The Plan Reflection

The plan for my project was pretty complete, and I stuck to it very closely. It went pretty well, and I'm happy that I went with it. The plan worked very well for me. I had no major difficulties with it, and I didn't have to make any large changes after it was finalized. Overall, I was satisfied with the results. I wouldn't do anything differently if I had to start over.

Skill Development III

To help with my blending, I did a grey scale. This was pretty easy, but I didn't do it very well the first time. The second time went quite a bit better, and I got quite a bit better at blending because of this. I also got to experiment with the different methods of blending, which was quite useful.

Design Reflection

Over the course of this project, its potential design has changed and been refined in many ways. At the beginning of the design stage, I had no idea what I was going to do with the design, only what was required to create the piece as a whole. I went through quite a few design options before reaching the three designs that were refined. None of them were very solid ideas, and I'm happy that I chose the one that I did. The designing itself was pretty difficult because I have very little experience planning and creating art pieces. However, I didn't have too much trouble with it once the ideas started really flowing. The biggest challenges that I had were that I wasn't sure what I wanted to convey for the first bit, but I got an idea eventually. I was most successful in the basic coloring stages. Overall, I think that it went pretty well.

Final Product (Color)

This is the final painting with full color. I'm very excited about the way that it turned out. The coloring was quite a bit harder than I was expecting, specifically the shading/ blending aspect of it. I am proud of the way that it ended up because I didn't expect that I would be able to do this in a semester, even with two full work periods. I'm also proud of it because I didn't rush it, and it looks pretty good for my skill level. I'm also proud of the composition because it took me quite a while to come up with and correct. It wasn't anything like it is at current at its earlier stages, and it's come a long way. I'm pleased with the end result.

Exploration Reflection

Over the course of this project, I explored many areas of potential for this large project. Initially, I was aiming to create both a 3D model and a 2D version of both of the characters that I'd created. However, I quickly realised that completing a reasonably good draft for both of these would be biting off a bit more than I can chew. So, shortly after embarking on this journey, I reduced my goals to just the digital painting aspect. I think that the exploration process was overall quite successful as I learned a lot and applied the skills that I'd learned. I believe that a major area of concern for this project was my skill level because, even though I tried my best, I was unsure if it would be sufficient. I was also nervous about having enough time and choosing a strong composition as I don't work on very many art projects. However, the strengths at this point were that I knew what I was doing, at least on a basic level, and I had a good idea of what I was trying to convey through the piece. Overall, I'm feeling pretty confident with how my exploration phase went.

Peer Feedback

I've shared my ideas for my design with several people, and I've gotten mostly positive feedback. My peers and family have been quite helpful when choosing colors and making compositional decisions. The color decisions were mostly verified by Dana from my 2d graphics class. She also reccomended that I stick with my second design idea along with a few other peers. However, I really thought that that design was rather shallow and didn't have enough meaning, and went with the other one. As it developed, she did support my decison. As a final almost completed piece, my peers seem relatively pleased with it and its development. I myself am very happy with the art, and I'm happy that those who I asked for help gave me such helpful feedback.

Potential Concepts

NOTE: It's probably best to read the initial thoughts/ character background before reading this.

This project started out with many different concepts than the one that it's been narrowed down to at current. At first, the piece was going to embody the friendship between two characters,  Jayme and Noelle. However, I didn't believe that that idea had a strong enough theme. Another concept that the piece went through was also featuring Jayme and Noelle, but this was to represent the beauty of unlikely friendships. This idea wasn't exactly what I wanted either. The next concept for the piece was featuring a solo Jayme, and was to show that you don't have to conform to expectations. I liked this idea quite a lot, but I didn't feel that Jayme was very pressured by the expectations of society, so I came to the final concept. I wanted a piece that represented Noelle and her coflict between being who she is and who she is supposed to be. I wasn't sure how to represent that exactly, but I eventually got to the piece that I wanted after a series of sketches. This marked the creation of the final sketch.