​To start, I wrote down the key points of the brief in my sketchbook and started thinking about the topics (words) I could choose from. I considered that just one word didn't give me enough information, and since it should be an illustration for a magazine, I decided to search for news or article's headings containing this words because if I'd be face with this type of project I'd ask my client to give me at least this information. 

After some thinking, I narrowed down the topics to "lost" and "disaster", and finally went for the word "lost". The heading I found to be more inspirational and relevant in relation to the topic was: "A lost generation: surge of research reveals students sliding backward, most vulnerable worst affected." The Washington Post. Dec., 6 2020.

After having chosen my topic, I went through some magazines and newspaper looking for editorial. illustrations to serve as example and inspiration.

With this heading in mind and having seen some examples of editorial illustration from real life, I felt ready to start brainstorming and thinking about the objects I'd include in my still file. 

Later on the process, after I thought about the first sets of possible combinations for the still life, I started to question other things like angles and cropping. I also thought about more creatives surfaces to set my still-life on, than just a table, which was my first though. 

In this part of the process I came up with ideas I really liked, for example using a bed, couch or the floor as the setting for my still-life. I finally decided to use the floor to set up my still-life since I thought it relates better to the title of my article: "A lost generation".

I went to my living room, arranged the objects and took pictures with my instant camera. I considered taking my pictures from different angles and cropings. After that I created some quick thumbnails based on the pictures. 

​After choosing my favorite thumbnail, I carried on to produce the tonal version and then on to develop a possible color palette and a quick color trial. I also tried how to create different textures since this is an element that I definetly want to incorporate to my work. 

Personally, this is always the most difficult part of the process since I'm still not confident about the best way to render my images. So fas I've tried a range of different techniques and material but I haven't really mastered any. I find very challenging the amount of possibilities wether working analog or digital. 

Mostly, I've enjoyed working analog with dry media like pencil color, oil pastels or markers or all together. However, I highly appreciate the versatility of working digitally where errors aren't as permanent as with the analog techniques. The question of what I like better or how can I combine both things, is one that I haven't definetly answer. 

For this assignment, I first atemp to create a final piece made with an analog technique mixing watercolors, pencil colors and other; plus the use of Photoshop only to clean the piece. I wasn't happy with the finla result but it was probably because the paper i used wasn't good enough to hold the wet medium. I should have probably made another attemp, correcting this, but instead I moved to a more digital atempt. 

Finally, I decided o use my sketch only as a guideline in order to color my whole illustration in Photoshop. So this time the process was 20% analog and 80% digital, the other way around from the first version. 

I'm happier wth the result because to me it looks more polished and professional but I still would want to find a way to produce something that looks neat but still hand made and less digital. I'm pleased with the color palette and overall I think that Part 4 of the course was very useful to me. 

Resources:
- Mock-up:  
https://www.anthonyboyd.graphics/mockups/open-magazine-mockup/

To begin with this exercise I collected as many different characters as I could in the form of a Pinterest board. I quickly realized that it was a good idea to look into movies or tv shows where characters are well defined and perhaps a bit easier to identify than people in from everyday life. I collected women, men, young and old. Also some characters like dancers, pirates or secret agents. After the visual research I started by warming up with some quick gesture sketches using the website line-of-action.com/ .

For my first character I was inspired by Jay Gatsby, main character of the novel and movie The Great Gatsby. I love this story and think the character is wonderful, so I really enjoyed the process.

I started by creating a grid in which I draw a person with regular proportions so then I could distort it to evoke the terms that I chose where relevant for the character. I made him slim, tall, with long neck and long legs. In my opinion he looked sleek and smart. 
​

​For my second character I wanted to choose a very different person so I thought about a little girl. I looked at some references from the movie Matilda, which I also really liked and took inspiration from there to create my character. In this case instead of using a grid system, I based my illustrations around geometric shapes, including and oval shape, square and triangular shape. I finally decided to use the oval shape. 

In a second page I illustrated my character doing some different activities and some close-ups of the face trying to convey different emotions. 
​

I chose to work with the cat wich would normally be my second option, since I'm more of a dog preson, but I wanted to experiment. I started by looking as some picture from different angles and in which the cats were in different positions and drawing some realistic versions. Then I went on to create the figures with only five lines. 

Once I steped into the creation of the collage, i found myself creating something that looked too obvious to me and a bit boring (first collage with the grass underneath), so I gave it a second chance I tried to think outside of the box for a second version. This is the version that inspired my final drawing which ended up being quite funny but also a bit haughty which is how I see cats. 

For my final image, I decided to place the cat confortably on a nice chair in a well decorated house with books about art, which can already tell a story like who could be the owner of this character. 
​

I started doing some research about the history of tattoos as well as trends for 2020, I read a couple of interesting articles and also went through Pinterest to do more of a visual research of possible trends.

​- www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150313-high-societys-hidden-tattoos

- people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/body-art/body-painting1.htm

- edition.cnn.com/2014/09/22/world/gallery/body-art/index.html

- www.elle.com.au/beauty/tattoo-trends-2020-22765

After the research and trying to incorporate my own vision as illustrator and designer, I decided to go for a minimalistic tattoo. I liked the idea of one continious line and something that wasn't very literal but more abstract. I started barimstorming around the world "mom" and the sketching out some first ideas. The one that really stucked with me was "hug", almost a synonimous of the word mom, specially in the first years of your life. 

Brief's key points

- Provide an illustration for use on the menu of a sophisticated, quality fish restaurant – one in a chain sited in major European cities. 
- Any food depicted needs to be visually appetising. 
- The image will need to be reasonable simple and clear.

- You need to provide an example reduced to 40mm x 40mm as it will initially be used 
​

The creative process I went through to create the final piece for this exercise was quiet simple, however I feel it was appropriate for the type of exercise and I was still able to achieve a piece I'm happy with. 

First I started to think about the type of food that's served in a fish restaurant. As I quickly decided I wanted to go with the main subject and illustrate a fish dish, then I thought about the different types of fish and the different presentations: a whole fish, a fillette, "fingers", etc. For the first part of the process I used my sketch-book (analog), but once I was happy with the idea I jumped into my Ipad and used Procreate for the sketching and painting of the final piece.

I decided that a fillet was much more sophisticated than a whole fish and that it would help me accomplish the requirement for it to be visually appealing. I went for salmon since it shows quality and it's very identificable (hard to be mistaken as a chicken or beef fillet).

After all the thinking, I searched for some references of salmon filettes and went on to sketching and coloring my illustration.

​Resources:

- Free mock-up: unblast.com/free-clipboard-menu-mockup-psd/