IL303

This semester I am taking IL303, Illustration: Special Topics. The goal of this class was for students to build a portfolio and personal brand within their specific area of interest as illustrators. My own goals for this class were in developing the pitch bible for my comic Spirit Guardians, however, the actual content of this class involved more client-based work than I was expecting. Instead, I ended up learning how to match the vision of various clients without compromising my personal style.

Our first assignment was the most open-ended. We were told to make an illustration based on a randomly generated phrase, and mine was "He had decided to accept his fate of accepting his fate." I decided to interpret the sentence through the lens of one of my Spirit Guardians characters, and explore his complex relationship with his magical "destiny." The piece was intentionally based in the character's psychology, and was meant to resemble a tapestry with its composition rather than a depiction of physical space. With it, I explored the ways I wanted to push the art style of the comic in darker scenes.

Our second assignment was to make two posters promoting a music festival that the school was putting on. We had to consider the school's own branding and learn how to incorporate text and information into the design. I ended up designing a mascot for the festival, since character design is one of my strong suits. I utilized them in two designs with very different effects. The first design emphasized the charismatic qualities of the character to generate hype. The second design focused more of the vibe of the festival itself. The character takes center stage, but their design is silhouetted and de-emphasized, giving them a cool aura that made the festival seem like it would be legendary.

Our third assignment was to design a T-shirt that would be worn by volunteers for the Ohio River Sanitation Committee (ORSANCO). The idea was to make a design that would be enjoyed by the locals by incorporating local fauna and making a design embodied what their team was doing. I ended up creating two different variations of my design, one that would be on a light blue shirt, and one that would be on a white shirt.

In addition to creating portfolio pieces and client work, we were told to develop our own personal brand. Although my original plan was to develop the brand of Spirit Guardians, it didn't really feel connected to the work I had done in the class, and it felt more fitting to utilize the Halmal Productions brand, since it is the branding I use for commissions. This involved revising my logo designs as well as this website.