Today I got  a lot done. I have re-photoshopped some images, even ordered my deck of cards to be printed for the end of year show. Everything seems to be coming together nicely. 

For my deck of cards I had a choice between my three designs:

I have decided to just show my cupcakes, I have also ordered my monsters to be printed and my cupcakes to be printed to hopefully sell at the end of year show :)

I had also experimented with the idea of having all three of my designs together and the jokers and backs of the deck of cards, I just felt that this looked really strange.

I'm honestly just not happy about it, So I have chosen to go for just the cupcake theme.

I also successfully and finally got around to the re-edit of the "No Say" Coca- Cola image, I also went back to the facebook images and the bar-code ones too, and just tweaked them a little:

I went back into my bar-code portrait, I just made the bar-code look a little more realistic, The Coca - Cola portrait I finally edited to a way I liked it. I will admit the almost turquoise background was a little unexpected. Although I have to admit I rather like it and I think it really makes all the other colours within the portrait really pop. The Facebook images, I simply just went back in and made the "F" lighter and more white to really stand out. I really like all of these and I am really happy with these results.  

This is an update of what my end of year show will look like. I just have to make a choice of whether or not to have my original Coca-Cola portrait or the re-edit of the portrait. I have to admit while l look at these side by side, I actually think the original Coca-Cola Portrait stands out more compared to the new portrait. I will have to ask around and see what others think. I am hoping to have these printed out either tomorrow or Tuesday. 

I am still to buy my piggy banks, as well as dwindling down the slogans or facts I may put on them, although I have to think fast about either paper mache, black chalk board piggy bank and the paint it yourself piggy banks from hobby craft. Again hopefully this will be more items I can sell at the end of year show, hopefully people will want to buy them, I just have to start thinking of how and what way I am going to design them. Which I will hopefully get started on tomorrow.

So, I am very much nearly there, If this was the lord of the rings trilogy, I have just reached Mordor. That's it from me today, hopefully more development to show tomorrow.

Today I got a lot of stuff done, I'm happy to say I am nearly finished all of my major images. I went back and began to play about with my posters for the student advice section of my project:

I am actually really happy how these have turned out. Still unsure on the fonts, but I am still very happy with these pieces. They aren't amazing, but i do like my graphics and I put a lot of work into them. I am still unhappy with my coffee cup poster, The other three though, I'm more than pleased with.

I have also started to get my joker done for cupcake theme of cards. I am even starting to think about the portraits of facebook, the bar code and coca cola with possibly going back to putting writings on the posters as a bit of insightful information. I am pretty sure that the portraits of the exploitation will be displayed for my final end of year show. Anyways here is my Joker cupcake so far:

I'm still really not too sure on the colours I am using as I want to merge the red and black suits together, or in this case the browns and the reds. My idea is to try and get it to look like a chocolate and strawberry cupcake. This is still a work in progress, I also have to do another joker for the traditional and the monster decks. I am planning on merging these two together. Either way I don't think it will be too hard as he traditional looking jokers are creepy looking anyways. So it should fit in with the Monster and Traditional suits. So here is hoping I will get this all finished up tomorrow and be able to send them off to get printed for the degree show. It will be awesome!

Aaaaaahhhh!!!!! so my video is nearly finished! Putting the finishing touches on it tomorrow. So happy. Just hope it's good enough to actually show people. I have also been working more on my deck of cards project. I have finally assigned all my monsters to each suit and almost completed my werewolf:

There is still a few more changes I'd like to make. For example I don't like the hands or the shorts. There is also a few bits that need fixed, but apart from that I am surprised at how well it looks. I was also thinking if I should incorporate the suit within the character, like I did with the cupcakes. For example the werewolf here is part of the Diamond suit. So like some dogs would have, I might put a little white diamond shape of fluff on the chest.

When It comes to the Unique photography ViewBug challenge, I am still to find a nasty fact about Coca-Cola to attach to the bottom of the photograph. I will more than likely do this when I post this blog. 

I have also sketched out some idea for posters for the student financial help. I just haven't gotten around to start drawing them up in Illustrator. I might actually show these at the end of year show, instead of my video, if the video is too amateur looking rather than professional. I have also been thinking more and more about the end of year show, although I already handed in my draft of what I might do:

As you can see, my Coca-Cola portrait on one wall and my cupcakes on the other. I am beginning to toy with a different Idea though, I might get a few ceramic piggy banks and put them around my exhibition. Depending on how many I can get, if I can sell them at the end of year show that would be amazing. I might even donate the money to the New Blood people. Depends how broke I am by that time.

So I just quickly had a little look at cheap piggy banks on ebay, they are all roughly the same price. I at the moment, if I am going to go with this idea. I really like the chalk board piggy banks, the first piggy bank above.

That's it from me today. hopefully more to show tomorrow.

Today I didn't get a much done as I wanted to. Although I am starting to make progress with my main project and starting to get my third and possibly final re-designing of the deck of cards done. Below is a quick sketch I did for one of my characters of monsters, my ghost.

I think it looks very Tim Burton like, So I thought it would be pretty interesting to make all of my character stick in with this theme

Here is some characters from Tim Burton's movies for inspiration. 
 I have also been sorting out the information that is going into my video. It is a lot more categorized, which is good. Tomorrow I am planning on just working on my video. I also have to re-write my little blurb that will go beside my work at the end of year show. Things are getting really hectic, I am hoping to also purchase my new business card tomorrow..... hopefully, I have asked a good few more people their opinions on which business card designs  I should get. I have had a bit of a unanimous decision on which design to go for. I am still waiting on people to get back to me, but I think I might just go for it. Means they will be here before the end of year show.

That's all from me today,hopefully more things to show tomorrow

May The Forth Be With You!

Today I finished off writing up my sketch books, I also researched unique portraits from my ViewBug project which the deadline is for next week. 

So here are some inspiration images I have been looking at. I really like how I have total freedom with this, I have a maximum of two entries.  Some of these are pretty mental, like the top image on the right with the spaghetti and meat just randomly on models faces..... its a creative? yep... a little weird. Totally entertaining though. I really like the powder paint and the paint on peoples faces. I have been thinking about the possibility of putting in some things to do with consumerism, not too sure how that's going to work out, but I will be experimenting with it anyways. 

I have also been looking at some of the art supplies I have. I have a lot of ink, so I might also incorporate that into this portrait challenge.

I have also been looking for music to go with my video for my main project and been planning out what I want to do. I have things a little bit more sorted, however I'm not going to lie. I have been more thinking and planning one what to do with all my projects today. I am in that panic mode when I think of all the things I have to do, and end up sort of doing nothing..... eeeeek 

I am hoping to have more to show in the next following days.

SO, I am very excited to FINALLY! have my logo above being an animated gif! It took me forever to figure out the code of the website, although I have to admit, this had made me more interested in wanting to learn how to code websites. 

Which brings me to my main project, I ended up going to the website generator, "WIX" and I have to admit there are a lot more themes that I can really see working a hell of a lot better rather than the ones here on weebly, I signed up with them, and began to test out their websites, here are just some little snippest from the website on their themes:

I have to admit, I truly just find their themes a lot more inspiring, I have also noticed that they are easier to use to design the page, I did have a wix page years ago when I was first starting to make myself a website, I remember the editing of the website was highly difficult. Due to the fact that if you clicked anywhere on the page, suddenly you had activated 50 different components at once and your stuck and cant do anything. 

Also going over everything that is in my main project, I am really worrying as I am now in my last year of university, there is nothing that really pops and stands out, so I was thinking about perhaps doing a video as well as some of my photography Ideas I had previously had. I need to get my act together and get my portfolio looking amazing, oh and try and get a job. 

So for the nest few days I will be playing about with different looks for the photography, as well as drawing out stuff to make a video with, I have decided to do a simple video, mainly due to my experience within After Effects. I would like to use purely animation and not so much film. I have taken inspiration from some of the Buzzfeed videos that have done videos to exactly the same way I want mine: 

I just like how a lot of the illustrations are very clean cut and they float in and out of the space and a lot of the animation techniques they have used in making this video, I have done before. Its just going to be a case of getting the illustrations to be the way I want them to be.

I also have to apologize for not posting yesterday, all the above was my thoughts, feeling and what I did yesterday, I simply fell asleep early and didn't get a chance to post.

So today, I simply have been writing up my project to make sure everything is up to date, due to having a lot of projects, i usually will take one day out a week to just go back and write everything out and have a good think about the directions I am going in and just keep myself up to date, so for today I dont have anything really to show, I have just been updating all my work to make sure it's all up to date.

OK, So I again forgot to blog yesterday, I have to admit I had done a lot of work yesterday I just completely forgot. Today was no different, although I have gone back to my cards project making cupcakes and researching cupcake designs. So below is some of my research, I hope it makes you as hungry as I am!

So first of all what I really like is that, most of these cupcakes are unbelievable looking, I don't have to worry too much about the design being believable looking or not, as the things people can create with cakes and cupcakes is pretty brilliant to be honest. Here is one cupcake I made last night, I have to admit I'm very happy with this: 

There is still a lot of things I would like to add and change about this, I also have a slight problem with making cupcakes looking masculine and feminine.  So I have saved this image as my Queen of Hearts, but I may end up changing this to possibly being the Jack of Hearts. 

On a separate note, I have been doing more research into my main project. I have previously looked into the most expensive cities in the UK. However, I was concerned that I didn't see my own university city showing up, as it is incredibly expensive to live here in Aberdeen. So I looked up one of the main private student accommodation companies prices. I went through every city writing down the new prices for 2015-2016. I have previous lived with this company, looking at the price that I paid per week when I was there in 2012, to the prices for next years students. The price has gone up a clear £30 a week, that's pretty much an extra tenner per year that the rent goes up. This was also at the time the cheapest student accommodation available, what is scarier, is that this still seems to be the case, even though the prices are going up. 

Within the list of cities the student accommodation has housing. I looked at the prices of the cheapest accommodation within ever city, out of the 20 cities I looked into Aberdeen was #14 in the cheapest, Sheffield was the top for cheapest student accommodation offered with this company.

What my research is showing me is that, although the government says that higher education isn't just for the rich. The reality is that it truly is going back to those old ways, this may not be due to just tuition fees. But companies like private student accommodation, are exploiting students. This makes it harder for students who are not as well off as others to study away from home.  My project is to help students, by giving advise on how to save the pennies and still have a full university experience.  The advise I am giving is all from my surveys from past students and current students from all over the UK. 


I am still looking into my own research and have even looked at cheapest cities to live in judging by the price of pints. Not an exact science, but still good to know.


That's all from me today.

Well it has been forever since I last blogged. I have been  a busy bee as well as going home for the Easter holidays.  I have been designing a logo for  this website so I can get my business cards printed and what not. There will be even more work added to the website. I am now into my final 2 months of university, which is a very scary thought.  Here is some of my characters for my student help guide, these are not finished yet, but they are a work in progress:

from the top left, we have the hungover student, Hipster student, Sport student, Geeky student, Protester student, and Ghost student.

I have also been researching the most expensive cities to be a student, in within the UK. I have already gotten 125 responses to my survey. Which is fantastic! I have a lot of information from current and past students. A lot of students have found to have the same problems and have solved them in the same ways.  I have a lot more research to do, but I don't want to get so caught up with research that I am not really doing a lot of work. Which to be honest, is pretty much why I haven't blogged in a really long time, no pretty pictures to show and what not.

On another notes with my logo project I have  been experimenting with different colours for my logo. See below logos:

I also really like the idea of having my logo be a gif that goes through all of these different colours. I am not too sure if I should continue with that idea, but I think Ill do it anyways and see how it looks.  I have also been thinking about how to have this website. As I do love the amount of colours within it, I may keep this, but I would like to change the layout a little more, so the plan is to hopefully do Code Academy. I will also be able to create a website for my main project also.

I haven't managed to get much of my playing card project done, however I plan to get really stuck into all of my projects and knuckle down in  my last few weeks of being a student. That's all from me today

So I have been pretty productive, so productive I  didn't even notice I missed another day of blogging. So firstly. My survey is done, so if your a student  or a past student. Please, please, PPPPPPLLLLLLEEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEE do my survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/S2C6VY3


I have  also  finally completed my first set of cars in the traditional style.

I have also been playing around with the idea of having little characters around the answers and advise I get from  my surveys, here are some illustrations I have been looking up, for inspiration and ideas in general

I have been trying to identify stereotypes  that everyone sees at university. Like everyone knows a few of them and can even identify to these stereotype characters. I thought this would be interesting, although it's all still very early days. The character idea could end up being a total flop and not work at all.  Hopefully I will have sketches to show tomorrow. That's all from me today. 

I didn't get to post yesterday due to feeling  so ill. I didn't manage to get any work done yesterday.

Still feeling crappy today.  however I was actually finally able to do some work.  Not a great amount but still a fair bit. I finished my Queen of Spades card, I am now currently working on the jack of spades.

I also skipped a little bit a head and have started to design the newest deck of cards design, Cup cakes

As you can see, I'm just on the concept of ideas, I plan to go ahead into illustrator and see what designs work better than others. I also have been toying with the idea of giving the cupcakes a bit of a horror/ monster feeling to them, I am as yet unsure. As I feel that the monsters could again be another design of a deck of cards on their own. I am hoping to be well enough to go to uni tomorrow, being ill is getting boring and I am dying to get my teeth stuck into my work again.  That's all from me today, hopefully more to share and see tomorrow.