So. I’ve decided to change directions a little bit.
Since the personal wiki fell flat, I’ve decided my next best, sort of container for information would be an art book. Art books are kind of like the wiki before wikis, before the explosion of the internet. They were a way to supplement material to fans of franchises, and still are supplements to franchises. They are coveted in certain circles, especially the vintage varieties. However, since I am in no position to print my art book, I’ve decided to make it an Ebook, a sort of PDF, scrolling document.
My Haru Ebook was modeled after several; artbook and fan books I’ve collected over the years for inspiration. The main inspiration for my Haru Ebook was the Akira (the manga) artbook by Katsuhiro Otomo.
A lot of the pages are absent any text or information; it’s composed of about 200 pages of pure images.
This book presents little words and is loaded with images that depict years of artwork for the Akira. I don’t have as many images of Haru but the ones I have finished, I’ve included in my own book. Below are some examples.
Obviously, I am in no way near 200 pages worth of material, not yet. And this Akira book spans across several years and several volumes of the original work. Compare that with my 15 weeks in a semester.
I will say this, however: despite the simplicity of the images, there’s something about them that feels complete and sophisticated. That is definitely something my ebook is missing and a part of me can’t understand why. The images I chose for the book are indeed, cleaned and finished, but they seem immature and, quite frankly obnoxious compared to the silent seriousness and maturity of Otomo’s illustrations. Is it the color? The compositions? The details? Maybe a combination of all three. Mine feel like amateur doodles that I decided to color, even compared to the colored pages of Akira Toriyama’s artbooks.
My rather sloppy presentation aside, the number of images don’t bother me, but the quality. And I spent a lot of time on these drawings; these were the ones I put work and hours into. I did take color and composition, and details into account for these chosen drawings and they still fall flat. I just don’t know why. While I thought they looked fine before, I’m not to proud to admit that they look like crap. Hindsight, am I right?
I think I understand what my professor says when he tells me I’ve never really finished anything. He’s right; I definitely present ideas and images but I’ve never finished anything, even things I’ve claimed to finish. I want to say it’s because I try to learn lessons instead of produce products. And, that’s true— I’ve learned a lot from the project and produced a lot work (drawings), but the ebook is a weak presentation. I like the idea of a Haru Artbook and I presented as much but doing one, but did I really I really finish one? Or present the idea for one? I think I can take a wild guess.
Did I execute my thesis for this last semester? To be frank, I don’t think so. I wanted to market and brand myself but did I? Looking at Toriyama and Otomo, I can clearly identify their brands; Toriyama as colorful, fantasy and imaginative, and Otomo as dark, brooding and serious. Gigi? Gigi’s got nothing. I didn’t build my brand, I just drew Haru over and over and over again. And without a brand, there’s nothing to market, so my Instagram is just pictures of Haru with slight variations (so maybe my brand is BORING?). I guess I thought that THAT was what branding was; being glued to one character as a sort of mascot or avatar and building a world around them. But, of course at the last minute, I realize that that’s not true. Further more, without a brand there’s no narrive and with no narrative, there’s no fandom and no community. I didn’t build a community, not even the fake one as I first wanted to achieve. There, I could even bring myself to make a fake fandom FOR ME. That’s a big fail right there.
Like I said, I’ve learned a couple of things, about myself and my work. I’ve got some semblance of which direction to take (what’s my brand, what mood and tones do I want my drawings to portray? Having a proper identity leaves a center from where a community can build) and I so wish I could’ve presented a coherent and complete project for my last semester. I’m not disappointed, per say bu for the first time in 415, I feel unsatisfied. Go figure. But hey, you can follow me on Instagram to see if I ever figure it out! @creativethumbs!
Link to my very sad ebook below: