Practice & Research - Research 1.2: Working Processes

While I was completing Research 1.1, my analysis naturally diverged into exploring aspects of the artists' working processes, so this learning log entry will be more brief than I had originally planned. However, there are some aspects which my research uncovered that helped me to see 'under the hood' for some of the approaches. I have included these below with commentary where relevant.

Heather Vaughan

It's interesting to see how the images show the evolution of the design as it went through the commissioning process. I can almost imagine the conversations and feedback with the client that led to each of the tweaks and changes.

Brett Parsons

I was able to source some behind-the-scenes videos of Brett working. What amazes me is just how quickly he works, and how his looser style facilitates this.

He tends to do his drawing digitally, and then prints this out to ink with brush and pen.

I had a psd file of one of his pages, so I looked at it to understand how he constructs one of his comic pages.

He seems to separate his planes and makes a lot of use of masking layers to adjust colours, rather than using a flatting layer to facilitate area selections.

His light and shadows are relatively simple, and a lot of the final images are relatively flat. I have included a sequence of images below based on the psd's layers, which gives a sense of how the page goes from his digital 'pencils' to the finished article.

It's interesting to see that he plans out the words first, which makes sense as it allows for early problem-solving and knowing where he can afford to have less visual detail.

This image is a doodle he coloured with watercolour. It's not his usual medium, yet I found it compelling to see how his visual style and language are consistent. It also made me feel more comfortable with the fact that I like the feel of watercolour. He's still been able to achieve quite a saturated feel and marry it all with his distinctive loose drawing approach, varied line weight and overall humour.

Johan Egerkrans