Critical Review: Proposal and Summary

The Proposal Draft 1

What I want to achieve for my Critical Review, is to better understand what goes into making a good story artistically speaking whether that's really good character design or effective story-telling elements in concept art. I've enjoyed so many parts of this course, but as I continue to work through I've discovered some aspects that appeal to me more. What drew me to this topic or artistic story-telling is my love for concept art, character design and media; I find myself exploring deeper conversations about movies and video games, exploring behind the scenes of media and seeing the thought going behind every elements of a story, a character and/or location.

This is supported further with my enthusiasm to learning logs based around character design, concept art, graphic novels and story-boarding; with additional inspiration drawn from my mood-board. My fascination with story-telling and character design has shown throughout previous research tasks, exercises and assignments with zine making and ingenious designs being my favourite assignments so far. Some questions I would like to pose is 'How to convey emotional story-telling through concept art?', 'How to create effective character design?', and 'Are you traditional concept artist still a thing or has digital taken over?'.

Behind the scenes of the Critical Review Proposal

Mind-map

You can explore this mind-map as I add to it throughout the days and weeks that I continue on this course, if you like you can even make a comment!

Link here: https://app.milanote.com/1R5sLl16bjGx6t?p=BJtZH7zZVIl

Critical Review Part 2!

The Proposal Part 2

Responding to tutor feedback and drawing from my previous proposal, I have narrowed down the subject area and taken inspiration from more recent tasks; I want to talk about what artistic decisions are made to create emotional storytelling. I've enjoyed many parts of this course and I've indulged a lot of media which has influenced my topic of this critical review.

What specifically drew me to this topic is my recent reading of 'It's Lonely At The Centre of the Earth' by Zoe Thorogood, and my recent cinema experience of 'The Boy and the Heron' (otherwise known as 'How do your Live?' by Studio Ghibli; where they create emotional moments in an artistic and stylistic way which I have not stopped thinking about, I am interested in seeing how artists navigate their medium and experiment to create powerful storytelling.

Seeing these imaginative art mediums (through a variety of different formats) has made me look at media as a whole, today we see so much content that everything has become bland because companies want money, and awards. There's a lack of courage in these fields, to go out and try something new-- create something daring that is based on someone imagination; not created in a board meeting with directors as they try and think of a next sequel idea.

I will explore a variety of different documentaries and look into a variety of graphic novels, movies, TV shows, illustrations that explore emotional story-telling; especially looking into the animated TV show, Arcane, iconic anime company Studio Ghibli, and exploring in-depth a variety of graphic novels to see how these artists and masters delve deeper into their imagination as they create their own masterpieces in media.

Particularly, exploring the different techniques they use to create dynamic and emotive scenes without narration, whether it's expansive painted scenes or detailed montage comic panels; exploring my own thoughts and feelings on what makes a great emotional storytelling.

Hopefully, in a video format, I want to ask the question "What artistic decisions are made to create emotional storytelling?". My fascination with story-telling has shown throughout previous research tasks, exercises and assignments with zine making and ingenious designs being my favourite assignments so far; in addition, my growing fascination in graphic novels and animation will help navigate my critical review.

1

Summary

I'll be exploring the works of Emily Carroll's thrilling horror comics, and delving deeper into Zoe Thorogood auto-biography,"It's lonely at the Centre of the Earth. Not only that but from there I'll be looking into animated movies and TV shows, looking at Arcane's breath-taking visuals and ground-breaking style to the iconic immersive world of Studio Ghibli movies; all with the intention to see how different artists and their teams approach emotional storytelling through their work.

Taking a deep dive at artistic elements that contribute to various emotional themes, comparing a still images to a moving image; exploring behind the scenes and sharing the thoughts of the creators. Grasping an understanding of how these artists create amazing stories...

1 Goodreads, Goodreads 'It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth' by Zoe Thorogood, U/A. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60760105 Accessed May 6th, 2024.