This week, via the same method I used in week 1, I fleshed out three more full-size creatures for poster designs. I’ll be proceeding with lining and coloring the sketches starting tomorrow. I’ve lined up the rough sketches below.
Let's Get Personal - week 2 of portfolio project month
Let's Get Personal - portfolio project outline
By the end of this month, I want to have sold several pieces of artwork (stickers, posters, shirts, phone cases, etc.) online. I also want to use this month as a jumping-off point so I can keep creating content to add to my store. I will be using a site called Redbubble as a platform to sell my artwork.
Note: I have already investigated the enamel pin option for my artwork, however it seems as if I won’t be able to do that at this point in time. I would have to outsource the pin making to another company, which would leave me paying easily over $1000 out of pocket, and I simply cannot afford that at the moment. Enamel pins will become a stretch goal for the time being.
This project will help me accomplish something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: marketing my artwork in a way that is literally profitable to me. It will also help me build more confidence in displaying my work and successfully impression.
Here’s a brief look into how I’ll be structuring my weeks this month:
Let's Get Personal - portfolio ideas
November is going to be a demanding month—yes, Praxis is demanding by default, but we’re approaching the portfolio project month. So, here’s my post about what skills I hope to basically advertise with my portfolio project (whichever one I end up choosing to move forward with).
The skill I’m most proud of is my creativity. I call myself an illustrator. I already have a pretty big portfolio, so I don’t quite need to prove that I can draw, but I’d like to continue to provide examples with my project. I’d also like to show that I’m organized, have good attention to detail, and I know how to market myself. And I’m not a one-trick pony, either. Yes, I prefer illustration, but I can also make video and animations.
With all this being said, here are the ideas I have as options for my portfolio project.
Let's Get Personal - the kinetic typography experiment
This week I took it upon myself to learn something new: kinetic typography. It’s something I’ve seen a lot, but I’ve never tried it before. One of the deliverables for Praxis this week was to make an elevator pitch video, so I figured it was as good a time as any to go out on a limb and see how creative I could get with a new form of media.
Bonus points to this format: I barely had to show my face (I’m camera shy, plus the difference between non-video audio and camera-facing audio was just different enough to bother me a lot). I still showed my face and tried my best to edit the audio to match it to the other recordings – there’s still a slight difference, however I think it’s something that bothers me more than others because I’m the one that’s been staring at it for over 10 hours.
Let's Get Personal - Career Approach Video
As part of week 3 of Module 1, we were given two articles to read and were tasked with sharing our thoughts on those articles.
Projects - plotting a webcomic
I’ve had a webcomic in the works for quite some time. It’s an illustrated version of a short story I wrote during college, about a lonely girl who gets an unusual visitor one night after a terrible ocean storm. It’s a mishmash of fantasy and magical realism. I’ve linked it down below so you can give the original short story a read.
Projects - Game Narrative Review
During my last few months of college, I wrote an essay for the 2017 GDC Game Narrative Review Competition. I never ended up submitting it, but my professor gave me a pretty nice critique when I handed it in. I still have some pride for my essay, even over a year later, so I decided to share it here.
Note: this isn’t a spoiler-free essay! Yes, this is a 3-year-old game with the first episode of its sequel already released, but there might be some people that haven’t played it yet.