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Sustained Investigation

INQUIRY STATEMENT
At first, my inquiry was centered around telling a fictional  narrative type story in images. (Like book covers, movie posters, or comic strips.) Now, I'm centering on the topic of dark fantasy with an emphasis on mental health. The main audience I'm trying to reach are teenagers with overactive imaginations. It's more of an exploration of my own mind, but in a way that still relates to others.

Student Directed Play Poster 2023: Will not submit; unrelated

Rough Draft

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Preliminary Draft

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Master Artist

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Current Artist

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Final Poster

Dimensions: 17 x 11 inches

Materials:

I drafted the poster idea on a regular sketchbook page with a 2H pencil and a red colored pencil, then once I had a good idea of what I was going to do, I took a photo of it, and finished it in the Procreate app on an iPad.

Ideas:

  • One of my original, half-baked ideas was to do a background of what I thought would be the scenery of the play, only to decide that would be too risky if the set ended up looking totally different. Ironically, the set actually ended up looking like exactly what I was imagining.

  • Since this play is a spoof on Shakespeare, I thought it would be funny if the Shakespeare on the poster had a cartoony, horrified expression on his face. I made the collar frilly because I was thinking of that song "God, I Hate Shakespeare" from Something Rotten while making this. (One of the lines slanders the "silly, frilly collar 'round his throat".)

  • I wanted to contrast the modern with the old, but the directors ended up requesting something else.

Processes

I wanted to make sure I used the rule of thirds while designing the layout. I looked up some old fonts that were commonly used back when scribes had to print everything, and since Procreate didn't have the option to do text, I wrote the rest of the information by hand. With the little symbols surrounding Shakespeare, at first I had the idea of doing emojis to sort of add to the modern spoofing of an old play, but the directors preferred I put things used in the show instead. (Greek temple, comedy and tragedy masks, and red & blue pants. They were really insistent about the pants.) We also agreed that using a brownish tone for the background would be a bit too monochromatic, so I switched to a bluish grey with some faint bubbles of blue and red. Once that was done, the little requests started coming in from the supervisor or the production such as making the fonts a certain size and adding a copyright. It got a little irritating when it got down to little tiny edits, and I was using a class iPad, so there was inevitably a point where I had to run all over the school to find a way to access it after school on the day of the deadline. (thanks, office staff!) I was also asked to make the program cover, which was basically the same thing, but without all the information at the bottom.

Character Sheets

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Master Artist: Lincoln Pierce

Current Artist: Reference photos for animal expressions.

Dimensions: All done on 9 x 12 inch paper

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB, 4B), recycled sketch paper, and colored pencils.

Ideas:

  • In dragon, Jack's name is "the great and powerful talons of steel, ruler of the known world".

  • I always like to include representation from minorities in my stories. (LGBTQ+, racial diversity, ect.)

  • Jack is based off the generic villain/conqueror.

Processes

This idea has been with me since last year's Graphic Design class. I drew a few concept comics, but never really explored the story. I'm a pretty big fan or representation in media, so I made sure to use a wide variety of character designs. I started out with measuring the heights of each character so they would be proportional to each other, Then, I picked the colors I would use based on each character's personality, penciling in darker lines as I colored. It might be a bit difficult to see, but I wrote the names of each character, their pronouns, as well as how the main character (Jack) sees them.

I may end up needing more teacher designs, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I kept saying I was going to use the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip as a reference, but I found myself mentally referring to Big Nate while creating this.

They didn't have many dragon character sheets on the internet, so I referenced personified animal expressions.

Rough Comic Strip Ideas

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Master Artist: Bill Watterson

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Current Artist: Lincoln Pierce

Dimensions: All done on 9 x 12 inch paper (strips are 7 X 28 cm each)

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB) and recycled sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • A-plot (overarching themes): Jack undergoing some sort of redemption arc, Adjusting to life in the human world. Learns empathy, loyalty, kindness, and altogether how to be a decent person.

  • B-plot: Lily having academic competition issues with Jade, Guy being Jack's punching bag, or talking about conspiracy theories, Bella and Stella being "superpop savages", and teachers showing Jack that one can have power, and still use it for good.

  • C-plot: Dad overworking himself and being rather suspicious of Jack, Pops being a sort of clueless cinnamon roll / artist, Jack stands by Lily through hard stuff.

Processes

I did not do all of these in one go, but rather drew the panels out with a ruler, then drew in the ideas as they came. I sketched out these ideas in between doing other pieces. Most of these are pieces of a longer story that would be told in multiple strips. All of them revolve around the central plots outlined above. Some of these would probably need to be reworked if finalized in terms of the line of action.

  • When I stepped back from all this afterwards, I noticed some themes and references that may or may not be morally questionable. Hence, the dark fantasy.

"Jack" - Origin Story

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Master Artist: Bill Watterson

Current Artist: Mike Holmes

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(VERY) rough draft

Dimensions: The strip itself is 7 X 28 cm

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB, 4B & 6B), recycled sketch paper, mixed media paper, and colored pencils.

Ideas:

  • ​I wanted to include both Jack's backstory and how he came to be in the human realm as well as the first meeting between him and Lily as a little girl.

Processes

I referenced the Wings of Fire graphic novels to figure out how positioning works in the more complicated poses, and several Calvin and Hobbes strips to figure out how the flow of action can be fit into just four horizontally placed panels. 

I composed a rough sketch of the flow of action, then transferred it to a separate page from the other strip ideas. I "inked" the lines (made them darker) with 4B and 6B pencils, then added color.

Some trouble spots were the positioning of Jack in the third panel (well, mostly the cape), and the perspective on the table in the fourth.

The major changes I made to the strip while working on it were changing the positioning of the two dragons in the second panel (I wanted to show the size difference), the direction of the rain in the second panel to go with the directional flow of the eye, and I fixed the perspective on the table in the fourth panel.

Further Inquiry

One thing I notice looking at the finished piece is that the images really only illustrate the story being told, instead of telling the story. Perhaps if I omit the narration, the images will speak for themselves. (I would still keep the speech bubble because it's the punch line.)

  • At one point, I stepped back and looked at the story and the rest of the rough strips I had drawn and noticed some morally questionable references and themes. Especially here in the first two panels. Hence, the dark fantasy.

  • This is a backup Selected Work, but doesn't fit into the theme of dark fantasy of the teenage mind super well. (Unless I specifically state that this was from my own twisted imagination.)

Second Draft

Rough Comic Strip Ideas

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Master Artist: Bill Watterson

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Current Artist: Lincoln Pierce

Dimensions: All done on 9 x 12 inch paper (strips are 7 X 28 cm each)

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB) and recycled sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • A follow up to Selected Work #1, where I wondered what a strip without dialogue would look like.

  • I had also been thinking about readability; as in if one can follow the strip without needing the dialogue, I consider it successful. 

    • I had been running into online strips in different languages.​

Processes

I did not do all of these in one go, but rather drew the panels out with a ruler, then drew in the ideas as they came. I sketched out these ideas in between doing other pieces. These two go together in terms of story line and specific themes. Both of them revolve around the central plots outlined above. These would probably need to be reworked if finalized in terms of the line of action.

  • When I stepped back from all this afterwards, I noticed some themes and references that may or may not be morally questionable. Hence, the dark fantasy. (just like in dialogue pieces.)

"Rememberance"

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Master Artist: Dr. Seuss

Current Artist: Art of The Dragon Prince

Dimensions: 9 x 12 inches

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB, 4B & 6B), recycled sketch paper, and colored pencils.

Ideas:

  • This takes place in the world of my "Jack" comic strip (seen in Sustained Investigation).

  • Yes, I am aware that usually dragons have batlike wings, but not all the time, and I wanted to do a different stylized version for this strip than what I normally do.

  • The sory behind this is basically that Jack ("the great and powerful talons of steel; emperor of the known world) , had just conquered his home world when he got dropped into the human world with no way of getting back home. He now lives the life of an ordinary human teen, undergoing a sort of redemption arc to become a better person.

Processes

The idea for this piece hit me in the middle of math class, so I ended up busting it out in my sketchbook. Not the best decision on my part; thicker paper would really have been better in hindsight. I started out with light strokes using a #2 pencil, then tried to use a somewhat lineless style when going in with colored pencils. I struggled a bit with perspective on the desks and color scheme at first. The blues of the jeans and the book looked out of place at first, but then I went back and added some darker ultramarine to the shadows, and that solved that issue. At first, the light source was going to be from the front (the direction Jack is facing) in the memory, but I thought a sunrise would be cooler, which completely changed the direction of the light source. I wanted the eyes to land on Jack in the human world as they traveled down the page from the memory, so I referenced some Dr. Seuss (specifically one page from Fox In Socks) to see how to use line to lead one's eyes to a specific center point on the page. I also referenced several Wings of Fire fan artists on Youtube, as well as art from The Dragon Prince (primarally for the stylized smoke.) 

During the class critique session, It was brought to my attention that the shadows were not apparent enough (which is why I went in with a darker color), that the mountains and rocks in the memory needed more umbers and browns, and that the sky looked to "scribbly". To fix the latter, I applied more layers of colored pencil, and blended little sections at a time.

Relation to Inquiry

This fits the theme of dark fantasy really well because this is essentially someone daydreaming, and longing for something that could be considered dark. It's more of a step outside of my mind from the first piece; outside looking in.  In relation to mental health, perhaps an unrealistic delusion of grandeur.

Dragon Wings Investigation (Explanation)

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Master Artist: Joy Ang

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Current Artist: How To Train Your Dragon

Dimensions: All done on 9 x 12 inch paper

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB) and recycled sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • You think Jack's wing design is stylized? Check these out.

  • Response to critiques of Selected Work #2

Processes

My art teacher told me to do a study on dragon wings after my second selected work. So I did a page that explains that dragons can have all sorts of wings. There's no realistic canon for dragons since they're mythical creatures, so artists have a certain level of creative freedom. I started with what are considered to be "typical" bat wing like designs, then moved into the more radical designs I have seen. Beside each one I jotted the credits, unless they were generic or a design I came up with.

Human Face Investigation/Review

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Real life observations (I observed other people's faces in a not creepy way to see if the rules I remembered apply in real life.)

Master Artist: Which artist has more mastery in her creations than mother nature herself?

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Current Artist: Manga How 2 Draw (Chris Hart)

Dimensions: Done on 9 x 12 inch paper

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2H, HB) and recycled sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • A bit of a warm up/review before I begin on my next piece.

  • I specifically wanted to have the face tilting up, with the expression of some sort of beautiful model.

Processes

This was a bit more of an exploration than my other pieces. I just sorta played around with head angles, the hand position I wanted, and generally seeing If the ideas in my head would properly translate to the paper. I wrote down the necessary rules I remembered next to the sketches and drew the guidelines in blue pencil. The smaller photo shows what I completed before doing the piece below.

Failed Draft/Watercolor Experimentation

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Master Artist: Winslow Homer

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Current Artist: 

Dimensions: Done on 9 x 12 inch paper

Materials:

Drawing pencils (2B), watercolor, and multimedia paper.

Ideas:​

  • I wanted it to sorta mimic a beauty magazine cover.

  • I thought watercolor would produce the best effect I wanted to have for the background.

Processes

Somehow, in the process of going from the idea sketch to the human face review to starting on the "final" drawing, (I traced it over onto multimedia after I figured it out in my sketchbook.), the face got kinda screwed up. The hands and mouth ended up too small, the eyes too big, and the nose not foreshortened properly. Watercolor is also a bit messier than I remember. I need to use a finer tipped brush for details and going near lines. I like how I did the hair, and the swirly, "scribbled" brush strokes produced the effect I wanted with the watercolor of mental depression.

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Original Sketch

Poem Piece Sketch

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Master Artist: Michaelangelo

Current Artist: She-Ra and The Princesses of Power: Season 2, Episode 6

Dimensions: Thumbnail is roughly 4 X 6 inches

Materials:

#2 HB pencil and sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • My art class paired up with Modern Literature class, and I chose a poem to make an art piece out of. I found one that pertained to my Dark Fantasy inquiry. Except, it was about someone being lifted out of a bad mental state by another.

  • Personally, I wanted both figures to look like the same person to promote my own values of self-reliance.

    • However, this idea won't reflect the poem's central theme of showing gratitude to another for lifting them out of the darkness.​

  • I'm not religious, but seriously; what if God was a woman?

  • The hands of darkness convey a better sense of the left figure being pulled down than just a sticky slime texture. I got the Idea from "The Spell of Obtainment" from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

  • Originally, I was going to have both figures' hands already holding onto each other, but I think having the hands "almost there" create a more emotionally charged feel. Like it could still go either way.

Processes

This was what went through my head as I read the poem, so I pretty much just picked up a pencil and started sketching what was in my mind's eye. There was a bit of trial and error with positioning and pose of the two figures. I made the horizon at an angle to create more of a dynamic angle for the whole piece.

Thumbnails & pastel experimentation

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Master Artist: Vincent van Gough

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Current Artist: Lindy Martin

Dimensions: Thumbnails are roughly 3 X 4 in and 3.5 X 4 in. Then roughly 6 X 6 in and 3 X 3 in.

Materials:

#2 HB pencil, sketch paper, pastel pencils, and colored pencils.

Ideas:​

  • Originally, I wanted to depict my worst "3 am nightmares" that have woken me up in the middle of the night, but some of those I would rather not relive, and others I'm not the most proud of.

  • I also wanted to depict the hair turning into space, since that seemed like a really cool idea.

  • Imagination is as limitless, ever expanding, and full of equally beautiful, disturbing, and mysterious things as the imagination. (Seemed like a cool analogy.)

  • Also portraying the imagination getting out of hand, and how we fear what we don' t understand.

  • I was also inspired by the cover of a book I recently read: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, by Christopher Paolini.

  • I was also king of inspired by van Gough's "starry night", since I though his depiction of the night sky kind of looks like hair.

  • Maybe some more colors at the edges than just blue, purple and pink.

Processes

I had two ideas of how I might format this idea. One being the girl down in the corner with a blanket as if in bed, and the other being the girl in the middle of the space with the blanket floating around her. The first one would have been better for showing how one's imagination can get out of hand, if kneeling, and gripping her head instead of curled up in bed. But for the space idea, I like the second thumbnail better. I experimented with colors on the right thumbnail before wondering what it might look like in pastel. I used pastel pencils, but I think that would be better for the finer details, and perhaps oil pastels would be better for the larger bits, to avoid the lines of the drawing pencil showing through.

The second one, I went with the previously noted idea, and ended up liking that one better. I used oil pastels, which are difficult since the tips are VERY dull, and the colors get onto each other if you try to put one color over another. Perhaps a blend of oil and pencil pastels will work? Now, I want to push the edges of the hair further to the edge of the paper to eliminate blank space, and see if the stars will look less messy on a bigger sheet of paper.

Internal Demons (& political commentary)

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Master Artist: James Montgomery Flagg

Current Artist: Torriku Sotaru

Dimensions: Space used is 3 X 12 inches.

Materials:

#2 HB pencil, red & blue colored pencils and sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • I'm pretty sure this is a meme I saw once.

  • Jekyll/Hyde trope.

  • Commentary on American "underbelly of society".

  • "Countryhumans" format because it's a fun concept (beware of the Internet, however ...)

Processes

I figured out panel spacing to optimize page space, then I sketched in the environment, characters, and added comic effects and enough color to distinguish the two characters.

Pet peeve in popular media

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Master Artist: Cy Twombly

Current Artist: Vivienne Medrano

Dimensions: Space used is 3 X 4 inches

Materials:

#2 HB pencil, blue colored pencil and sketch paper.

Ideas:​

  • It bothers me that characters with mental illnesses are antagonized instead of given the help they need.

    • The Joker, Azula, ect.​

  • Hazbin Hotel shows it clearly on a larger scale.

  • Scribbly shading and cracked windows to symbolize mental instability.

  • Light source comes from the "good" figure the subject of the image is looking at (shown in window w/ symbolism).

Processes

The main figure in the chair took a bit of erasing and re-penciling in order to get the proportions acceptable. The rest was fairly simple to figure out. 

Marker Practice

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Master Artist: Andy Warhol

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Current Artist: Cy Twombly

Dimensions: Space used is 9 X 12 inches

Materials:

Colored markers (thick, fine, and ultra thin), and multimedia paper.

Ideas:​

  • No specific subject matter, just mainly random doodles.

  • Inanimate objects with weird colors.

Processes

mainly just wanted to explore the properties of the markers, and figure out what I could do to improve.

Marker Practice

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Master Artist: Andy Warhol

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Current Artist: Kipo and The Age of Wonderbeasts (mindscape)

Dimensions: Space used is 9 X 12 inches

Materials:

2H pencil, colored markers (thick, fine, and ultra thin), and multimedia paper.

Ideas:​

  • With a media where I can't take back a mark on the page, I should start with subjects I know.

    • Dragons​

    • Character concept art

    • Yin/Yang (with cats)

  • I have wanted to do the one on the right for some time now.

Processes

I sketched out the shapes, where the most revisions happen. Then, I used markers, experimenting more with precision, blending, color, and how different shades work on top of one another.

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