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What lies ahead?
This is my last big stretch before heading out into studio and/or freelance work. I wouldn't lie and say I'm not nervous, but I've tried to take this module as far as I can while not knowing exactly what I want to do when I graduate. Since the pandemic, I've questioned a lot about where I want to end up in my life and what kind of job or work I want to do.
Over my placement year, I had to opportunity to work with Ulster Universities Enterprise Placement Year. During this, I had the chance to start my own business working on both freelance client commissions and making my own physical store selling my art as merchandise and stationery. This opened my eyes to what I can do in the future and if I can toot my own horn a little, my placement was a huge success. I found my following online and built a brand for myself that people recognise. If one thing's for sure, after I graduate, continuing Limseca Studios is number 1 on my list of careers I will continue.
I've been building up for this degree that could land me a good-paying job. While I do want to continue Limseca Studios, the business is not at a point where I can make a living wage. To balance this I aim to go and look for part-time studio work while I work for my own business. I should also note that my Major Project is focused on a new side-business I've been eager to move into that links into Limseca; Twitch Streaming. My Virtual-Tuber Hazel will be the face of my brand Limseca and I will be doing live streaming on Twitch come Summer 2023 and working on building a career through the streaming industry by playing games and working on art/commissions live.
I've been building myself up for 2D roles while studying at Ulster. In group projects, I've always taken a variety of roles like Character Design, Backgrounds, Prop Concepts and some 2D hand-drawn animation. My dream job has been Character Design but I've had my doubts about whether or not I'm skilled enough in Art Fundamentals to take this career head-on. When I look at Character Design job positions a lot of the criteria ask for knowledge and skills on; Anatomy, Perspective, Colour, Form, Silhouette, etc. While I do have these skills, I'd say they're still at a basic/intermediate level. To compensate for this over the summer I'd like to work hard on self-discipline and teach myself these different areas by following Youtube Tutorials and taking courses on Domesika and Skillshare. I've looked at several job positions that might interest me below;
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
After looking at the various job positions I decided it was time to make a CV. While I don't need a CV for my own business or twitch streaming, I do need it for scouting studio positions. Based on the positions, I tried to tailor my CV to match a variety of criteria while highlighting my own personal achievements that I have accomplished. In 'The Essential Guide to Business for Artists and Designers' the author talks about having 3 CVs; one for employment, one for freelance and one for showcasing. I think having this many CVs is great for tailoring it to suit the area of expertise, however, I wanted to try combining both Employment and Showcasing as this CV will be present on my EOYS table and sent to employers as an online PDF.
I had a look at some of the previous submissions and while I like how the sleek and 'professional' look I wanted to create a CV that reflected my own Major Project and the Business that I run. Taking again from 'The Essential Guide to Business' the author listed a variety of points that I took into account for my own CV;
Sense of style and design.
Clear contact details - your home address, and phone.
Mission statement.
Major Achievements
Web presences / your own website or blog.
Sharp clear thumbnail images.
Infographic CVs are extremely popular; check Behance, Pinterest and Creative Review.
I went onto those websites recommended and found some CVs that better matched the approach I wanted to take;
I opted for showcasing not only my cute and fun art style but also my own bubbly personality. I choose a monochromatic pink colour palette that matches Hazels' design, bubbly text boxes and a fun but clear font. I also tried the infographic approach by showcasing thumbnail art of the software I like to use and adding small doodles and 'clouds' to the CV to match the theme of my major project. The infographic logos and my artist's picture are currently placeholders; I do not own the software thumbnails so I would like to draw my own and for the artist's picture I would like to try a cartoonish version of myself rather than hazel. I want to add a lot more doodles and small designs to the CV in my final submission.
I also want to give a huge nod to this design here on Behance that I found; https://www.behance.net/gallery/120015685/Curriculum-Vitae . This artist took an animated approach to their CV, giving it a line-boil effect. I'd like to discuss and explore this idea further with Henry on making a more animated CV that I can link via a possible QR code.
Business Cards
Since I have multiple employment options when leaving university from studio work to my own business + streaming I've decided to take a different approach to business cards.
Limseca Studios Business Card
At the end of year show it's not only about promoting your project but also promoting yourself to potential employers who come to see your work, however, I want to showcase the kind of business I run to potential BUYERS. I do have my own business card made for Limseca Studios that I take with me to conventions (see 2. Professional) but since I can't show the kind of products I make at the EOYS, I wanted to design an exclusive business card that is also a product showcase. Thus the 'sticker sheet' business card was born;
The designs are in CMYK so it's dulled on websites. The card is slightly bigger than an average business card but this is due to the business card being an interactive sticker sheet. It features key ideas and designs from my major project; Hazel, her bow, stars, moon and clouds. Henry and I discussed removing the 'v-tuber' part at the bottom and moving that to a QR code linked to the V-Tuber (See EOYS + Industry Screening), I will replace this text with the QR code leading to; https://limseca.carrd.co. This business card is able to showcase the kind of products I make at Limseca while also keeping to the theme of my Major Project.
2. Professional
Since I will also be looking for studio work I wanted to have a secondary business card on my table that can take people to this website that will contain a portfolio section to allow employers to see my work.
I'd like to keep a similar format to my original personal business card, see below;
And I looked at several business cards + general designs I would like to implement in my card below;
I did a very rough sketch on procreate and a rough block out on Canva to get an idea but I would like to take these two ideas and flesh them out more, then move into Adobe Illustrator to get a clean graphic look;
I'd like to work more on the colour schemes and the overall shapes and designs for the finalised version.
Poster
Technically my Major Project isnt a film or movie but I still wanted a poster to showcase the underlying story behind my character Hazel. So instead of looking too much at traditional movie posters I took a page out of anime shows and movies since that falls more in line with the direction of my project.
< -- Please click for better viewing
I tried to look at posters with either single-character focal points or movies that displayed a split personality or break of character like Belle and Archenemy. I also wanted to look at posters that seemed to follow a similar colour scheme I had like Clannad After Story. The posing of Labrinth holding the orb along with Archenemy and Belle (first poster) being a central character, influenced the poster design that I have a strong preference over. I should also note that Belle was a huge influence (hence multiple posters) as the plot follows a girl who finds her true voice by becoming a virtual avatar, similar to V-Tubers.
Following the advice of Henry's Poster class I took a look at Adobes' interview with Thomasz Opasinski where he stated "As artistic as they are, movie posters are a selling tool—so they have to communicate clearly...one function of a movie poster as posing questions that the movie will answer." Since I'm not working with a movie I am slightly more limited in what I can do but there is a message or potential questions a poster could hint at for Hazels lore. I placed her in the middle and tried to use a triangle shape as the basis of her positioning. She's holding a star in awe; what does this star symbolise? Why is she holding it? What sort of power does it hold? These are questions I want my audience to think about when looking at the poster, which will then be answered in her demo/debut/trailer video.
Some other poster designs I made can be seen below, I tried using clouds as a method of curved-based design where the clouds would curve inwards towards Hazel and draw the viewers' eyes into her. I was actually torn between the above poster and the bottom right poster sketch but Henry said the bottom right would make for a good cover for my design deck so I opted for that!
Art Book / Design Deck
One of my favourite and most eager parts of creative futures is the Design Deck / Art Book. I've decided I want to make a physical hardback art book to put onto my table, I've looked into using https://mixam.co.uk/hardcoverbooks as the manufacturer of the book. This same hardback book will be made into a digital PDF for my portfolio that people can flick through.
I had a look at two of the art books I already own; Kirby Art & Style Collection and Polaris by Meyoco. I really like the overall layout of Polaris and how Meyoco not only features pages of just art, but parts of text on other sides of pages relating to her thought process.
I also had a look into V-Tuber debut videos where the V-Tuber introduces themselves with a PowerPoint that talks about who they are. I'd like to implement this into my design-deck to allow viewers to get to know Hazel, who she is and why she is becoming a V-Tuber.
So for my design deck I'd like to feature:
About Hazel ; Age, name, profession, race, likes, dislikes, goals, pets, etc.
Hazels overall story?
Pre-Production Materials
Production Screen shots - the making on Live2D
Post-Production - Trailer animatic shots? Twitch materials (logo design, sub badges, emotes)
General art of her, sketches, meme art, etc.
I also did some basic block outs of ideas that I'll flesh out in canva then move into adobe illustrator:
EOYS Table Display + Industry Screening
For my EOYS table, I really want to go big and bring the audience into the world that Hazel lives in and give some sort of life to it. I'm thinking of keeping that same pink theme and turning it into an evening sky with lots of clouds and stars around the table. To do this I'm going to have to paint the board like a sky, purchase an incredibly large amount of cotton wool for the clouds and buy some battery-powered string lights to make the stars. I'd like to just throw a pink tablecloth over the table itself to keep things cohesive. I own my own vinyl banner that says 'Limseca' and features Hazels' old design on it which I might pin to the cloth as I do at conventions. See convention table example;
In terms of displaying the Major project I'd hope to have two monitors. One that showcases her debut trailer and/or animatic. The other monitor would have a webcam hooked up to it so that as people walk by they can try out Hazels rig themselves and make my table more interactive for the audience. During the business card section I mentioned a QR code for Hazels Vtuber socials. I actually have an idea of creating a life-sized cardboard cut out of Hazel to stand beside my table where she holds out her paw and there is a QR code for people to scan with their phones that takes them directly to a carrd that showcases her socials.
For the Industry Screening Henry and I have discussed the possibility of having a live interactive Demo of Hazels rigs, which I am fully onboard for. I'm a little nervous having to get into character but I'd be doing it on stream anyways so there's no difference. I'd like to introduce myself on stage first and give a brief of my project. Then go behind a curtain, play the trailer or animatic of Hazels rigs then transition into a live-stream demo where the lecturers and industry professionals can ask questions to Hazel and allow me to show all her features.
Twitch Promotional Material
An extra part I have to consider is the promotional materials that I need for Hazels livestreams. This includes;
V-Tuber Logo
Profile Pictures
Stream overlays
Emotes
Twitch Panels
Sub-Badges + Point Badges
Possible story/lore animatic (world building / optional)
Her own carrd and social media accounts
Stream schedule (optional)
Stream thumbnails (optional)
Below you can see some examples of each of these from other v-tubers + artists, scroll between slides. See here for example lore video
One of the main focuses of these elements is links to the V-Tubers aesthetics. So for Hazel its her cat ears, tail, stars, clouds, the moon, the sky, etc. Below I've compiled all the rough work I've done for each of these areas. A lot of it is very rough and blocked out. But I hope to explore some of these further on canva with stronger design and then take all of these into Adobe Illustrator to get clean vector images.
Logo
I'd like to repurpose the logo on multiple things like; the design deck, business card and poster. I'm still not sure which I like more, I might explore the designs a bit more on photoshop.
Overlay
This is an extremely rough block out of how I'd like my overlay to look. I'm going to take it into canva to flesh out more then into illustrator for final vector.
I referenced this twitter post about preferred layouts and this video to get a grasp on overlays https://youtu.be/VoF-Qk_tWgU . I still need to make overlays for;
Stream starting
Back soon
Goodbye
Offline
Just Chatting
Emotes
I had the most fun designing Hazels emotes. I tried to cater them to reactions the audience might have to Hazel streaming so;
Hello
Love
Shock
Cry
Boba/Please drink something/Hydrate
Angry/Knife/Evil
Lurking (When someone doesn't chat but just watches)
Money (When people donate or start a hype train)
Sub-badges
I wanted to keep a cohesive design for my sub-badges and use colours as a method of showing hierarchy and the length of time someone has been subbed for. Obviously, the longer you subscribe the more the streamer appreciates that person thus they should get a brightly coloured sub-badge that stands out from the other badges (the rainbow). The colours are still very rough but I hope to fix this all up in illustrator.
There's a lot more that goes into the EOYS, I plan to do a lot of promotional work on all my social channels and have already started teasing Hazel on her new V-Tuber twitter account to begin building up the hype for her debut. I'd like to possibly start back into making my Youtube Vlogs which I could also use for promoting the EOYS and my project to followers. I know I have very ambitious plans for the show but I know how big of a celebration this is for us as final-year students so I want to give it as much effort as I can! This will be something I cherish for the rest of my life. I might not be able to accomplish everything I've set out to do but I have high hopes for myself and know that it will look good no matter what.
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