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How I came about to actually creating the first zine was through more traditional means, with pencils, inking, and then watercolor, over a process of 4 days. The second zine, taking much less time in half a day, in a medium I'm more comfortable in the form of digital art. Why I chose to do a zine for this particular project came down to two things: challenge, and purpose. With a zine, I could practice with things I normally don't, like watercolour, in order for me to develop these skills on an independent project. I’ve always wanted to participate in a fanzine, and this opportunity was a great chance for me to see how to develop one, especially on the means of printing and orientation, which was the hardest for me to grasp. The purpose of the zine, however, was something that I thought over so I could further develop a personal story that I would make into a game on the final project of Foundation. I needed to do that in the format of a zine in order to test out backstory, relationships, and general ‘lore’ that I would not have been possible in an animation of 2 minutes. Other complications to making this particular idea into an animation would mean I would have to shorten it considerably, and change my purpose completely.

If my zine were an animation, what I mentioned above would in fact have to be different. As an animation, I would focus a lot more on relationships and character design rather than a story that needs an introduction. Knowing an audience's attention span for short videos, I feel that that would be the best course of action.

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Feedback I received was making the text more ligable, by adding it to a program through scanning and typing it on the computer. Other advice was about the order, as even though it is in the wrong order that only slightly breaks the flow, but it’s offset by the numbers on the bottom. To make up for this mistake, I will sell the zines at a very low price ($15) compared to the other mini zine ($25) which is a much higher quality and for the orientation of the zine itself, as it has two sides.

I agree with the feedback given to me, as these are legitimate concerns that would make it harder to read. An observation that I noticed was that the quality of later pages is grainier, and for that I can only solve that by finding a different scanner that retains and prints it in a better quality.

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Binding and planning of the format to the cover of the mini-zine. Thinking of ways to create the cover of the mini-zine, due to it having a zigzag shape, needs a cover for both sides as its from different perspectives of each other in the relationship. Formatting and planning for the structure however was more difficult, as I had to think about how I would have to put the title page on which side, and what would go on which side. At first, I was mentally visualizing how this would be, but then I transferred to making simple models with what I believe would happen, and then what I wanted by marking both covers to see which one was in the right position, and if it was legible. It had to be on the far right of the picture.

I wanted to explore with a band that holds the booklet zines together, but none of the materials I had were suitable for such a purpose.

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created the cover artwork for the first zine, and created all of the artwork for the mini-zine about different perspectives of a child and their monster parents. It made me think a lot about how to structure pages, how when  creating a page to read left to right, the first page must be on the right.
Since the creature character I designed was not featured much in the first zine, I decided to do the mini-zine as a companion piece that builds on the relationship between the two characters on the final page.

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Finished the watercolouring of all the panels, and later scanned them all to print back-in-back. One thing I thought I could improve on was the overall quality of the artwork, bot due to the risk of the watercolour rendering the paper unscannable and lose its quality, but because the images themselves were very simplified. I did set out of my comfort zone, but it also made it clear in what I need to improve upon in the future, namely full body images and believable backgrounds. I also saw a significant desire to learn other watercolouring techniques.
Other problems I encountered was how expensive the printing and scanning was, as each was 20 Reais a copy. Considerations to reduce the price was to bring my own paper for them to print on, which is much cheaper if bought separately so that copy center doesn't charge me for using their paper. I should organize the pages myself to reduce the amount of time spent organizing it the way I want to.Another way is to scan it myself and to send it to them to print.  I feel that this way, I could earn back the money I spend and have a reasonably priced zine that could earn me profit.

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Over the weekend, I switched plans to go with the lore book, since I felt that this was a great opportunity to do some actual development in my story's lore and world building to develop it with the help of the tutors. I felt that this would be a lot stronger for my development of story, since the limitation of only 8 pages on the zine left much to be desired. I could write a short narration of explanations and result of research to present my story on. The completion of the pages first inking lead me to what material I could use to colour it. I considered using a digital art program, but I decided that It would be too heavy in colour. I decided to go with watercolour, being a light quality to it, but I was aware on how the water would make the specific type of paper crunch up. This risk was alright to take, as the scanning would render the crinkles a solved problem.

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Planning began on the panels and s

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Concept art begins by thinking how the panels will be set up, order, and the schedule planning done. I looked at how I could order panels, and set a key to myself on how I should structure things, or if anything would change over time.

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Visual research done by searching and accumulating pictures of recognizable photos and depictions of creatures being possible cryptids. Important step to visualize features, develop new ideas, and overall get a feel for how they look and are depicted.
Later, I developed conceptual art of the design by combining certain reoccurring features, like talons, spikes, reptilian features of the chupacabra for example. This was important to me to get a feel for the character, by analyzing their structure, character, and expressions.

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my 30 ideas in 30 minutes contained many of the same or related ideas, and that told me which ideas I would like to explore. Some of the more interesting ideas were unrelated to my main idea of developing my personal story of "cryptid aliens adopt a psychic child". It was a conceptual comic about chess pieces, with the Queen being the main character. Perhaps in the future, I could try that idea out, after I learn how to create zines.

In the progression practice session, I experimented with the many Ideas i had created for my story, ranging from a beastiary, a lore book, a short story, or an actual introductory prologue.

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At the DADO conference, I began to generate ideas about my own content to create, with how online art is produced, and how you can display digital galleries. Different from an online portfolio,  a digital gallery space is a cheaper way to create a self-sustained gallery.
Based on the conversations had in the museum, I connected it to the need for smaller spaces for artists on a smaller scale that does not require contracts or big companies that get a share of the profits of the new artists work.
Why I thought this could be helpful was the potential for creating connections to the brief on self-publication, and especially in terms of protecting your own work and participation in collaborations that definitely made me think about how I could watermark my work in the future.

With Kevin's demonstration of the BA pathways of digital animation and game design, I was really interested in the different roles that are taught here, and how we experiment with all of them. These are obviously pathways to specify on one task for a big company on the artistic level, and wouldn't offer everything I would like to learn for independent game development, like the actual coding of the games. I was interested in the 2D animation sections as well, as both of the courses offer some of the same skill development.

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In the feedback I received, I heard a lot of useful improvements I could do for my research file and my sketchbook. For me to keep that in mind, I must keep track of all lecture artists I found interesting, to go to galleries and write them down as my primary sources, and to write down my own analysis on their work, and how it'd benefit my own work. With my sketchbook, I need to use a lot more space, and to develop my ideas and demonstrate my experimentation more often, even those that are not the final outcome.

In the work, I need to analyse the final outcomes, even if they were not as successful as I would have hoped.

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Due to the shorter time on 3d photography, I felt that I could do more. My images, both from the 60 photographs, i decided to use the printer's error in printing to my advantage. The images had several vertical lines, so for one i made a sort of bead curtain, using wire over it in order to be adjustable. I cut each line all the way, then taped it to the wire. I wanted to solidify the idea of a curtain, so I cut string and pushed aside some of the "beads" to allow for the image underneath to be seen, and glued the string to the back. Had I more time, I would've added more string to look more polished.

The second image I made. also with the printer error, I decided to use a duplicate image to create a wave effect, as the original image had some depth. I cut the image in increments of 7cm, but only a small section, and not all the way through, just enough for it to fold. I glued it on the inside, so that it would pop out. on other sections, i decided to put some variations, like one where each of the ends were cut all the way through and folded slightly outwards, allowing the viewer to see inside, while the other had the bottom tassels pinched. I felt that this way, I would create more verity in my image.

Had i more time, I would've created a geographical relief for a detail of a flower, with different depth, since I thought it would best utilize the detail of the flower.

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Working on destroying the five images was interesting in what solutions I found to each of the prompts. For the first image of addition, I just thought I should mark it up, but then i decided to make parallel slits on the paper to stick transparent paper so it would stick out on the other side. I still thought it was quiet empty, so I added the city-scape from a smaller picture over the white bar of the image.

On subtraction, I thought of removing all human-made objects from the countryside, and using the scratching technique to scrape off sections of the photo near that, to appear as a sort of aura. I thought that this would solidify my meaning of human presence. The only problem I encountered was that when I cut the car and lanes out, the grass in the middle would have no support, so I just taped that in the back with transparent tape.

On stitching, I did not do everything that I wanted to do on the photograph, but i knotted a few additions on the photograph. Stitching is not a skill I am very knowledgeable in, and that is one thing I feel like I could improve upon in case I need it in any other project.

In cutting, I decided to make a vague 3d effect of the shrinking sides, and punching little holes on the pupils. Its not my best work, and I would like to do something more interesting next time, like patterns with the holes or a wave.

The final piece of today, of our choice, I picked a photo with an almost completely yellow hue due to the sun. I decided I would use addition by creating the illusion that there is a mountain behind the buildings. As I was burning the photo, I noticed a curious effect on the film, that it would curdle and create small bubbles first, which is information I wish to use in the future.

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In the filter lens workshop, I cycled through several ideas on paper and then through experimenting. The first experiment I did was with yellow beads, that I found had a nice effect when close enough to the lens. I tried it at different distances, recorded each, and experimented with how many beads i needed to fit in the frame of the camera, by row and column. Adjusting the length was the difficult part, tying the bead strings onto the camera. A way I could improve this work would be to adjust the distance of the beads from the lens of the camera, and to spend proportionally less time on this one so as to develop other ideas. The second filter I made was more successful in attaching it to the camera, and the elastic I used to ensure that was one of the solutions I was looking for. However, I believe that I must find more than just one solution.

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In doing the research workshop and presenting our photos, I am now more aware of trying to make connections between all my work, which is the way I focus a lot on nature and what it personally means to me as the base point of my thinking and ideals. It taught me how I should conduct my research in a way that benefits me and can help me develop my own ideas, in a "how can I use this for my advantage?" way. To do this, I need to be much more specific in my observations and to state my ideas bluntly, then develop it from there. I should note techniques, material, and concepts I wish to convey certain messages in my art, and consider my material very carefully in how I can use it.

In the reflective workshop, I learned a lot more on how I should express my thoughts on the creative process in depth and more specifically, in order to make the reader see what I think. I should always ask myself "Why did I think that? Why did I find this useful? Why did i want to use this material?" and so forth. For now, having a structure to answer questions is a great guiding tool, but I think as I am in class, I will write down current thoughts, document more often down in my sketchbook to record my thoughts.

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Collecting the 60 photos was done with nature in mind, since I went to my farm. I had to think of a lot of different ways I could interpret the themes, and most where fairly the same in content of trees, but with a different context in mind. I had to think more on the more emotive side that would help me by being more of my view.

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For the performance, I decided to go around campus and outside to ask people (who fit my criteria of diversity, of which are POC, LGBT, disabled mentally ill, etc) and ask them to take photos holding my poster. All in all, I felt that it was something very complete, and that that was a very important descision to the success of my staged protest. I did get feedback that I had too much information in text, but I did not feel the same way, since other ideas I had were way more invasive and hard to read, and that this was the simplest form I could get to without removing the original meaning.

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When completing the prints, I used an orange paper so that the neon orange of the silk screen would pop out, at least to imitate my actual poster. When I was done, I created a new protest poster for the preformance the next day, using colored paper to imitate pride flags, to be the filling of the eye. I spent a lot of time trying to decide which images to create a collage with, and what positions they would be in. In the end, I used the same images for the print and an additional one in a way that appears that the images are repeating the slogan. The simplicity i opted to made a nice image in the end.

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When experimenting with materials, I needed to think what textform and technique would be valuable to my work. It had to carry meaning, but to also be simple in its message, which is why the main word diversity and hidden would carry that stylistic choice. I used white glue to write those words, so that it would be difficult to see but still legible if the light hits it. When we had to rearrange the photo with collages, I felt two images calling my attention: an unknown African native tribesman preforming and a black women in brackets that, coincidentally, was advocating diversity. I felt that this was an important image I wanted, so I used those two even if it is not everything that encompasses diversity.

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Brainstorming the textform I wanted was the biggest challenge I had in terms of putting the right one on paper. I had to keep in mind what text would be impactful but relevant to my theme of diversity.

I spent much time working on sketchbook ideas, but in the experimental phase I really only tried two ideas that I thought would help me in my message of invisibility that comes with representing diversity.

I didn’t have time to properly finish, and I thought I could still improve what I did manage to do by making the lines of Seen to be thicker.

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On my assigned letter b, my image was the biggest influence I had in developing it more thoroughly was my found image for it. Possibilities I juggled with foremost variations of the source image, each bearing the original aspects of the photo. On my first drafts of the letter, I stayed to that image as close as possible, but I quickly made adjustments due to the nature of it being a "connect the dots" situation. Other versions were more solidified, but only

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For the first task, making my name was rather easy, save for the V in Avis. I wanted to use scissors, but when opened they appear to be an X, so I covered the ends so that it was a v. Using white paper, I wanted to use the scissors rather than anything else because i really likes both ends of the scissor, because it creates a nice sort of font for me to use.

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I decided to explore scale first, though I was experiencing difficulties with how I could explore my materials I collected and how to interpret them. After scaling, I went ahead to the charcoal exploration to apply the body parts I use to feel these items: my lips and my hands/fingers. I used a different object, but I feel that it made more sense.
The first drawing did not go as well as the second, but I feel it was an important way for me to explore different ideas with my approach to my materials.
Unfortunately, I could not manage my time due to reduced hours of working on it, as I was late, but I feel i was halfway through the tasks. I would like to think of different ways I could approach this had I more time.

A suggestion I received to record my collection was to video tape it accordingly to the movement of the items I arranged, from the floor to the table.