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Research Log: WEEK 12

During this week i re-read and remastered my essay, making sure that all of the grammar was correct (as far as I could observe,), making sure the spelling was accurate and also ensuring that the essay reached the desired word count needed for submitting. I feel very confident with the essay as it stands, going through several re drafts has left it (In my opinion) relatively air-tight.

Moreover, from this essay I’ve learned a lot about effectively and professionally sourcing my work from whatever place it may originate (this goes for images and information) as well as generally, (like all essays do) gradually improving my writing skills.

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Research Log: WEEK 11

This week, now that I’ve concluded my actual essay, it was time to add the introduction and conclusion. As a result, no new information or sources needed to be cited as I was just going over the previous sections.

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Research Log: WEEK 10

Finally, when it comes to research for the main essay, I delved into the politics, kings and rulership of the Lord of the Rings, specifically about Denethor and Theoden as I covered Aragorn in the section about Christianity. The sources I referenced here were:

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King book, using a specific quote referring to Theoden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9oden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denethor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoric_I

The information in these articles was easy to locate and I didn't have much trouble in finding the things I wanted. I chose these sources because they were very concise with the information and were also well-sourced.

The image I chose for this was a portrait of King Theoden made by Varsha Vijayan. I chose this image because, considering the way it's drawn, Theoden is haloed in light and appears to be almost holy or angelic and that was an ideal depiction.

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Research Log: WEEK 9

Next, this week I progressed onto the languages portion of Tolkien’s work, discussing the languages he created, how and why they're so detailed as well as their written form. For this section I referenced the following sources; 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_constructed_by_J._R._R._Tolkien

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Quenya

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Languages

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sindarin

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, novel. Not the novel itself, however the supportive index at the back which, among other things, discusses language.

https://the-messenger.cz/2018/02/the-tengwar-tolkiens-writing-system/

These sources were very easy to locate and were very informative, giving as both internal and external history of these languages and scripts including their origins from both a meta and in-universe level

The illustration I used here was one done by Tolkien himself and is of Quenya written in Tengwar. I chose this image because, firstly Tolkien himself illustrated it which means it is the purest representation of the language possible.

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Research Log: WEEK 8

This week I progressed to the second part of my essay which specifically discussed the Christian inspirations for Lord of the Rings: mainly considering it's characters, themes and story elements.

During the finding of evidence I reference the following sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_influences

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, the novel which I own.

https://hobbylark.com/fandoms/The-Lord-of-the-Rings-and-Christian-Symbolism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christianity_in_Britain

The information in these sources ranged and varied in how difficult they were to find: the most difficult one, easily was sifting through the information in the ‘History of Christianity in Britain’ article simply because of it's shere length: it was difficult to find the exact relevant information I needed.

The other articles were fine and very informative, especially the article: ‘The Lord of the Rings and Christian Symbolism’ which offered a very eye-opening interpretation of the story that I’d never even considered so i was very happy to reference that in my work. 

So far the essay is progressing well: i've maintained an educated and professional tone throughout and also proof-read what I’ve written several times to iron out grammatical inconsistencies, errors as well s just generally replace words that are unfitting.

The image I used was named: Battle of Morannon and it was painted by Volkan Baga. I chose this image because of it's apocalyptic nature, with the dynamically posed figures similar to a renaissance painting in front of a crumbling, burning and incredibly cinematic background. These things combined gave the image a religious aura to it.

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Research Log: WEEK 7

During this time I officially began work on my essay and completed the first 500 words. I utilised several sources that are both primary and secondary (but mostly secondary considering the overwhelming abundance of evidence) to start my essay. 

(Ordinarily, I would’ve filled this section with the lessons and things I learned from a lesson with Study skills but i couldn't come because I was ill)

The first segment was on Isengard in LOTR and how it's industrialisation is inspired by things both large and small in scale as well as local and further afield. I utilised the following sources for this information:

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/White_Council

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_influences

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgbaston_Waterworks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Country

As well as a scene from the film itself, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that I watched in preparation for this essay.

I had no trouble finding the information I needed: only a small bit of time wasted while reading through some unnecessary information. 

The data I acquired was precise and told me exactly what I needed to know in order to fill out the section of the essay. 

The image I used: Wrath of the Ents was a piece by Ted Nasmith, a prolific artist and painter for many of the Lord of the Rings’ scenarios and locations. I chose this image because it both captured the belching, smoke-filled industry of Isengard with the rebellion of the Ents against it, the personification of nature.

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Research Log: WEEK 6

Upon review of my 500 word segment in preparation for the essay itself, there are some things that I have noticed. 

For one, after reviewing the Harvard system of referencing after being recommended to do so by my tutor, I’ve since noticed that the way I’ve referenced work in my essay is faulty and incomplete and I want to fix that when I come to doing it. Mainly, I didn't reference any of my sources within the actual essay itself, I instead only mentioned them at the end in their own dedicated section which can cause confusion as to where I am actually referring to. So, now when I’m writing the essay I’ll be sure to reference all elements I’m mentioning IN the text.

Furthermore, something I neglected to do which was very important is to credit and give a description to the image. In my essay, I didn't give any description to the image so now I know I have to give it a numbered ‘Figure’ as well as credit the artist, something I will go on to do in my essay.

There are, of course, other standard errors such as incorrect grammar and spelling issues but these are consistent issues in almost every essay or written work and aren’t attached to/are relevant to this project and upc-coming essay.

What I did like about my essay was the way it was written. I'm proud of the concise and educated way I wrote it, Not to sound smug on any level, of course. Generally speaking I am proud of the way I wrote the essay so I’ll try to maintain this vocabulary and professionalism as I go through the work.

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Research Log: WEEK 5

As preparation for the essay to come, next we created preliminary essays, miniature samples of what we’d go on to go based around a single specific subject. We had to pick one of the pictures in our moodboard and expand upon it, specifically the fictional universe or setting it's from. In this case I chose a picture of Ratty from Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahamme and focussed my essay on that in particular. It's a book I've read and a TV adaptation that I absolutely love so I felt it was a great start as preparation for the essay to come.

I had a lot of fun creating this as I got to delve deeper into a subject I had a great interest in already, the book itself. I was also surprised at the depth of information that exists about Kenneth Grahamme as well as the story itself. During this small chunk which is ultimately only a quarter of what the essay would be normally, I discuss the political, social, historical and technological elements of the story in a very brief fashion. Firstly, I discussed politics: Mr Toad, one of the main characters of the book is also a landed noble in England and has had his wealth handed to him by his father so I had a chance to comment on British nobility in this section and give a bit more context to his character. Furthermore I looked into the technology at the time and cars were only a recent invention of when the novel was set so the fact that Toad owns one is a testament to his wealth. In addition, the environment at the time was primarily open and rolling fields offset by seldom highly populated areas resulting in the very rural and homely aesthetic of the novel. Finally, the story came about from Grahamme telling bedtime tales to his son, Alaister which he later compiled into a novel.

For the task I referenced for articles, all from Wikipedia because of it's descriptive, relevant and well-sourced nature. I found exactly what I needed in the links I chose.I didn't have to look far to find the information I needed as I only required a brief summary of each page to make my points in the essay. I didn't require any extensive detail or nuance, just basic facts relevant to each subject.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Grahame

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nobility

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_in_the_Willows

Furthermore, the Image I used of Mr. Toad racing through the countryside is by Angel Dominguez and can be found here: https://www.booksillustrated.com/landing.php?id=571

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Research Log: WEEK 4

On the fourth week, the central thing that happened was a trip to London and, more specifically, the V&A and the Natural History Museum. The trip lasted only a single day, however, it was undoubtedly the highlight of my week. 

The journey itself was very long and oddly tiring, the process itself made me far more restless than it should so I was dying to get off the busd when I first arrived and lo and behold, there it was! We were in front of the art gallery itself with the next 8 hours to freely roam the streets of London. Such a wide and massive scope left us spoilt for choice at first, everything was hustling and bustling and crammed to each other and never a quiet moment was to be found.

We spent a lot of the day listless and with nothing to do; once we had gone through both the V&A and the Natural History Museum, we found that there was not much else to do other than walk aimlessly around london and occasionally get  something to eat and drink. However, for what we did, time spent in both of those galleries was very eye-opening, for me at least. Although the main purpose of the stay was to go to the V&A, I found my favourite was the Natural History museum, without a doubt. 

In the V&A, I discovered many galleries I liked, the one that I loved the most was the ancient greek one. The majority of it was very old, classical paintings and immensely detailed sculpture and I absolutely love both of these things so that section made me very happy! There were entire huge halls dedicated to huge, sprawling paintings and towering sculptures that I couldn't stop looking at. I had to admire the amount of detail, time and care taken to create these marvels as well as the fact that it was done with comparatively primitive tools hundreds of years ago! 

Other than the exhibit of Greek and renaissance artwork, my favourite were the Chinese and Japanese artwork exhibit because of the beautifully crafted scroll art as well as even full displays of beautiful katanas , samurai armour, kimonos and other clothing, weapons, art and trinkets that each dated hundreds of years in age but were pristinely preserved in this collection.

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Research Log: WEEK 3

Illustration in Literature

Primary Sources

Library - Cardiff Library

Bookshop - Waterstones

Art Gallery - to specifically look into illustrations from books

Museums - Cardiff Museum

Buying books online - Amazon etc.

Secondary Sources

Looking at books online through ebooks 

Reading of book illustration online through articles or journals

Information Illustration

Primary Sources

Newspaper - infographics/ information could appear here

Encyclopedias - purchasing one to find information

Contacting statisticians or information illustrators for newspapers or publications

Visiting Newspaper companies directly to look into their information and illustration

Secondary Sources

Researching infographics on online articles

Product Illustration

Primary Sources

Clothing illustrations - Primark, H&M

Illustrations for marketing - Billboards

Contacting representatives of clothing brands - as mentioned above - to ask about product illustration

Secondary Sources

Looking into artists profiles on social media to find illustration for products

Go through online shops for brands in order to find product illustration

Moving Picture Illustration

Primary Sources

Watching the animation it originates from - Up, Monsters Inc etc.

Contacting representatives of animation companies or concept artists

Visit local animation studios to observe concept art in-person 

Secondary Sources

Visit artist portfolios online for popular animation illustrators

Looking into possible artwork/gallery sections of animation companies

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Research Log: WEEK 2

During the second week, I visited the Special Collections in one of Cardiff University’s Libraries. The stay was very brief, only about an hour, and the collection itself was situated in a single room with four tables. Each table had a selection of books from different time periods, ranging from the 16th century to the 20th Century. I was expecting it to be boring or cumbersome, that it would be the most empty part of my day and that journeying to and from the Collection would be more enjoyable, 

I’m happy to say that I was utterly fascinated by the place. It was so interesting to look at these different books and marvel upon history first-hand, it was even more immersive that we were allowed to touch them! We were allowed to touch and handle books probably older than some of our family lines with no gloves was extremely surprising and a welcome treat. Each table held something that extremely piqued my interest.

The most recent thing in the Collection was a general encyclopedia of news, information and advertisements from the 1940s. This book was one of my favourites but it was also very confusing. At one point in the book, a point which I foolishly didn't take a picture of, the book reviews the curernt central figures in nazi Germany at the time of writing and this very much interested me. I was fascinated to know how these men would be described, how these vicious, evil, mass-murdering maniacs would be summarised because, at the time, I was unsure of the book’s bias, be it pro- or anti- Germany. And, to my surprise, in each section describing them they insert glorifying statements like ‘Jew-baiter’ and insulting trivia like ‘suffers from epileptic fits’, so I didn't know what to make of it. Other than that, the book came with some very quant, odd and humorous adverts that really showed the age of it. Advertisements about malnutrition, meat, women’s glamour photography and more.

Further back in time was a similar historical book, I forget it's title, in the 1700s. My favourite part of this book was the gorgeous quality of it's illustrations. One of, if not my favourite style of artwork is one that’s high in detail and done with intricate penwork.

Finally one of the more ancient artifacts we looked at - stupidly, I didn't take a photograph of the most ancient one so second-best will have to surfice. This one depicts maps of the world, Europe and even the United Kingdom as it was over three hundred years ago, showing the medieval understanding of continents, land formations and their names. I found the multiple spellings of names for different continent especially telling.

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Research Log: WEEK 1

Information Illustration

The first known Infographics were made in 1626 by Christoph Scheiner who used labeled illustrations of the sun to show it's rotation.

Later on, William Playfair in his book , the Commercial and Political Atlas, included many forms of bar charts and graphs and, in another book, Statistical Breviary, is credited for the first ever pie chart

Florence Nightingale used infographics to persuade Queen Victoria to improve military hospitals. She mainly used a combination of stacked pie and bar charts to show the rate of death during each month of the Crimean War

In 19 72 and 1973 respectively, the spacecraft named Pioneer 10 & 11 included infographics named the Pioneer Plaques. These were infographics cut from aluminium and featured a naked male and female, mathematic equations and the order of planets in our solar system among others.The plaque was designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake

Peter Sullivan’s Infographics in the Sunday Times from 1970 to 1990 resulted in encouraging newspapers to generally start to include more graphs in their stories due to their quality.

: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infographic

Literature Illustration

First major tradition of book illustration was to carve words into blocks that formed 15th century block books which included images and writing. Most famously the Biblia Pauperum

Art being accompanied with adult fiction became popularised in the 19th century, notably by Charles Dickens who collaborated with many illustrators, most famously being H.K. Browne. 

During the 20th Century, the coupling of illustration to adult literature became increasingly uncommon as illustrations were seen as childish or ‘low brow’. Because of this, many talented artists can be found producing work for children's books such as Chris Van Allsburg, David Weisner and Alenka Sottler. 

Over the 20th Century, illustration evolved to become more bizarre, mainly shown by the art of Virgil Finlay and his artwork for obscure sci-fi magazines.

https://lithub.com/a-brief-history-of-book-illustration/

Product Illustration

Is about showcasing a new product or invention with a focus on showing the aspects and attributes of it that will be crucial to the user of the product.

Moving Picture Illustration

The first person to use storyboarding was Walt Disney animator Webb Smith in the 1930s for Disney’s short film ‘three little pigs

During the 1940s, Storyboarding began to be used during live action films during the 1940s.

Modern directors such as Martin Scorsese and the Coen brothers regularly use storyboards to accompany almost every shot of their works.

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/217855/file-20427349-pdf/docs/storyboard_book.pdf

Product Moodboard

Caudalie:https://www.instagram.com/p/BzqtgBFImhp/?igshid=1pkqoinpof3zk

Mcdonalds:http://koolgadgetz.com/anime-art-aesthetic-wallpaper/

Record:

Cleanser:https://www.dermstore.com/blog/top_ten/what-is-benzoyl-peroxide/

Makeup:https://nudieglow.com/

Information Moodboard

The Future:https://www.behance.net/gallery/52160021/Future-of-the-world-we-live-in

Dragon:https://www.rachelignotofskydesign.com/dragon

Whaling:http://visualoop.com/blog/21414/this-is-visual-journalism-74

Cheese:https://www.behance.net/gallery/73001653/1811-Cheese-Infographic-Poster

Records:http://jackiebogisichgrimes1.lucillevaldez.top/post-84bda1

Korean Egg Roll:http://housemagazineliv.tudocommoda.ru/3321408-house-illustration-design-galleries-52-ideas-for-2019.html

Literature Moodboard

Moby Dick:https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/585252526/moby-dick-print-moby-dick-book-poster?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lp.d2.v1&share_time=1520540293000

Pride and Prejudice:https://www.instagram.com/p/BzBjzVbgGfo/?igshid=jsj425kypdy

Wind in the willows 1:https://www.etsy.com/listing/253829574/the-wind-in-the-willows-art-the-rat-and

Wind in the willows 2:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Toad#/media/File:E.H._Shepard_illustration_of_Mr_Toad.jpg

Mary Poppins:https://nanlawson.tumblr.com/post/149035378694/another-book-cover-for-my-portfolio

Alice in Wonderland:https://laughingelephant.com/authors-and-illustrators-born-in-january-lewis-carroll-january-27th-1832/

Moving Picture Moodboard

Monsters University: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c1/d2/a6/c1d2a6d6d9cfa13e5709296a72d376a1.jpg

Kung Fu Panda 3 poster:https://www.moviemania.io/wallpaper/pm30989715-kung-fu-panda-3

Woman with blue hair:http://www.beinggood-film.com/gallery/

Spiderverse 1: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rRJYOL

Male Character grey hair: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3d-artist-073954a7-052c-4047-9e38-9344b2d4e37f