Samantha Landells

 For some reason I still felt like something in my design was lacking, I am really struggling to create cute characters at the moment and I'm not sure whether this may be a direct reflection of my mood, as I am having a bit of difficulty due to the Covid-19 pandemic at the moment. Regardless I have still tried to complete my daily art target, as I want to improve my skills and the only way to do so is with practice, maybe I need to change direction and work on some artwork for my @Parataxic.productions account instead, where the art style and projects can be more random and based around what inspires me at that point in time. My first attempt at this lemon design felt like it was lacking but I couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what I didn't like about the design? I decided to leave it for a few days before returning to it in order to see if this would help. ATTEMPT ONE Strengths: I really like the overall shape of this design, I feel the placement of highlights is ver...

Following the development of my cute art style over the past month or so, I have decided to return to my original snail illustration to remake it and see how much my art style has improved so far. There are clear improvements on my updated design, including the contrast between elements which was an area of concern in my original. I really like this design revamped however I feel the original had a lot of charm in its shape and simplicity so perhaps I have dove too far with this design. If it were based purely on the final illustration though I do feel my new one has a lot more interest and depth to it. Another major improvement on my new design was that I created my canvas to the correct scale this time, so I could ensure it clearly fit within the square boundaries of Instagram, which is where I have chosen to publicise my work. I much prefer the colour choices of this design, I feel that by having a slightly more natural colour for the body of the snail, makes it seem much more...

Despite the worldwide changes which have affected my ability to attend university and acquire normal teaching, I am very pleased with how much I have managed to complete for this project despite the odds. I really like the final cover I designed for my book, it wasn’t until I managed to get my cover onto a template that I was able to see just how it would work as a full publicised edition. I really enjoyed this project and its goals of introducing us to commercial illustration practices and would love to try this type of project again once we are out of worldwide quarantine to see how different I am able to work, process and develop my designs. I feel I was limited during this module by my health triggered by the stress of Covid-19 however I am proud to say that I have managed to complete it and hopefully succeed too. The concept of this project however was extremely interesting to me, I thought I wanted to go down the rook of book illustrations and that may still be the ca...

Following the improvements I was able to identify during the development of my whale character, I decided to return to my cute puffer fish in order to see whether incorporating similar block shadowing could dramatically improve this design as well. I am once again so happy I returned to my initial design in order to make these alterations, I feel it really helps give the whole design a new layer of interest. I made sure to add shading to each of the bubbled spike elements as well in order to maintain consistency throughout my design and I am so happy with how it turned out.

Following the areas I identified during my initial SWOT analysis of this character, I returned to my development stages in order to try and enhance the overall aesthetics of my design, beginning with the contrast levels my brush strokes. Alongside this I also added shading to my character and I feel this enhances my design tenfold, it just appears so much more visually accurate and appealing to the eye. Due to this I feel I should also return to the creation of my puffer fish character in order improve it's design as well. I feel the inclusion of the shadowing has helped form layers of depth to the character which were missing before. I am very happy I returned in order to try and improve this design as I feel overall it is now a lot more well rounded and consistent with the rest of the designs I have been designing lately.

I created a puffer fish design one night using Procreate on the IPad and was quite impressed with the overall design I managed to create. I am happy with how my skills seem to be developing in accordance to this particular style. I wanted to recreate this design using my traditional computer set up as well to see just how different the two designs would be in comparison.  The procreate design (purple) has much a much more natural line work appearance, as the line variations are a lot more random whereas the Illustrator version (pink) is a lot cleaner and consistent within its line work. I do feel that both designs have a charm to them but in my opinion I actually prefer the Procreate version for this design. I really like how the line work is unique to each area as I feel it makes the character appear much more natural and a lot cuter. I feel the Illustrator version may be too picture perfect, there is very little uniqueness to its design due to the heavy use of curved symmet...

I was inspired by the work of @ainun21202 for the creation of my whale character, I had been interested in exploring sea life for a little white however I wanted to ensure I had clear reference considering it is not an animal I am 100% familiar with. I really love how on @ainun21202 's design they have created the background slightly smaller than the file size so they can have elements extruding the borders, this made the design a lot more interesting. I am unsure whether I will emulate this within my own work though as I want each of my designs to maintain a consistent news feed appearance as I feel this will best help enhance the visual appeal of my work. Whereas @ainun21202 has formed a completely cute characterised face I wanted to maintain the true anatomy of the whale by having the lip as the underbelly considering this is more realistic. I feel this may have affected the level of cuteness within my design but I am happy I designed my character this way as it is much more...