very hard to come across any British Fallow Deer folklore.
It was for this reason, that I decided to pursue basing text off the animal's traits and characteristics, like I have done for a few of my other featured animals in my zine.

I assembled a small brainstorm, and thought abut what traits sum up this particular species of Deer. This brainstorm can be seen below.

All types of Deer are shy creatures, and they will regularly run away on approach. They are quite secretive animals, and they have been used as a source of food, and material for 1000's of years.

I feel that the Deer has a strong connection to strength, power, royalty and wealth, and I feel this way primarily due to the fact that this is the type of animal usually found on country land, and estates.
Fallow Deer can be found in a large herd in Raby Castle for example, and perhaps this would be a great base to come up with a worded summery of the species, reflecting on their grouping, and strength because of it.

http://www.completelygonenomad.com/wp-content/uploads/DSC_3603o.jpg < image reference at this link.

In the end, I decided to come up with the term, "Strength in numbers", and I thought that this message best represented the animal in a short, rememberable summary.

In the end I was very happy with the outcome of the developed page, and I was excited to see the final page to be featured alongside my other pages.











Thomas.