Notes From the practical peer review

One of the things that was flagged in the review was how to clearly show the link between my practical and my essay. I don't really know how to do that visually right now. but the origin of my idea to villains was about how they are often the sources of conflict in children's book and that without them there would be little to no conflict.

I've got to explore the paper stock available to me as if it's printed on flimsy paper it'll just break as soon as you try to use it.

The biggest issue that was raised was about the age range for this as the type of book I'm making is often most popular with younger children but some of the villains are from an older age ranged book, like Mrs coulter. However I was thinking that I could propose something like a sit a long book or a synopsis on the back of each character like what was previously suggested to me. I think this would get the younger children interested in some of the older books and may encourage more reading. This would also tie in to my essay where I say that children should be the ones who chose when to read a book without the constraints of age range restrictions. I think this will have to be a proposal as I don't think I'll have time to actually produce this effectively while I also need to work out how to create the book.

More practical

I've worked a bit more on my practical sides, I've been looking at how the posture affects the impression the character gives. I've also been exploring how to draw the character when I have to be able to cut the page into three, they obviously need to have different sizes as the heads don't need as much room as the legs. This was easy when it came to Mrs Coulter as she's tall and slender but I was worried the more squat, built characters wouldn't fit to the measurements that I drew out (6cm down for the head, 15cm down for just below the pelvis). To test it out I tried to draw Miss Trunchbull to the same plan, which did work so I'll try using those measurements for all. While I was only meant to be doing a quick sketch of Miss Trunchbull I got a bit caught up and wanted to make her look like her. As I'd already started drawing her I decided to properly work out how to draw her and what to exaggerate. After this I drew a proper version and inked it. The guidelines of where to cut actually really helped to keep the proportions in line. I did quite bait of playing around with her head as I wanted to suggest that she was looking down at you, I think the one where you can see under her chin works best for suggesting this but the one with her chin further down worked better visually so I used that one for the final instead.

Notes & Quotes & Failure

I'm now up to page 232 in my big book of very useful information and approaching halfway. The problem is that I have no words so far only notes, ideas and quotes to use and I need to finnish this book before I can make sense of everything I do have and make a coherent essay draft. I've been going to atlas three times a week and spending hours each time reading and note taking but I'm not making progress fast enough for the draft and I don't know how I could speed up without ignoring everything else I have to do. I'm starting to get really rather stressed about this as I can't see a way for me to finish something in time for the 10th when I'm supposed to send my draft of 3,000-4,000 words in.

Mrs. Coulter

I get Fidgety in sessions so I started doodling mrs coulter in the peer review as she's the one I'm most drawn to. She has to be grown up and sophisticated, beautiful and cold. In these drawings you can see some of the notes I've made myself on how to make her villainous. 

I think this version is slightly too angular as Lyra has to look up to her as well as her being a villain but it should be a good shape for cruella. I also played around with eye shapes and I'd discovered that it had to be almost reptilian and the eyes had to be small as they look a bit more un-caring.

I think this one still needs work but I'm pretty happen with the composition as it'll keep all the sections in the right place for cutting later. It also gave me a good way to show her deamon.

Feedback complication

In the peer review session one of my feedback forms has raised an issue that the other one hasn't. One says that 10 characters in a mix and match book isn't a substantial enough brief while the other doesn't mention anything about it. I had thought it was substantial as I've never designed villains before or attempted a mix and match book and I'd rather not give myself too much work to do as I don't have a lot of time to do it in and it'll take m a while to design each character. However I see his point that 10 may not be very many, even though I liked keeping it with the top tens I originally sourced them from, he's suggested printing little bio's or stories about the villains on the blank side (which I was hoping to keep blank to not overcomplicate) that can be mixed up as well as the characters. This would be good because it would add another layer to my work and make it a little more interactive and informative but it would also have some complications as I hadn't wanted to print double sided and each section won't be even as the head will need the least room and the legs will need the most. I had also planned on mixing up the characters from the start to show that they're meant to be played with. Although it could just be that I'm getting stressed about timing so I should investigate it anyway and then if I don't have time or it doesn't work out I can drop it further down the line. 

This is the diagram of his proposed idea that he very helpfully drew for me on the back of my feedback form 

Practical notes, villains and their literary descriptions

Sorry all of these notes are in pencil but I think better when I can scribble something down. The first list is sourced from several different top ten lists that were a mixture of literary surveys and just somebody's opinions. I only put the recurring villains on the list and then chose the ones I thought would be most suitable and appropriate. You can also see a small diagram I quickly drew to make sense of the format, and have my notes on what I have to do for it. The rest of my notes are all of the literary descriptions of the characters I could find. I've been making sure not to look at any adaptation (like disney) descriptions as my ideas of how to draw these famous villains will get skewed. Unfortunately some of the villains like the big bad wolf and the grinch have very little description that I can base it on and I might have to swap the grinch out all together, even though he's a beloved children's book villain.

Mix and Match book

http://www.instructables.com/id/I-can-make-that-Mix-N-Match-Book/step4/Make-the-book/

I found this set of instructions to help me make the book but it seem really unprofessional and not all of it applies to me but I hope to get the basic idea from this and mix it with some book binding to make a product.

Exquisite Corpse

After investigating exquisite corpses I was reminded of those mix and match books that I played with as a kid. I think this would be a fun, appropriate and interactive way of displaying my villainous characters.