Unit 8

Unit 8:
Professional
Practice In Art &
Design
Jordan Curtis

Marketing
MCM London Comic Con at the Excel centre can buy a sales table to sell artwork at the event
for $200-$300. They also sell merchandise at the events and have advertising for each on the
website.
In both Camden and Spitalfields market in order to hire certain stalls you have to apply for the
chance to hire a stall by giving them your name, website, and description of your products.

Ways Artists Can Promote Their Work

List Of Ways Artists Can Sell And Promote
Work
List all the ways you can think of that
artists can sell work:
EBAY
Depop
Auctions
Shop
Website
Car boot sale
Applications
Exhibitions
Galleries
List as many ways as you can as to
how artists can market or promote
their work:
Youtube
Social media
Website
Billboards
Ad in paper
Convention
TV ad
Merchandise
Shop windows
Company collaboration
Books - art gallery
Newspapers
Competitions
Instagram
Memes
Radio
Pop up shop
Free giveaways

Mood Board
Here I have selected various secondarily
sourced images that have inspired me...

Contacting Artists
I contacted two artists, Mau Lencinas and Christian Ward, which I feel inspired me on my
character design asking ‘what inspires them’, ‘what materials do they prefer to use’ and various
different questions referring their work, I contacted these two artists on their websites hoping
that they would reply with some advice and tips that I can use but have not yet received a reply.

Comic Trends
Marvel and DC will always be the big hitters! From DC, Batman, and Harley Quinn are most
popular. Wonder Woman also saw a surge thanks to the excellent new movie. On Marvel's side,
Deadpool, and Avengers are very popular; generally anything that's had a movie, will see
increased interest.

Gender in Comic Books
The trend towards hyper-sexualized female characters in mainstream comics is part of the
reason that independent comics have become so popular among women; independent artists,
regardless of gender, tend to draw both male and female characters in a similar style.
Authors demonstrate gender stereotypes in DC and Marvel comics by sexualising the female
characters using set themes, over exaggerating the female body, this is also done to male
characters in comic books as most male superheroes also have very exaggerated muscle
proportions and wear very tight costumes.

The Origin Of O’REn Ishii (inspiration)
This video is a scene from the film Kill Bill, and is the origin story to character O-Ren Ishii (オーレン 石
井 ) was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad known by her code-name Cottonmouth.
She was born on an American military base in Tokyo, Japan. She is a half Chinese-Japanese American
who was the daughter of a military man and a housewife. O-Ren eventually became the leader of a
crime organization in Tokyo, where she led the Crazy 88 and Gogo Yubari. After a duel in the snow,
O-Ren was defeated and killed by Beatrix Kiddo.
I am very inspired by the style of this animation
and the way that they use lighting and portray
motion, although I feel that it is very professional
and that I will not be able to match the style.

Analysis
In this Glenpool comic
cover they use the rule
of thirds to position the
subject, Gwenpool, in
the top right of the
page,also meaning
that it is asymmetrical.
They use the pink
colour of the spilled
substance from the
bottom of the page to
draw the eye towards
the subject, creating a
leading line towards
Gwenpool.
The colour used in the cover is a
variety of pastel tone colours, this is
to match the colour palette of
Gwenpool, although the colours are
very similar in tone the pink of the
foreground and yellow of the
background contrast very well
making the yellow background a
large area of negative space around
Gwenpool.
There is a bold line surrounding the
protagonist Gwenpool which draws
the eye towards her as most only the
cups on the floor on the poster have
dark lines, but they are not as bold,
this also makes her very visible to
anyone seeing the cover.

Analysis
This cover is very
symmetrical having
both characters and
signature their
signature symbol which
are actually split in two
and pieced together,
this is very pleasing to
the eye as there is a
sense of structure in
the cover.
The cover also uses
the rule of thirds
making both characters
cover 2 of the cross
sections each.
Instead of having the title at the top
of the cover, both titles for both
Deadpool and Spiderman are both
destroyed at the bottom in the
background. From this we can
infer that there is a lot of
destruction caused from a fight
between Deadpool and Spiderman
in this comic, this is also supported
by the fight that both characters
are having in the foreground of the
cover, having them both in the
foreground on a neutral colour
background, like they have used
here, makes the characters very
eye catching and easily identified
due to their iconography.

Analysis
This cover is very
symmetrical as the portrait
of Constantine is positioned
so his face is central to the
page.
The colours on the cover
contrast and compliment
each other very well as they
make the cover very eye
catching by combining
pastel oranges, neon pink
and a dark blue tone. As
these colours are very
different they make the
cover really stand out.
On this cover they use line to define
only Constantine’s Face and the
detail of the two skellington people
that reside in his chest. This is a very
useful way to draw the eye to look at
both his face and the detail on his
chest by making it stand out and eye
catching.
The title is stands out on the bright
colour as it is constructed of bold
black lines, which are rarely used in
the rest of the cover.

Character Design
Initially I designed a whole array of characters to be my main character in my comic,
sketching them onto templates of characters. From both females and males.

Character
Development
To match a darker aesthetic to match the
darker tone I have chosen to design a more
darker and street like character. But i feel that
these characters have too much detail that I
don't feel that I will be able to recreate them
in various different panels so I feel I will create
a simplified version of one of these.

Sticker Design
Here I have created my sticker design
in photoshop, I have done this by
creating a fist shape using the pen tool
in photoshop. I have chosen to create
stickers as merchandise as I feel that
stickers are easily reproduced in mass
production, and that stickers can be
easily designed digitally.

Costings
I am very interested in sticker making as a special area,
and I am aware that it will be very time consuming to
create a portfolio of enough different designs to really
sell at a venue, as many people might not like my
designs.
Although most other sites cost around £50 to create
around 50 5x5cm stickers, the website
https://stickerapp.co.uk/ only costs around £29 for 46
4.7x9.5cm stickers which is much cheaper than other
websites, so I feel that I will be ordering my stickers
from this website. The website also provides different
variations of sticker materials that can be used to
create more vibrant and eye-catching stickers.

Cover Development
Using the pen tool and fill tool to
create the poster, I also used

Submission Feedback
‘You need more conventions e.g. barcode,
publishing house name (logo), coverlines,
artists/writer name, price. I like the styling, but
is the design too simplistic? If you need to
discuss gender representation are you
shooting yourself in the foot? Are there any
mainstream marvel/dc comics that are
designed in a similar way to this?’

Development
After that peer assessment i took into
consideration the additions that were
mentioned, I added a publishing company logo
and credits to the cover, I did not add a
barcode or definitive price as i feel that this
will give the comic a more indie style as if it is
very new and worked on by one individual and
is viewed to entertain and not to make money
from.

Poster
Here I am creating an incognito poster, using the pen tool I created the character, firstly
colouring it in a red design, but later changing it to a more pastel blue hue. I then added a
silhouette of a city to the background and by using the gradient tool I created a nice purple to
blue gradient background behind the silhouette,

Analysis
This poster I have created is a very
dull and pastel like poster, which I was
going for, although I feel that by doing
this it takes away from the feel of it
being a poster as the poster isn't very
eye catching other than the white
type over the top of it.

Development
Here I used the pen tool
to create different
words for a poster that is
inspired by different
types used for different
comics to make the
poster look very
dynamic, taking
inspiration from X-men,
Guardians of the Galaxy,
Batman and very
standard comic type.

Analysis
Here is a poster that i created in photoshop to advertise
the event that we were selling our comics at. I took
inspiration from various different fonts used on
different Dc and Marvel comics, I the first, the word
‘new’ is inspired by the font used on the Guardians of
the Galaxy comics, ‘and’ inspired from Aquaman,
‘Exclusively’ inspired from the X Men font, and finally
‘at’ which is very much inspired by old batman fonts.
By doing this I can relate to loads of different comic
fans by enticing them in with a font they know.

Development
Here I created a poster from photoshop
using the gradient tool to create the
background and then used the pen tool
to create the character, and finally
added the text. I positioned the text in
this manor to make the readers eye
move down the poster as they read
making them look at the whole poster.

Development
Here I created an alternate ‘Vigilante Poster’
and relied on my peers also participating in the
exhibition to vote on which poster they
preferred, the majority voted on the original
poster, as when confronting the voters, the
reasoning for the voters of the blue poster was
the contrasting colour of the blue on the red,
but other voters saw that it took away from
the bright and menacing red of the poster and
made the writing harder to read.

Analysis
I feel that this poster is my favorite that I have created
out of the three as it is very eye catching and was
heavily inspired by russian propaganda art which
makes the poster very bold in itself. I also really like
the way the that typography moves down the page
and is still fully readable, by doing this typography in
white makes it stand out very bold on the orange and
red background, making it very eye catching to an
audience.

Storyline board

Development
Using the pen tool I created my comic taking reference from my own initial sketches, which are on a layer that
constantly hidden so that it does not get in the way of the comic, and I have been creating the double page spread
using the pen tool, by creating each box separately.
I feel that using the pen tool with my double page spread created a very clean look, that I didn't want to have, and
feel that I would have prefered to have sketched out my comic strip and have it scanned in and coloured in
photoshop afterwards to create a more rough aesthetic.

Development
The next side of the page, also created in photoshop using
the pen tool, was very rushed and now as I look back on it is
too simple as it isn't very easy to follow. So if I was to
improve this, I would also sketch the whole comic out as I
feel that using the pen tool limits me with detailing.

Presentation at Darkside Comics

Evaluation
The exhibition took place in Darkside Comics in Chelmsford, near
the Chelmsford bus station on December 14 th . All BTEC Art and
Design national students were involved in setting up their own
stand to sell their own comic book and art.
The overall experience was unsuccessful due to very few
customers came to the event, although each student did receive
feedback from a member of staff, which was very useful! As there
weren’t any customers the stands were not busy, so there were no
sales among any of the stands, which makes it hard for me to know
what products were most successful with the audience.
In terms of professional practice to improve the exhibition it could
be held on a day that Darkside comics has a stream of customers or
the exhibition should be held over a series of days to either
improve sales or even just the opportunity to meet and introduce
my product to customers and other businesses, but due to
restrictions of the college we could only go on a Thursday
afternoon.

Peer Assessment from staff member Jim
‘Your comic has good brand recognition with the
fist logo, as it is simple and clean and could be used
to create good merchandise, as comic fans like
comics that are easily recognisable, like for
example Batman’.
‘Your poster here, points towards poster, the
poster is great there is only one problem, as
reading from left to right , instead of it saying “Stop
the vigilante from corrupting our city” I read it as
“Stop the vigilantly from our corrupting city” so
you would have to take that into consideration and
probably change it.’

Comic Brand Eval
After explaining the origin of my comic publishing logo and
that the Japanese writings direct translation means comic,
pronounced ‘Manga’ which, coincidentally, are comics created
in Japan or by creators in the Japanese language, conforming
to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, which he
stated that ‘they have a very different style of drawing then
what you use in your comics so you may want to keep an eye
on that as it may come off as you create manga style comics’.

Conclusion
So from this constructive criticism I can go back to improve my product and design to more fit the
audience and make it more user-friendly. From the comment that ‘your comic has good brand
recognition…as comic fans like comics that are really recognisable’ I feel if I was to be persistent at
selling and promoting the brand and products that there would be sales could be consistent due to
it being so recognisable and individual.
In conclusion I feel that my final products met my intentions, in terms of my original plan to create
posters, stickers and prints with my own design. I am happy with the products I created, although I
think I focused more on having multiple products more than the quality, which is reflected by the
incorrect use of typography on my poster here and the quality of my double page spread. If I was
to do this assignment again I would focus on creating a smaller series of products that have a
better quality of design. I would also push the advertisement of the exhibition online and in person
to possibly be able to enhance the attendance and sales at the exhibition.
I do not regret the amount of time I spent on my posters and sticker design, as I learnt that the use
of colour can change the mood of something drastically and that you can rely on your peers to
vote on a design preferred by the audience without any bias.