Evaluation & Reflection

Week 1 (3rd-5th Mar)

For my first week, I am now beginning my FCP. Starting with my third and final website of the year, I had been given a checklist of pages that were needed to be included on my new project website from a home page all the way to an evaluation and reflection page. Different from the last two projects, I now have an inspiration page to talk about where I will be getting my ideas from and what has inspired me to produce my FCP outcome. You can visit the inspiration page where I talk about Deanna Crisbacher, a famous speaker that gave us a zoom talk on what to do after college. I also took inspiration from a student that attended this college, Jessica Lamb. I found her work unique and something I would hope to produce by the end of my FCP.

Once my website was created and work had been put onto my inspiration page, I could end the week with my completed FCP proposal to let my tutors and peers know what my theme is and what I aspire to accomplish when the project is finished. To see what I wrote, you can visit my planning and production page where I talk about my love for Marvel and why I have chosen it to be my FCP theme. In preparation for going back to college next week, I have also been asked to create a pitch using PowerPoint as the Wednesday I go back, I will be pitching my FCP in front of my tutor and a camera. I am feeling a little nervous about it but as long as I speak with confidence and talk about my ideas and why I am doing what I am doing, everything should run smoothly and go according to plan. As a first week into my FCP in general, I have enjoyed listening to the talks from guests and overall have a better understanding of what I am hoping to do when I leave college.

Week 2 (10th-12th Mar)

For my second week, I have officially stepped foot back into college. We all haven't seen each other in person since last year so it was a nice little reunion and to be back working together in the same room again. Covid-19 is unfortunately still around so we are wearing masks and keeping our distance. This week however, was a calm and relaxing week for me. I only had to come in for the morning on Wednesday as I was the first to pitch in front of my tutor. The pitch lasted around 15 minutes and I spoke loud and clear. There was nobody there like I thought which is why I felt so nervous to begin with but the fact that it was only me and my tutor brought my nerves down and I said whatever came to mind referring to the PowerPoint I had created the week before. My theme is Marvel and my FCP plan is to create my own superhero as detailed as the pictures I took inspiration from.

For the rest of the week, I started primary research and started sketching in my sketchbook, you can find them on my research page. I drew a lion because he will be part of my FCP outcome. My skills definitely improved on drawing animals, I did use an image to help me but the more I practice, the more I would no longer need to look at images. As for Friday, I woke up not feeling the best so I decided to have the day off. This didn't mean a free day for me though, I still worked and treated the day like a college day, creating more sketches and uploading them to my research page. This was my first day off this year, I would have liked to have started my first year with 100% but when you're ill there isn't anything you can do about it.

Week 3 (17th-19th Mar)

For my third week, I started Wednesday on a more positive note, feeling a lot better than I did on Friday, I came into college ready to learn. We were now onto secondary research, looking up information that was already there to help us with our FCP. At college, I had trouble getting onto my actual wix website so I couldn't really start my secondary research until later in the day when I was home. At college, I took the extra time to finish up on my primary research by drawing more sketches of lions. I believe the internet connection wasn't allowing me onto my website but in case it was the fact that I used a Gmail account and not my college account, I created a new wix website anyway. It didn't take long, in fact I got it all transferred within an hour.

I may be back at college but we are still zoom calling on Thursdays. More secondary research was set for us to complete so I decided to take the time and talk about the background history of Marvel comics, the art style I will be trying to replicate for my FCP superhero and his lion. It's hard to put down in words but the image I have in my head of what they will both look like is really cool. My lion was be white with a blue fire mane and a blue fire tail with blue eyes and my hero will be electric and can fly. I'm excited talking about it now and I just can't wait to start production on them both. I will be working from home as well as college with the software that I have available to me, Photoshop and Illustrator. To end the week, I created my own version of a top trumps card, giving you an insight to my lion's personality and power.

Week 4 (24th-26th Mar)

For my fourth week, I had started by creating a 'FCP Plan'. This is to help me in the future so I know what week I am on and what work is to be expected during that week. I also find it helps me keep up with work and to make sure that I am not falling behind in anything. If I ever do fall behind, I do make sure to catch up before the new week starts. Right now, I am having trouble with my computer at college so any work I do, I am still having to write up at home. Hopefully, this issue is fixed by the time the Easter holiday ends. When the holiday does arrive, I will still make sure to get work done, whether it is practicing my drawing on photoshop or simple doodles in my sketchbook, I will take the time to make sure everything is ready for production.

Sessions on Friday are always fun to me and I learn a lot with the workshops that take place. To end this week, I learned about creating and customising my own font for my FCP. This was carried out in Illustrator which I am still trying to get used to and memorise most of the specific tools I will need to use like the pen tool. I am one of those people that struggled with using this tool but thanks to a website link we were given, I played a game that helped me work with the pen tool and what to do if I needed to make a curve or a straight line. I feel like I need more practice but playing that game was a big help despite how frustrating it was a first to not create a simple shape. To end the week, I experimented with background in photoshop because that it one thing I want to create for my FCP, a background for my superhero and lion.

Week 5 (31st-2nd Apr)

Week 6 (21st-23rd Apr)

For my sixth week, I have started the week beginning production. I have used the knowledge I have gained from past workshops to get the outcome I have gotten today with both my hero and my lion characters. This process is known as 'Character Construction', meaning the process and method I use to put the character together and bring them to life. Photoshop was used more than Illustrator but that is only because I needed Photoshop to receive the outcome I wanted. I am satisfied with the work I have produced today and find it to be a great start into production. Towards the end, I started sketching clothing designs for my hero so that when I continue production tomorrow I will know what I need to do, saving me time and allowing myself to work more with Illustrator rather than Photoshop because Graphic Design uses Illustrator more, it's something I have to start getting familiar with if I am choosing it as my course next year.

I find it a challenge when it comes to drawing clothes onto my characters, making them look realistic with the shading and lighting. I am using google images to help me get my character design as close as the art style from Marvel and make sure that the outfits I choose are not the same but similar to a character's existing attire. By the end of the week, I hope to have a fully clothed character with colour. I will be using a palette method to get the right skin tones when it comes to shading and lighting that will appear on my character for realism because if it doesn't look real to me, it will look strange and that is not the outcome I want for my FCP.

To end the week, I added more to my practical skills page by allowing myself to practice and experiment with creating a poster, making sure that when it comes to putting mine together I include my characters, my background and my title. Today, I learnt that it's useful to have more than one pose for your character. It was pointed out that I used the same pose for every image of my lion and I agreed that my lion maybe didn't look so interesting laying down beside my hero who is standing in a brave pose. I spent the last hours drawing sketches of my lion on how I can make him more heroic, drawing him roaring and standing strong. I need to make sure I'm equally treating my heroes when it comes to presenting them in the poster. I need to make sure that the background is relevant to the story. Obviously, I haven't created a story because I'm doing a poster not an animation but perhaps I could create one in my head like the place that both my heroes live in or perhaps a colour that is the same gradient as my heroes. They're heroes so I need to include bold colours that symbolise heroism. All targets that I can set myself for next week.

Week 7 (28th-30th Apr)

For my seventh week, I started the week by picking up where I left off last week and that was with my hero's costume. I finally managed to complete the attire by adding in the finalised items such as the boots and the belt. I managed to begin colouring in my design, mostly consisting of light and dark blues because that is my hero's associated colour, his name is 'Blue Lightning' after all. I am still working in Photoshop because poster design hasn't begun yet but tomorrow I am hoping to begin work on the background for my characters. It has to be a colour that goes well with blue, perhaps a midnight sky. It has been pointed out to me that I might want to consider my background to be a dark colour as I am now using a glow effect on my Lion to attract the audience to his eyes and flames, really bringing him to life. I'm so glad blending modes has been brought into my FCP because it really does make my work look more fresh and exciting to view. It made me happy when I added the outer glow filter and I personally think I have done the best amount of work since production began and hope to continue that for the rest of the week and the final weeks of production. I'm on a time limit here so it's good to start finalising things, that's why I made a target to-do list that you can find on my production page.

Progressing into the week, I had finally finished using blending modes on my lion which was the 'Outer Glow' effect to really give my lion the final touch of realism that he needs. So far, I have enjoyed working on the production of my lion but I do need to experiment more with certain brushes to really make sure I get his mane correct. I'm setting myself a goal by the end of the week to create my own brush that can give me a realistic texture for my lion as all I've been using so far is the brush tool, the smudge tool and blending modes. Mentioning the smudge tool, I also used that today, I never knew it was a thing until a peer pointed it out to me to make my work look a lot better. My lion's mane consists of light and dark blues so getting to blend them together in a swirl pattern to replicate fire I found helpful but I think I definitely need more experimentation and practice. Now that it is the end of the week, I can now carry out the experimentation like I wanted to and begin analysis on different tools that can help improve my FCP outcome. I managed to work on three tools in Photoshop, the smudge tool, the paint tool and the blur tool. The blur tool was a tool I didn't think I needed until I used it, I think it really highlights the glowing aspect in my lion so long as the background is dark. I was also told to use more brushes so I carried out that process too, making my own brush that I can use as hair and fire for my lion. Everything is going to plan and as the final weeks of production are approaching, it's time to work hard to get the FCP outcome I want.

Week 8 (5th-7th May)

For my eighth week, I have started the week by making sure that all my written work on my production page is up to date along with screenshots as supported evidence that I have done what I say I have been doing. I've always been updating my work as I go along so unlike some of my peers today, I managed to get more production done. Taking a step back and actually reading my targets, I don't really have a lot left to do so finishing production next week like the FCP says is what I am on track for. Today, I have managed to knock off two targets, creating both my logo and my title, leaving me to focus on backgrounds for the rest of the week along with bringing all my photoshop and illustrator files together to create my FCP poster.

Now that we are approaching the final weeks of production, we have taken today to focus of feedback from other peers. Today, I partnered up with one of my peers where we then swapped computers to access and give feedback to each other about our work. The feedback I was given in return was very positive. I had shown a clear understanding when it came to explaining my work and my thought process throughout production has been clearly shown. I have taken this feedback and have responded with trying to include things that my peer suggested. This is either adding further paragraphs for screenshots and neatening up my logo (which I already did as soon as it was mentioned). My last goal to achieve is to create myself a good background that I can combine with my characters, my logo and my title. I am always open to feedback with a peer or tutor, my 121 tracking is another way of feedback as my tutor lets me know what I should be focusing on more. These three weeks of production have flown by and I can't wait for my FCP to be finalised and finished as I am so happy to see what the outcome will be.

To end the week, I have managed to finish creating backgrounds for my FCP, in total there are 3 and out of those 3, I am going to only pick one. I never got around to finishing my background 100% so that's something I can work on during my weekend, either way I am going to try and get everything done before production ends next Friday. To end the lesson today, we focused on employment, learning on creating our own logo that represents us. I created my logo already before this lesson but it didn't stop me from redesigning and including my own personal mark.

Week 9 (12th-14th May)

Week 10 (19th-21st May)

For my tenth week, I have begun the week working on my presentation page for the first time in this project. I included my FCP poster and a quick summary explaining what it is my peers will be looking at when it comes to presenting tomorrow. I am confident that I am going to do well in my presentation. To help me, I included bullet points to help me talk about different subjects as the worst thing that could happen tomorrow would be for me to come unprepared and stuttering. I want the exact opposite of that, making sure I make all points necessary. Just remember, my peers are presenting too so we can all give each other feedback.

Presenting went really well in my opinion, I wasn't in frame for my recording so that is a downfall on my part, my voice can still be heard and my points can still be made, talking about my thoughts throughout the project designs and what gave me inspiration to carry out what I was showing everyone. I feel like I spoke too fast and should have maybe slowed down a little but there was so many things to talk about on my mind, I started stumbling on my words. I received the file from my tutor of the recording and that is now uploaded onto my presentation page if you would like the view it. Today, I am ending the week of presentation by making sure all my work in published and updated, everything has been spell checked and grammar is in the right place. I'm also making sure that all my practical skill workshops are uploaded and everything is ready for evaluation and reflection that will be beginning next week, the final week of this project.

Week 11 - FINAL EVALUATION - (26th-28th May)

For my eleventh and final week, I am ending my FCP with a final evaluation by going all the way back to the beginning. It's crazy to think that the project is ending and that week 11 is finally here, I've enjoyed every second of putting this project together and the help I got along the way from my tutors and my peers. We sure did have a rough start to the year of 2021 and what a better stage we are at now where I can start and finish a project, meeting the deadline and delivering a presentation to all my peers. I couldn't be more proud and confident in myself and how the final result turned out, my skills have improved for next year and I can't wait to see what new projects await me for graphic design later this year in September.

Rewinding back to the beginning of March, I started this project with no idea as to what I wanted my theme to be. At the time, Marvel was releasing weekly episodes of a show they were producing. I've always been a big fan of Marvel in general from the movies to the comics so with my pencil, I decided to start sketching characters in my sketchbook. Sketching superheroes allowed me to open up my mind for ideas, what I wanted to do and what I thought might be a fun concept to create for a project where I am free to create anything. This lead to my genius mind to come up with the idea of designing my own superhero. This has been my idea since the beginning, the intentions I wrote down for my creative design proposal were to create my own hero in the style of a Marvel comic. Throughout my final creative project, I have stuck with that idea and completed the goals I set myself.

Inspiration was found by Deanna Crisbacher, a woman I was very lucky to have a zoom call with about my future and what it's like to work for a company. I checked out her work after the call and I was not disappointed, her art design was the kind of work I wanted to produce. She had created Star Wars characters that were so unique and they all had their own personal touch to them, I wanted to carry out the same process with my very own superhero. The personality means a lot to me when you view an image, the colours used to represent them, their facial expression and the pose that they are put in says a lot about the character and what they stand for. I wanted to give my hero that same connection, bringing him to life with his own story and his own unique look like Crisbacher did with her characters.

When it came down to pitching these ideas, it brought be relief that other peers in my class were taking the superhero route. I never got to watch them pitch but we talked about our ideas to each other and I was really intrigued as to what designs they wanted to go for that were different to mine. I came prepared to my pitch, creating a PowerPoint document that expressed the theme and the final goal I wanted to reach in May. My tutor gave me feedback on what they thought and it inspired me to push myself, this was my final creative project and I wanted to make sure I not only showed off the skills and techniques I had learnt since September but I wanted to express myself in the way that what creating characters meant to me. What also helped my pitch was the proposal and planning form I typed out, giving everyone an insight as to what I wanted to achieve for the result of my final creative project.

Research was an occurring thing in this project from primary research to secondary research. My research consisted of creating sketches that inspired me for my project, I made a few doodles of lions and was able to sketch out the costume for my hero using stock images for ideas. Anything I planned for my project was drawn down into my sketchbook. As for secondary research, there were times in my project where I needed help gathering background material, looking up the history of Marvel comics including anything that I took inspiration from that went towards my final project outcome. In terms of my research fitting in with my proposal, I did refer to my proposal to know what kind of sketches I was looking to create. To begin with, I wasn't sure if I wanted to design an animal because drawing animals aren't really my strong point but what really helped was video tutorials on drawing lions and making sure you have drawn the right size face and facial features. I found research to be a big help towards my final creative project outcome.

Like the last two projects, I created a plan/gantt chart to help me keep track of what week I am on and what topic I should be focusing on for that week. For this project, I planned for 10 weeks not knowing that it was actually 11 due to there being an extra week for production, but thankfully there was because I was falling a little behind and I think that one more week for production helped me get the right poster design outcome I had hoped for. Next time, I will still make sure to create a plan for myself but instead I would go into further detail about what needs to be done of a specific week and what I can do to help me get the outcome I need, stating the tools and software that is being used and why.

Making decisions wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be during my final creative project. There were moments of confusion as I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my superhero to begin with but once I carried out research, I found the process to be more downhill and I felt confident that whatever I produced was going to be good enough, at least in my eyes. When it came down to deciding what to create between a moodboard, a script and a storyboard, it was fairly simple that my only choice was a moodboard as my final creative project was a poster. Whenever I create a moodboard, I always have fun because I'm allowing myself to express my ideas and get them all out of my head and onto one board all together. A moodboard can also be a great help for someone that doesn't really know what your idea is, hopefully, your moodboard would shed some insight on what goals you are trying to accomplish. I kept mine very simple and I didn't have to explain my idea as everyone understood my intentions from my board.

Skill-wise, I believe this project has really made me put my skills I had learnt to good use. Working between Illustrator and Photoshop, I managed to pick up on all different kinds of techniques for tools I needed. The paint tool was used the most in this project but I self-taught myself on how to work the smudge tool to blend my colours together. No matter how much I practice, the pen tool will always be my downfall so that skill was the hardest for me to learn and perhaps something I can work on moving forward into further projects that involve line art. From the workshops given by my tutor, I learnt skills for future projects on how to use space and balance when creating a logo and a title, something I included into my final poster design too. Throughout this project, I've allowed myself to show of some on my graphic design skills as that is what I will be moving forward with in September. I've known from the start that graphic design was what I wanted to go into so getting to create a project on those skills alone makes me feel proud of the outcome I produced.

Presenting my project to my tutor and peers made me feel quite nervous to begin with as I tend to be a very shy and quiet person, leading to talking in front of everything not being a strong area for me. I decided to tackle this situation from a different view, to be confident and to not worry about anything. I was not the only one presenting, we all were. I prepared notes to help me, it allowed me to elaborate on how I felt about designing my poster. Feedback was taken in as I watched my recorded presentation, it was a mix of praises and helpful suggestions for the future. Feedback is important to me, it's the reason as to why I challenge myself because I'm following feedback from past projects and including something into this project that I didn't use in the last. I know for a fact that this project has gotten me more comfortable using Illustrator because that is the software that graphic design tends to use more than Photoshop so this project allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone a little and experiment with new ways to design my work.

Feedback after presenting, I received praises on the colour choice I went for and areas like the design for my lion and the background I made for both him and my hero. Feedback gave me a list of things to consider moving on into graphic design in terms of spacing with the title and the text. I know from feedback that my presentation was a success overall because they understood what I was showing them and they wanted to know more relating to my characters backstory, something I failed to consider as I got so busy with design. Feedback is useful to me because it helps me understand my target audience, Marvel is mostly aimed at children and teens. Personally, I feel that age doesn't matter for something meant for children as I showed my poster to my family who seemed to enjoy it and they were a more mature audience. My peers and I are teenagers so we tend to enjoy kids things a lot more and because of this, I feel like I'm more able to present to my peers because no only did I enjoy presenting something I'm passionate about but even they enjoyed viewing the work I was showing them, I know this from the feedback and praises I got in return.

Confidence is something that I have always struggled with ever since I started to develop my own personality and fondness for things. I consider myself to be anti-social when it comes to talking to new people and making new friends, this leads to me being extremely quiet in groups of people with bigger personalities than me. I feel like my time at college has helped me grow more confident and as each project ends with a presentation, I now enjoy standing in front of everyone and sharing my ideas as to what I have created because that's my way of expressing myself and showing everyone something I like and what I enjoy talking about. I've also gained inside confidence for my work too when it comes to using different tools and techniques. Practical skills really help with that as I learnt new things from the workshops I followed, because of practical skills in this project, I learnt how to use the space in poster design and what to do when creating a logo for yourself and making sure that it's personal to you. My logo turned out really well and the colours were designed to be changed for every poster I use moving on into the future.

Throughout my entire project, my favourite part was surprisingly working on Illustrator. This is a surprise to me because I'm normally more of a lover for Photoshop but this project has really gave me insight on all the tools that can be used in Illustrator and what kind of blending modes I could work with for my designs. My favourite part on Illustrator was merging all my files together to receive the outcome of my poster because until that moment, I didn't know if everything was going to work well with each other and if the colours were going to clash or blend together nicely. Fortunately, they did and everything turned out the way I wanted it to. I did make adjustments to the character proportions and give them something to stand on so it didn't look like they were floating in the middle of the sky. Something that I wasn't fond of in this project was facial features for my hero, I talked about this before on how I struggle with faces and expressions so that is something to learn in the future. I can practice drawing more and study further into life drawings to make sure I capture everything correctly from the perspective I want. I was told to never put my sketchbook away.

Going back to my final creative project outcome, in terms of changing anything or adding something that I never got a chance to during the weeks of production, I never realised until I was presenting that my lion was actually cut off from the top. This happened because in Illustrator I ran out of space for the lion's fire to go up any further, therefore I couldn't add anymore. There are plenty of ways I could solve this problem, one being the crop tool so that I can duplicate the fire, another being the smudge tool how I could easily blend together the colours of the fire and the background so that at least the fire doesn't appear so cut off and separated. I want to let you know that I have acknowledged this problem and am going to talk about what I could have done instead of going back and changing the lion. I can also bring down the size of my lion in Illustrator and go back and add the remaining fire aspects myself to complete my design, all things to consider for future projects as I've currently run out of time to do that now. I would also go back and work on my title a little bit more, making sure the spacing between the text lined up nicely with each other. There was a workshop on spacing between a title so I'm curious as to why I decided to not include it into my final creative outcome. I've learnt from my mistakes so I will do better in future projects for graphic design.

Coming towards the end of my final evaluation, I want to discuss my feelings on evaluation and reflection in general for this project. I made sure to always update my evaluation and reflection daily after work had been finished or paused until the next time I wanted to pick it up. Evaluation and reflection carries a major importance in my projects because I'm giving you a more in-depth explanation on my work and what my thought process was throughout a certain week. By making sure I had updated my evaluation and reflection, I had more time to focus on production, meaning I would be more up to date with my plan and days of the week I wanted to design my characters. It's important to me because when I read back through the weeks, I can reflect and compare my starting point to my finishing point. I'll know how far I've come with my work and ideas, showing my struggles for a specific week and setting myself a target for what I can do to improve on my skills and make my work look that tiny bit better for the final project outcome.

Overall, as a result I feel like my final creative project has been incredibly effective. Not only for myself but also for my learning and the skills and techniques I found and worked on along the way. Beginning in March, I wasn't sure if the outcome of my final creative project was going to be good but I gave myself motivation, I researched my topics and I worked really hard putting everything together for my poster. This project has given me a better understanding on creative design and I have made a lot of good memories as well as a lot of new lessons when it comes to developing projects and using softwares like Illustrator and Photoshop. I feel more equipped to study and train for the future so that when I look back on this project, my work will look 100x better. Practice makes perfect and if you don't put in the effort, expect to not get the result you are looking for. I'm pleased with my project as a whole and it was everything I wanted it to be.

For my fifth week, I worked from home, Wednesday and Thursday. It was only a two day week because we are now breaking up for the Easter holiday. Not a lot happened in this week work wise, I experimented with tools and practised with the pen and pencil tool using Illustrator. I do think I have gotten a lot better but I'm taking the holiday to develop my skills further to make sure that I am prepared to start production when I come back. I'll be making sure I know what I'm doing on each day for the production weeks using my FCP plan, including my background and my two characters. I've also had a lot of help from my friends in a higher course who are giving me tips on drawing characters and to really make sure I capture the light and shadow and to include as much detail as I can. I'm excited to see the result.

For my ninth week, it has been announced that this week is in fact the final week in production. This week is going to be the week where I'll get to perfect my work and finalise everything for my FCP poster. I'm not getting graded on just my FCP but my writing too, meaning that I am having to always keep on top of my written work with any images I upload to my website. I took today to catch up on my writing and finalised my characters so that they are ready to be transferred into Illustrator from Photoshop. I'm happy that my lion finally has a realistic fire mane and my hero's facial features have come along nicely considering that I was struggling to begin with, facial features are my least favourite thing to do when creating characters.

To end the week and finish production, I have managed to put everything all onto one illustrator file to really bring my poster to life. I'm also starting to think about creating a showreel for all my recent projects I have been working on. Showreels are made using after effects so that is something I can work more on after the project ends. I can show off all my work and projects I created since starting college in September. I managed to complete all my targets set for production and my tracking sheet is all marked green, letting me know that the work I have done is enough and satisfactory in my tutors eyes. I'm proud of the work I've created this project, I've stuck to the plan and cannot wait to see what Graphic Design has to offer.