A few of the books I looked at. READING COMICS by Douglas Wolk. great read.
Reworking the second draft.
Wall of DOOM!!
The aftermath. It looks like this every time I finish a deadline.
First draft next to the second draft. See how much different the reshuffled was.
ME ME ME ME!
um yes.. instead of doom and gloom heres me boasting..
i got 85-100 (outstanding) on all four catagories of marking.
a very confident analysis. uses key texts well (hatfield, mccloud, gravett, etc) and is strong and proth(something i cant read) the nature of the ‘graphic novel’, perhaps more could have been said about the positive aspects of the pamphlet form eg. the way it allows for soap opera continuity. but overal this was a very impressive essay that made a strong argument, and which covered most of the relevant ground. (ion some ways, i wish you’d left more spade to discuss ‘american born chinese’. well done!
well i got my electives essay back. a huge shock really i was expecting 60 ish marks.. 77 max.. what i did get was 88… holey crapness. indeed. i seem to have a knack of doing good work last minute… not really graphic design anymore but essays, yep. thank you so much AS level english. you do me good. yes you do. considering i spent one whole day researching and then the last day (deadline day) writing the essay. thats pretty darn good. however the ppl who really put the time in for weeks and weeks.. hate me for it… (jen during foundation.. and now a few others)
having said this im never doing it again.. (see below. pig with blood for tears) . thats my new years resolution very much imposed by the mucho lack of luck ive been having lately with everything related to work. if anything ive used up all the luck ive had during foundation and first year… and the last drop of it went into this essay.
tbh.. will really really miss electives, we had a great tutor (roger sabin) who talked about interesting stuff in a down to earth rather than, you know nothing kind of shit that we do get from other tutors. the kind of tutor that you sort of look up to too. i really regret not making the essay better which it really could have been had i put in more time.. and time to actually proof read it would help.. which i didn’t really do either…. i threw out half the quotes and references i wanted to put in. it was a huge mental strain too. don’t do it children. this shall be the last bit of last minute work i do.
(taken today.. strolling with dad.. a quiet corner of london..)
- garbage/why do you love me
alrighty.. im drowning in work.. and i know everyone else is too.. i need to give myself a slap.. nothing other than corperate.. slick graphic ideas keep coming to me.. i just can’t do work that is from myself and i guess work that fascinates me.. atm im really enthusiastic about writing an essay, just as a comparison of how things have changed.. i think its a bit of.. lack of drawing frustration thats clogging up my creative synapsis, not going to give any reasons why, but if you read the posts three weeks ago. you know why.
i have to do a project on money.. great.. something that is very deeply connected with consumerism and the corperate world.. the examples our tutor showed us were deep and very conceptual about the world of consumerism.. so not helped by this compulsive desire to prove to the rest of the class that i am better than the shit they’ve seen me churn out over the past six weeks.
tomorrow will be crazy.. wake up early.. research like mad.. leave house at 8.10.. arrive at uni at 9 (crikey moses..) for the web tools workshop.. (which will be great 
) and then.. a group crit from 2-4… wasting time in the center till 6-8 for a ECCA talk about copywriting and work on the internet. ive figured.. really if i can’t do what i want .. then really what is the point in anything.. so.. even if i collapse from fatigue.. i will still make time for my dad who comes to visit now and then.. go to talks and things that interest me (ECCA). i want to survive in uni too.. i don’t really care about this whole socializing right now.. i have a handful of people i can rely on to give me a good slap and hug here and there.. lets just focus on getting what i want out of my time.. work.. and that handful of people.
on a last note how depressing. i finally get a teacher that i like.. that teaches stuff im genuinely interested in.. he’s reasonable.. not a total asshole.. i really want to learn more from this teacher and boo… we don’t really get any lesson time with him anymore.. i did a mad bit of cram research for my elective… i got a measly 5 mins.. seriously wtf.. do they even think its enough to say anything other than a ‘hello, you okay okay? yeah.. good. bye. next.’ our tutor complety understood.. which i why i milked my minutes.. by rambling.. but we ended up just chatting about our view on comics more than the essay.. hahaahaha gosh im just a little child whoes discovered a crack in the ground.. peering into the huge world of comics.. end of elective… boooooo
(pun intended.. )
hallow! what a week. i good week i guess, but crazy as ever. second year is tough.. i mean really.. and me trying to explain this to third year friends studying more ‘academic’ subjects only really try to offer their useful advice, yes well ‘of course its supposed to be hard’. ‘life isn’t all rainbows and flowers’. why do i even bother? go read shin’s latest blog. discribes the whole thing perfectly.
Anyways… its been a crazy week.. three sort of deadlines in one week and work only being done the night before for each and everyone, working up till the point till i have to leave for uni.. really the last two days i’ve had less than four hours sleep.. im not trying to brag.. my point is that.. ive really really got to stop doing this to myself.. and my health really. lets work it out.. every two weeks there is a deadline.. that really means.. pretty much one allnighter or near allnighter every two weeks.. i never really thought about it this way till yesterday.. and lets see this has been happening all through first year.. and i’ve been doing late nights.. say sleeping at 3-4 ish.. for no less than three years now. unfortunately parents have a slight idea of how bad it really is.. they’re the only ones who really tell me off about it.. my friends. sort of suffer with me for such causes or have no idea whatsoever. dad has said.. my body really shouldn’t be able to last this long doing this.. and really i hate the last minute panic.. but a touch of : this is the last 18 hours before the deadline.. you have a solid 18 hours to work your heart out on this project, really gets me fired up.. and how you can just calculate how much youve actually worked on a project, and really really make the most of the time. i like the rush. I don’t really get worn out from them that much.. i guess it must be because im still quite young. but the last few allnighters i feel my eyes really tiring, which was a bit of a wake up call. so i’m going to stop the late nights.. or at least try. according to my friend i need to pick up a hobby, probably something not active.. and definately not art related. ‘ i mean when you walk into a room, you just look at everything, and start analysing everything, everything you do in your spare time is to do with art. you never stop thinking about art.’ < hmm there is some truth to this i guess.. then i thought of reading.. but then i only read art books, or i read novels and think of how they could be turned into graphic novels… okay.. i need something different.. on the day of the deadline i saw a guy who i knew went to csm. and he looked worse than me who hadn’t slept.. god what are we doing to ourselves… i need to find my stop button..
on the happy side of things, ive had quite a nice week. i really like our electives tutor.. i think he’s a pretty well know historian of comics and phaidon published a book of his, which i owned before meeting him in class! Its such refreshing that he’s nice about what he talks about.. welcoming and not in the slights condesending because you have no knowledge about comics. back at school i never used to like nice nice types for teachers, because you’d never learn.. right now.. its something second year is really short of.. bumped into him after class.. and had a short chat about comics and graphic novels.. ahh how i miss talking with like minded people about such things! ive also discovered just how awesome daniel clowes is!! really … i picked up ghost world a few years ago because of the great reviews but never gotten really far in it because it was so damn depressing.. and then i read eightball!! its amazing.. its like mock the week cynicsm.. in little punchy packages… nothing like laughing out loud on the tube knowing youre not the only one wallowing in shit.. and criticizing others about it.
typography went well.. i think i want to take it next year.. i also went to look at cds to do some research for my cd booklet.. and i realised how much shit their was out there.. even when the layouts are nice.. the type can be too small, with not enough leading so that the ys and gs hang over the lines following after it.. type .. is sometimes badly chosen.. as if they just had some sort of serifed typeface like times new roman.. because it was the first that was pooped out to them.. oh well… some one in our class who was critized for using typefaces too small said in his defense, that cd booklets often use this size typeface.. ‘thats because they’re shit. just because they did something shit doesn’t mean you have to’. so true. and on a final note.. its up to you to consider the text, rather than just creating a document, pasting text and formatting it.. consider whats in the text.. thats whats going to make you stand out and be different. yes pearls of wisdom. typography was actually one of the fun classes where I felt most of us had actually learnt something rather than being attacted by the tutor for something as unspecific as hair colour. he crit us more or les purely on layout and type.. so even if we had a questionable or no concept what so ever we would be judged on what we did do.. rather than what we haven’t. everyone got a good deal of useful feedback.. my work was ‘crisp’ – ‘ as in it looks like she has considered everything thats on the page’ (or something like that.. my work here has been done, and with luck i’ll actually get a decent mark too.)
i was originally dreading my electives essay.. im somewhat stunned that most arty farty degrees don’t force you to write an essay.. but actually im really looking forward to it now.. thanks to my new found appreciation in underground comix, robert crumb (whose work i originally came across while wondering around in borders and then in OZ magazine last year) as well as my anticipation to design my essay in indesign.. its sort of taking over everything i do now. researching this is crazy. so many comics so little time :’( and i don’t want to write the same essay three times.. my foundation piece was pretty much a concise re hash of my A-level piece. Electives this year has really got me thinking about comics in a new light, im starting to turn away from all this mainstream superhero hype and look at the more ‘indie’ work .. which is breathtaking.. the range of genres, styles and ways of storytelling.. (swoon~) lots to read.. i went mad on amazon a few weeks ago, the books above are what ive brought since coming back to london/older buys that i just haven’t gotten around to reading.. at least £120s worth of good printed matter there… anywho.. off to do some reading…
erm.. it seems im a walking disaster.. my memory cards are saying no to everything so even though ive finished all my work.. im going no where anytime soon.. so much for ‘by 4 oclock monday for a good impression’. ive lost my only cd rw.. so .. fine.. i will use my external harddrive.. which is sort of clunky.. it needs an extra power supply.. yeah. its a beast.. therefore i avoid dragging its heavy ass around.. im so happy with my work this time… although the illustrations looked really crappy last night.. by the time i added a dash of colour it all sort of looked a bit.. mm not bad. the one thing i don’t like is the cover… so i might redo that.. since im not going to hand this in today anyhow..( i also checked on blackboard.. amanda is in on tues and thurs.. which is pretty good for me… phew.. )
(oh and btw.. one of my images magically dissappeared.. and i’ll never get it back since it was digitally coloured..oh well.. im starting to learn that if i want to go with in a 100 yard radius, i must first detatch my emotions.. because something will go wrong.. and i will have yet another mental breakdown.)
so here are some of the picceroos.. which im quite pleased with.. my first time doing any sorf of colouring on the computer.. definately going to do this more often now big thumbs up indeede.
didn’t post the cover.. it would just make your eyes bleed..
(originally i wanted to do 8 or 10 illustrations.. if i have time maybe.. i still have to read up for my elective tomorrow.. don’t want to let down the group sigh..) i’ll try my luck with cs2 at the hub later .. fingers crossed i’ll finally get this printed.
