Wednesday 7th March Creative Futures.

Wednesday morning - Publishing

The first talk of the day was a secret and left off the time table Martin Steenton of blank slate books was giving his views via Skype call.

Martin stumbled across his position after he started writing a serious comics review blog
 'avoid the future'
He basically gave advice on what the industry is like today.  How aiming your work towards certain and relevant publishers. It's no good have a certain style of work and pitching it to a publisher that does something completely different. He also exampled how we would go about pitching towards publishers.

What they would like to see

• Professionalism
• a clear path of what you want to do
• near finished artwork (doesn't have to be the whole book.)
• Don't waffle on either.

These views were all very useful and I personally took a lot away from it. Being as I would like to one day be a comic artist. Helpful to know how to pitch should it ever come to it.

Tuesday 6th March.

Tuesday Afternoon.

Character design and social networking - Jonathan Edwards

3rd time of seeing Mr Edwards, ( although this time unfortunately not in his yellow and black shirt ) it's always impressive to see the amount of top quality work he puts out and where it takes him.


Working and collaborating a lot with his partner who works under the name Felt Mistress, he has filled shop windows and exhibited in Japan.

Personal projects include the Inspector cumulus toy and advertising milk in foreign lands.

Being a fan of his character work all these were a pleasure to see especially as he has now taken to working brush and ink style to which I to am trying to perfect.  If this takes me to the same places he has been i will be very happy.   

Creative Futures Tuesday 6th March.

Tuesday Morning.


Getting a job - Wendy Rees BBC Wales.

This talk to me, seemed like a BBC advert more than anything. Wendy told us about certain jobs that would be available. But they didn't seem very art based  or something that could be aimed at us.

I think it would be better to go directly to the show to pitch the artwork to not the network

I watch a lot of BBC Shows didn't really need drafting to watch more.

Creative futures Tues - 6th March 2012

Tuesday morning.


After your degree : The first steps (Games) - James Boydell

The good thing about this week is we don't have to predominantly have to stay in our subject matter,
Which is why on Tuesday morning we went to see a former Glyndwr student, who graduated with a first in computer games design in either in 2010 or 2011 (he wasn't sure... although his old tutor seemed to know more.)

he now works down in London for a small games company Dreadnought Design working on games for smartphones and iOS.

The key to this talk was how he got where he did after graduating working a shitty job for a while he soon managed to get his foot in the industry.


Being a Twitter user myself I know the work that come through with this and with the internet age networking is easier than ever. This was a massive point in his talk and something we are currently looking at in the creative futures course (or Professional Development...same thing)

Knowing how to put yourself out there websites business cards a branding for yourself as when you leave the safety cushion of university life you are competing in a huge market. Give yourself the best start you can.

Creative futures 5th March 2012 (PM)

Monday 5th March 2012 - Afternoon


Building an audience : Making a living from comics - by John Allison

http://scarygoround.com/
This to me seemed one of the most engaging talks from the week. 
John made his living primarily from online web-comics starting out on Scary go round to eventually Bad machinery, at one point was the first UK comic artist to make a sustainable living from doing so.

This talk saw John pulling up work from his early stages when he was just starting to experiment. while showing us these I have to commend him for having the courage to point out the flaws he felt he made in the work, as he was still learning and adapting a way of working that felt comfortable to him.
This was encouraging to see. As i feel the problem in these weeks there are too many people who would show work and we were just supposed to sit there and marvel at them. 
If this uni has taught me anything it's when your work is finished what have you learned and how would you change it if you had the chance.

The overall message I took from this talk was, building an audience seemed to be persevere in what you do. It will take longer than you would have liked but everyone has to start somewhere... Just work, work and work some more. Then when you're finished work again. Go to con's put your work out there, establish a fan base....but not cats! They don't care.

Creative Futures...Finally!

Monday Morning 5th of March 2012.

These start off like previous years this is with an opening address this time by Dr Stuart Cunningham. Speaking to all of creative media he basically explains what we should expect from the week and what we should take from it. being our third time we knew and judging by the timetable there were some interesting people to come.

Next up was supposed to be a lecture from Maurice Cockrill RCA. But unfortunately due to illness he could not make the address, So to step in last minute was the universities own Vice Chancellor Michael Scott.  A well respected tutor and master of pretty much everything Shakespeare.  Unfortunately he talked quite a lot about Shakespeare, to be honest I know he's all respected and everything and I don't doubt that he's a key figure in English history as are his plays, but it takes me back to being really bored in English and I just shut down. The thing that made it better was the kind of twist that he put on Shakespeare.  He was just entrepreneur that catered for his crowd to make money.

He even upped and moved his entire stage and building to a different part of London to earn more cash. essentially I think that this is the point that he eventually tried to bring across. Artists are entrepreneurs and masters of their own destinies. (Go where the money is.)
 
... Also there was a guy called John Marston who much to most peoples dismay was not from the Red Dead game, shame. 

After a short break. Was a talk from the Key speaker Angus Montgomery - Editor of Design Week.
http://www.designweek.co.uk/

being a journalist for the site, (he knew his stuff.) he talked about what the industry that he knows is crying out for, Which seemed to be new talent all the time. collaborated efforts to show fresh innovative ideas. the ideas for these seemed to make him quite envious that he didn't have the skill in artwork to do them himself.
Eventually he started showing us images from past projects that he's been involved with. A good talk overall which made me take a look at how I want to present myself professionally. Also the possibilities for ideas later on down the line.
 

Yup, Updated.

As you may have noticed I got kind of forgetful of this site.  I shall try to Update more starting from now, keeping 3 sites is gonna be a challenge but the idea of trying to do something different for each will hopefully keep me on my toes.

At the moment I shall once more probably use this one mainly for research and write ups. But art work may come as it happens until then, you could just click my Wordpress or Tumblr links.