I thought I’d outline a bit of the rationale in this post that went into putting my yearbook spread together!

Looking through some of the older spreads on the server, I was noticing a lot of folks doing something of a comic-like format, sharing small individual moments related to the questions we were answering. I wanted to try putting together an illustrative composition that could stand on its own and still look great, showing my personality even without the benefit of text. Then the addition of words could add an additional layer of depth, sharing a bit more about who I am while also providing some texture and visual excitement to the final composition.

 

I didn’t want to literally draw word for word what I was writing about, but to instead let the viewer get a sense of my personality through the imagery I was using. The text could then ride alongside and give its own extra peek into who I am because my primary forms of expression are drawing and writing, so I wanted to give a sense of who I am through those two mediums without having the text elements literally just spell out the image.

 

I usually do either do very heavy black and white ink drawings, or more simplified and lighthearted colour-bomb work. In this project, I wanted to marry the two aesthetics to show a bit of who I am stylistically. I could fit the intricacy and imagery of my normal ink work in the form of the wolf head and goat and heavy blacks, but bring in the more lighthearted elements with bright coral and green cyan and the style in which I did myself and the goblin.

 

Some things I think I could have improved would be to use a different paper stock next time; I used the arches watercolour paper, but it was the wrong call for so much pen and marker work. I found it made it very challenging to stay precise, and I made a couple of mistakes with it. I also struggled a bit to weave everything together with colour. The goblin was a good example of that, and I think I could have done a better job planning his colour scheme in relation to the rest of my palette. I did really like how the text and imagery came out, and I drew a lot of firsts in this, so I felt like I pushed my skills and grew.

 

In terms of grading, I really struggle with this. I quite like how it turned out, and I think it’s on point in terms of sharing who I am through the criteria we were working with. I wanted to go a little above and beyond with the illustration, especially because this is our first chance to really share our work with each other. I made some composition and colour mistakes that I wish I could have come up with better solutions with, but I feel like I also did a decent job of adhering to the guidelines. I would probably give a mark of 9/10.