Visual journalist - setting the scene/Project proposal

All of these photographs have been taken around the city of Leeds. I didn't want to get any photographs of the wealthy and nice parts of the city because it does not go with the message I am trying to get across with my book which is that people in modern society are like robots doing the same thing each day after day. I personally believe that it is a true representation of what living in the city is actually like. I think that every city has its dark areas so I have chosen to take photographs of these sketchy alleyways and side roads as this will help to inspire my book that will now take a more grimy and dark path. Also, the characters that will be in my narrative will be zombie-like characters so these kind of areas are great for reference imagery to set the scene for my book.

I realised that there is a lot of graffiti on the walls in certain parts of the city which gives it a very urban feel. I will look further into graffiti because including some in my scenes could create certain moods in my book that will help represent the setting.

There are countless small back roads like these all over the city of leeds and these kind of places are perfect for setting the scene in my narrative. If this same photograph was taken at night time it would look like a very scary place that people would avoid. But for my project this is perfect because these are the kind of places that will exist in my narrative.

Including objects such as dustbins and litter are subtle hints that can really elevate a scene to give it a more urban and city like theme. It also suggests that people are living within the area and thats the reason for the mess.

 

This is a quick sketch from a photograph I have taken. Perspectives are very important in these kind of drawings and all the lines must run toward a specific point. I definitely need to keep this in mind when sketching and roughing out the scenes for my narrative. These kind of roads and alleyways will be appearing throughout the narrative so I thought it would be useful to get some practice of drawing buildings at this angle.  Its almost like a first person perspective. within my narrative I intend on creating the story as if it is in first person perspective meaning the viewer is the person who walking the the city and encountering the people who reside there.

Another sketch of a side road in perspective. Before drawing these I was slightly concerned about how my building drawings would turn out as I never focus my drawings on buildings and structures. But after these sketches I feel that I now have more confidence to draw these kind of scenes in my final book.


Project proposal

 My picture book is about a person who walks through the city at night and the people who are in the city are all zombie/ghoul-like characters. The city will be portrayed in a very dark way. It is an exaggerated representation of todays society and how cities can be a dangerous place, especially at nighttime. Also the people in the book aren't actual zombies or ghouls, its more of a metaphorical idea, almost as if the person in the story is a child seeing a dark scary place for the first time.

I am trying to get quite a sinister and dark mood with the artwork as I believe that this will be the best way for me to represent the Idea and concept of the narrative. I may be able to achieve this with using certain colours, maybe a lot of black areas or dark tones of red or purple for the background on the scenes. Creating the right tone and atmosphere with my narrative is vital for my story. I will definitely try and make the atmosphere in the correct way that portrays the concept of my narrative.

I aim to create my book with a regular saddle stitch bind so each page is its own individual scene. I think this will be the easiest and most effective way for me to design the book. As there will be quite a lot of people and characters in my narrative I may have a landscape format as this will help improve the idea of the first person perspective and each scene is from eye level of the characters.

The ideas that are fuelling my project have come from me walking through the city of leeds and observing from an offset perspective. In order to develop these ideas I must gather some more reference imagery from around different parts of leeds that will help me set the scene for the characters. I also may need to look into some other artists to find some sort of inspiration that can help me realise what kind of media I will be using to create the narrative as I do not want to just use fine-liner pens. I am aiming to use a completely new media for this project.