Study Task 5 - Create your brand

My Brand:

• I needed to make a portfolio website, a business card and a creative cv that had continuity.
• To start with i picked an illustration i thought was successful as the centre piece for the business card. I then took colours from that piece to direct the colour scheme I cold use across all the materials.
• The front of the business card an example of my painting style so I wanted the back to be more playful and simpler to imply a range of style. 
• I wanted to keep the green so I tried it as the background for both the creative cv and the portfolio website 
• For my icon, I used a picture of myself with no filters or editing on it but it has nice lighting. I used this on my website, on my creative cv, my linked in and artstation. Keeping it consistent is important. 
• I hated the way I used the green- it was tacky and unpleasant to look at. The business card was too busy, the CV was not focused on the content but distracted by the colour and the website needs to be more neutral as I use a lot of different colour palettes in the work it showcases. 

• After feedback, I finalised my materials.
• The green is still there but as an accent (mostly used as the font colour) 
• I made a tile pattern for the background of a page on the website using some of my drawings - this adds a personal touch
• I de-clunked the portfolio website to make it easier to use and have more appeal (adding sections, changing the fonts, etc)
• I’m happy with how these turned out and think they look like a set. 

Website:

CV + Business Card

Links to Socials: 

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/laura.westleyart?igshid=ipp1sshdslal 
• LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/laura-westley-2996501a3 
• Artstation: https://laurawestley.artstation.com/ 
• Portfolio: https://laurawestleyart.wixsite.com/website 

Study Task 4 - Exit strategy

 Before Graduation 

• Complete all outstanding university work 
• Insure work is aware of when and how much my hours will be upping
• Sign on for new house tenancy 
• Rebudget according to adjusted income, rent, expenses, etc Only considering my waitressing job- freelancing is unprecedented territory for me so I need to be prepared without depending on any part of that potential income
• Update digital portfolio 
• Make sure my art social media platforms are up and running

Post-Graduation (12-18 months) 

• Engage with the Dungeons and Dragon community through those identified channels (reddit, discord, etc)
• When specifics about the upcoming gallery show become clear, start producing work for it. Depending on circumstances, it might become a zine issue instead. 
• Track finances carefully 
• 6 months in, assess the situation and adjust. 
• If I am not starting to establish myself, consider taking online courses in illustration which might help with networking and guiding my portfolio etc. Central Saint Martins have a short-course that would be useful or using a service like SkillShare might work depending on what my short comings are at the time.  https://www.arts.ac.uk/subjects/illustration/short-courses/illustration-other/introduction-to-illustration-online-short-course-csm + https://www.skillshare.com/ 
• Silent Book Contest 2022

Here’s a timeline of major milestones I’ll hit over 12 months: 

Study Task 3- Network

 Complete full profile: http://linkedin.com/in/laura-westley-2996501a3 

Contacts I attempted to make:

• Claire Hummel - freelance concept artist 
• Sandra Duchiewicz - freelance concept artist 
• Vin Hill - Ubisoft Montreal concept artist 
• Matthew Swallow - recruiter for Nestle’s future talent 
• Finnian MacManus  Creative director 
• Ryan Didcote - game developer and concept artist 
• Charlotte Lawrence - Flix Interactive concept artist 
• James Binns - Bradford based concept artist 
• Alice Harper - background artist 
• Llaina Lowe - 2d animator and storyboard artist 
• Holly Warburton - 2D animator and illustrator 
• Michal Bedkowski - Illustrator and concept artist 
• Phoebe Shore - 2D animator 

Matthew Swallow reached out to me unprompted to talk about a potential opportunity. I haven’t yet replied but it’s a lead and I plan to ask them about the specifics behind this job. I think it won’t be suitable for me so I will make sure to push my actual strengths and specialism in case something else comes up in the future. 

Networking opportunities:  

• Gallery show at the end of summer - I’ve been invited to join in with a gallery that will be organised by some fellow graduates. It will be open to the public and have a lot of people contributing. 
• The London Illustration Fair 
• ‘Townscapes - Morning Drawing Workshop’ - with Caroline Rilatt 
• The Life Drawing Society at Assembly House should hopefully be back on over summer (I went for 4 months over lockdown when it was allowed)
• Saint Martins illustration short course 
• Aesthetica Film Festival 
• ‘Drink and Draw’ at Bowery Visual Arts 

Ask for advice 

• I emailed Claire Hummel to ask for advice after I tried to connect through LikedIn
• I have not received a response which is totally expected but I may email Sandra Duchiewicz in the future as she as some active articles where she replies to students
• It feels awkward to reach out to ‘real’ artists so this excessive has helped demystify that

Study Task 2 - Scan the horizon

 Where Would I Like To Work?

• Optimistically, I would like to continue working part-time as a waitress short term. When it is financially viable, I would like to live entirely off the income I make as an artist. I think I would like to work for myself so freelancing is ideal. One day, later in my career when I have a lot more experience, I would also love to be employed as an in-house concept artist for companies like Valve (a gaming company) or Hasbro (who own the ‘Magic: The Gathering card game’).  I would consider that a major career goal. 
• However, I intend to start small and would be very happy to keep working part time waitress and part time artist for a couple of years. 

Dream Role

• To be a concept artist for movies or games. 
• A good starting place for seeking out opportunities in games is to look at a directory of game development companies that are currently active. The list updates every week and you can limit the list to certain countries or even cities. https://gamedevmap.com/index.php?country=England&state=&city=&query=&type= 
• Sandra Duchiewicz is a concept artist whose career I admire- She has worked for major companies like Hasbro, Adobe, Games Workshop and Unit Motion Design. The articles she has published online breaking down important things about the concept industry have really helped with my understanding of this role: https://www.artstation.com/telthona/blog/1rWz/how-to-get-hired-as-a-concept-artist
• The salary in the uk ranges from about £17,000 to £20,000 at entry level. It is rare to get into this field without prior experience (hence why I will freelance in illustration to build those skills). https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/concept-artist
• Growth Opportunities - Next year, I will enter the Silent Book Contest again. It is a good brief for making narrative based work and I think I could use it to demonstrate environment concepts and experiment in making a cohesive stylised body of work. (https://silentbookcontest.com/). My current housemates are, in majority, artists and they are planning to organise a gallery show at the end of summer. They have invited me to take part which will be a good opportunity to show some of my work to the public (hopefully leading to traction on my social platforms and website). 

Who Do I Know? - Industry Connections

• Through LinkedIn, I have managed to make a handful of significant connections. One is Alice Harper, a freelance animator who’s made impressive moves making background art for international studios. She’s a good friend who hopes to start her own studio some day and has offered me work before. As a previous student at Falmouth, she has connections to the other end of country. 
• In my last project, I made concept art as a commission for a Dungeons and Dragons game. The market for this has recently become a lot bigger because of the restrictions of Covid-19 forcing gameplay to become online through skype/discord/etc. Short-term commissions that ask for a prop like a weapon to be designed are great for bulking up my portfolio. There are plenty of reddit threads and discord severs i can promote my work on to try and draw in commissions.  

Networking 

• Another connection i made through LinkedIn is the aforementioned Sandra Duchiewicz who often interacts with people on there. 
• I did also make connection with Claire Hummel, another incredibly impressive concept artist. I sent her an email asking for tips but, unfortunately, she has not replied yet. 

Moving on from LAU

• I am staying in leeds and so are a lot of my friends.
• I will keep working part time as a waitress, upping my hours a little. I hope to keep 3 or 4 days off to dedicate to art (and free time). I need to maintain a healthy work/life balance. 
• The specifics are subject to change depending on if I need more money at the time or when deadlines are approaching, etc. Thankfully, my work is flexible and I was hired under the understanding of only working weekends so anything more than that, even after graduation, is up for discussion. 

Study Task 1 - Review your presence

My Practice 

• Specialty: Illustration and concept art
• Digital painting illustrations for the visual development of projects (potentially involving film or games in the future).
• I want to focus on developing my painting skills. I have dedicated this year to strengthening my portfolio, gearing all my briefs towards my chosen speciality practice since Christmas. I might branch back into animation in the future but, right now, still image is what I know I want to pursue. 
• It interests me because its where my artistic strengths lie and I have found it more rewarding than when I have completed animated shorts. I enjoy the process more and know that the end product is finished to a higher standard than I have been able to achieve through animation. I love to paint and spend time on the details of a piece too. I’m more excited about the prospects of this career path. 
• I will make my work through the use of my iPad and procreate - this is cost effective as it’s cheaper than to maintain the adobe subscriptions I have. I am also super comfortable with this equipment after spending the last year practicing. 

Skills

• Academic: writing (formal and informal), public speaking and presentation, critical thinking, reflective practice. 
• Practical: a good visual library to draw reference from, artistic skills such as: deciphering shadows, lights and highlights, sense of form, composition. 
• Technical:softwares (Procreate, premiere pro, photoshop), budgeting, 2D animation.
• Throughout uni, I have been a multi-disciplinary artist but I have honed in on the type of work I hope to create in the future. 

Plans

• After graduation, I’m staying in Leeds for at least a year.  
• I have been working part time as a waitress -To continue to support myself, I will be upping my hours a little. 
• I will keep my hours reasonable though as I try to establish myself as a freelancer. I will attempt to build up a clientele and use these commission opportunities to bulk up my portfolio. 

Online Presence

• I need to completely revise my approach to social media. 
• I want to separate my work accounts from my personal - the name ‘Laura Durham’ already belongs to two writers so googling it leads to their websites and I don’t like the idea of work connections I don’t know seeing personal things. I will use a pseudonym to fix both of those problems. ‘Laura Westley’ will work fine. 
• Best platforms for promoting artwork and create industry connections seem to be linkedin, instagram and maybe twitter. 
• All social media should link back to a portfolio website that archives all significant work and has a contact page. 
• I should make it professional and keep a continuity between platform. I think I could use some to show sketches and unfinished pieces while others should be to show more refined pieces. 

SBC 5

• I fixed the kiss - the torso of the ghost needed to be more visibly and he hands should be up and together. It makes sense narratively and looks more natural.  
• Throughout the development of this book, I generally stuck to the thumbnails; this helped me stay organised as I had a set time for a page to be complete. The first spread is the only one that changed dramatically. I need up using the new page for the cover (with altered colours) because I liked it would wrap around the book, splitting the ghost and girl apart. 
• I’m really dissatisfied with the text for the cover and would change that dramatically or simply not include any text at all. 
• Unfortunately, when I went to submit this project to the competition, the price for submission was revealed. The price had not been revealed prior to the submission tab being made available. It was too expensive for me to afford this year but I definitely will take this competition up again next year. I think this project challenged me to work quickly at a consistent standard. It has also challenged my organisation skill as I set out a fixed deadline for each stage of each page and had to adapt when there were hold ups or revisions needed. I also think it allowed me to experiment. I have come away from this feeling more confident as an artist and happy with the end result.  
• I intend to print off som physical copies to sell as zines after the deadline. I may also single pages off to open zine submissions I’ve found online. 

(Frontispiece and dedication page)

SBC 4

•  I redrew the layout for the kiss page. I think that the kiss sprawling out over both sides will be an effective use of space but I still think that something about it looks off. At this angle, the ghost looks a bit awkward and should be tilted more. To rectify this, I will tilt the mirror instead so that the flow of the page is still the same. I will also add hair and wafting smoke to make it feel more dynamic and fill up the blank bits to the left. It is the climax of the story so should feel dramatic.
• Another page I have continually reworked is the bath tub scene. The silhouette of the ghost behind the curtain comes off too creepy. It should be eerie but not intimidating. To change this I went for a more human but still nondescript shape. 
• I so reworked the page with ghost in the upper corner. For this project, I have had to be very mindful to use the layout to get across the relationship between the characters. I still want them separated by the split in page, getting closer as it goes on, but I needed a way to still the them together to symbolise the ghost’s interest reaching out. While experimenting with this page, I chose to use a semi translucent smoke as it looked nice and got the feeling across. 
• I also experimented with colour and decided to stick to blues, pinks, purples and greens. I tried to alternate between palettes to give the eye variation through out the book so the reader doesn’t get bored. 

SBC 3

•  From the plot I had bullet-pointed out, I made thumbnails for each page. I made sure to use composition to show the yearning of the ghost and the distance changing between the two characters. I also wanted the character design of the ghost to shift from shadowy figure to a more concrete, physical form over time. 
• Sketching out each page was really important and allowed me to jump around freely as I worked on al the pages. 
• If i had more time, I would have made a full character sheet to follow but I don’t think it was too important for this as the characters do change through out anyway. Instead, I made sure to flick back through the files and make sure details matched when needed. 
• While I have never drawn any rooms before, I think this will be a good challenge for me. I want to fill the rooms in a way that informs the reader that the character has just moved in and progressively becomes more unified with the space (the background getting simpler/empty at the end).
• My process is so sketch crudely first and then refine before doing the final lines and then colour last. Unlike the DND commissions, I want these have marks from the textured brushes and be simpler. This is because I have to make more illustrations for a shorter deadline so more complex rendering would be impossible and I also think the texture will add charm. 

SBC 2

•  I discovered that the Silent Book contest had just been made international and realised that was perfect for this module. The deadline is the 5th of April 2021- right after the 2020 winners are announced. The brief calls for 14 double page illustrations with a couples pages before for the frontispiece and cover. The rules are that there can be no words (bar the title) at all. The size of the project is definitely manageable for one person also. 
• Since my previous ideas did not have a solid narrative tied to them, I scrapped it all to start fresh. My tutors were really encouraging. I first made some sketches to explore my ideas and then nailed down the plot into each image.

SBC 1

•  After Christmas, I reflected on what I wanted to do post-uni and realised I needed to steer myself towards still image instead of producing animations. I thought that the best way to do this transition was to make a set of pre-production work with maybe a couple very short animations. 
• I was worried about how to make this fit the course so decided to work on my own. This would let me tailor it to just what my portfolio would need.
• I didn’t have a clear vision for the purpose such as a festival  or exact finished product so I played around with ideas and sketches. 
• I designed a pair of characters and toyed with scenes from an office romance. I also thought about a mermaid with a shorter, simpler plot. I talked about this with my peers and tutors and was advised to focus n the office romance as it was more developed. While I agreed, I struggled to get an idea of what I was actually working towards as I wasn’t completely confident in what I wanted to do post-uni. It seemed like me and animation had just broken up a little. 
• On the side, I tried to develop my illustration skills since I hadn’t been focused on that in a long time. I did a few studies and a master copy to warm up and get a better idea of what i could realistically achieve.