Portfolio Showcase

The interesting parts of this piece is that certain parts of the original photo are edited within my drawing. For example: the bouquet of flowers is from the actual image but duplicated, blended with a “lens blur” brush and I used a “vegetation” brush to add more vibrantly coloured petals in blue and some extra foliage.

The reference for this piece was a photo of my friend, which I had edited on PicsArt. 

From the edit, I managed to produce an acrylic portrait (with some details over the top in watercolour pencil) of her split into two with a white string connecting her two “outer parts”. Her outer expression is rather difficult to depict - despite the words on her face reading “HAPPY”.

Coming out of her head is her “inner part”, which was inspired by a photo I had taken of the sun setting giving a more calm tone to the piece in watercolour for the background. The details of the trees were done in black fine liner and permanent marker.

This piece was difficult as the key factor was trying to show that the model’s head was a greater distance away from where I was standing when compared to her feet and legs. I was advised to created the illusion of perspective on the page by including less detail on the features that were further away and using darker tones on the parts of the body that were closer to me.

As a part of my planning for a comic I created I decided to keep a sheet organising Ensi’s character design - which I could refer to if I ever needed to look back at when creating the final product. This was really helpful in the sense that it allowed me to recall the correct colours I used for the design, making the comic’s finish look flush and accurate.

Inspired by the ADHD Cosmic Takeover organised by Pina Varnel - a graphic novel artist known for creating comics related to her experiences with ADHD - I decided to create my own comic based on similar principles.

#cosmictakeover was an event that happened in October 2021 (during ADHD awareness month) on various social media platforms, including Twitter and Instagram, whereby numerous artists shared their experiences with the condition. When I first saw this, I didn’t just take it as an opportunity to attempt producing a comic, but to research and try to raise awareness for a condition that can be easily misinterpreted or stigmatised.

From planning prior to the timed mock exam, I followed all of my reference and guide sheets that allowed me to complete my comic panels at a larger scale. For me, I think that I prefer my small scale version of this comic as it made overall composition appear nicer - the panels look fuller and complete.