Rationale

I began this assignment by analysing school reading journals brought to class by the client Simon. He then provided us the brief, outlining the characters and illustrations necessary for the story ‘Benny’. From here, I visited the various locations of the story set in Eastbourne and took a variety of photographs I could use to develop accurate concepts. I also researched anatomy variations of different ethnicities, in particular Asian and Caucasian. This would help me initialise my character concepts, which I developed working back and fourth gathering feedback from Simon.

As illustrated in my final compositions, I adopted a vector style strongly referring to works by Ben Newman. I integrated a bright colour palette to appeal to the target demographic of 11-12 year old New Zealand students (reading year level 8). Overall, I feel my illustrations tell the story of Benny successfully and I was able to implement a professional work process thanks to experience of working with a live brief.

Final Illustrations

Illustration Developments

Character Development

After discussions with Simon, it was established that my character style was too childish for the demographic. So I re-designed them, looking closely at Stephen Silver as an artist model. Silver is great at character silhouettes, which Simon stated is vitally important in distinguishing Benny and the narrator from one another. 

Developed Chars (Narrator left, Benny right)

Stephen Silver character designs

Composition Concepts

I drafted up some initial compositions based of the provided brief, then experimented with colour and added filler text to gain an understanding of the overall layout.

Character Concepts

These are my initial character designs which align with the descriptions given by the client. 

New Brief - Benny

After receiving the new brief, I decided to analyse the story and create moodboards as reference for when I illustrate. Most the pictures I sourced from the shared dropbox the client set up, internet, or went to the location and took them.

Character reference boards

Illustration reference boards