I used this task as a opportunity to learn how to use the gouache paint I bought with the Amazon voucher I won in the Christmas card completion. I uploaded the illustrations in the order I painted them, so you can see me getting more confident with the new paint.  

I've set out my work below in the style of a kickstarter page, based on what I saw while scrolling through similar projects.

Who am I:
I am currently a third year illustration student, studying at the University of Cumbria. This game will be part of a project I am working on, so this is a massive and important learning experience for me. As well as giving me experience in the field, I hope having a physical object at the end will give you, the backers, as much joy as me.
 
The Game:
Themed around the meaning originally given to flowers in the Victorian times, combined with an art nouveau aesthetic, 
The game itself is a simple top trump style game. Each player will start at 0 and draw a card, either moving up or down the ladder depending on what number you draw. Cards may also have additional effects depending on the last card you played. The first player to reach 10 is the winner and anyone who makes it to -10 is out of the game.
Each card will be the standard 2.5 x 3.5 inch size and the deck will contain 30 cards. The game board will fold out to be .
The game will come in a box containing all the cards, the board, folded, and a sheet of player counters you can pop out of the card.

​Process of designing:
All the cards will be hand drawn and painted, then scanned into the computer to add the finishing touches.

What the money is going towards:
Your money will exclusively go towards covering the cost of producing, printing and shipping the game.  
rewards:
Tier 1, £2:
General support, Will receive a personal thank you and a digital background 
​Tier 2,£10:
Will receive a personal thank you, digital background and a copy of the game once complete.
Tier 3, £20:
All of the above plus a signed copy of the game
Tier 4, £50:
all of the above plus 3 prints of the artwork

To let people know that I've started a kickstarted I'd have to make a couple of instagram posts.

1- the announcement:
Hi guys, exciting news! I'm opening a kickstarter for an exciting new project of mine. 
Follow this link to view the details!! https://www.kickstarter.com/?ref=nav
Hope to see you there <3

2- updates:
Thank you so much for the support so far!! Here are a few sneak peaks of designs and behind the scenes gossip x.
Follow the link to support the project and see more updates on my progress! https://www.kickstarter.com/?ref=nav

Here are the rest of the illustrations that I didn't include in the card mock-ups.

Task 1, T-shirts:
I decided to make a series of sauce based shirts for this task. Strange or nonsensical images on t-shirts are a popular subject of humour, at least in the corner of the internet I live on, so I think at least some people would buy them. The biggest reason I designed them though is purely because I would like to own them, to match the sauce shirt I already found in a charity shop.

My favourite the fruit sauce, then tomato sauce and soy.

I liked the designs themselves, however, I thought they could use some refining. I recreated them as lino prints as well as digitally in an attempt to make them look more like a screen printed design. The digital designs worked better. However, the texture from the lino print is better, I just need paints that aren't out of date.

A Murder Most Unladylike:
 A book set in a 1934 all girls boarding school staring two main characters. Daisy, the popular, bossy stereotypical English girl and Hazel, an immigrant from Hong Kong who is the main character.
They discover the body of the science teacher in the gym but they are the only ones who know.

School uniforms in the 30's were a shirt and knee length pinafore with a pleated skirt. They would also sometimes include a necktie or a sash around the waist. Hair styles were short, no one in any images I saw having hair past their shoulders.
The map of the school in the front of the book showed its a pretty small school, it also doesn't make sense. 
When I think boarding school I either think of a Hogwarts castle or an old stately home in the countryside with ivy growing up the wall. 1930's architecture was the beginning of modern looking buildings, with curved walls and smooth white exteriors so my boarding school design will be a building that's been standing a while.
Reasons boarding school stories are so appealing:
These types of stories are so popular due to the sense of escapism they provide. It gets the control of parents out of the way nicely, giving the characters more freedom. Going to a fictional boarding school is so appealing because it lets kids imagine a place where they have fun lessons in an old fancy building, with a close group of friends and comically inept bullies that get bested by the end.
 
Using bright, warm colours would help with the feeling of escapism, making the setting feel inviting. Including hints to the darker themes of the book on the cover would contrast with the colour choice and if I make it noticeable enough it wont shock kids too much when they read the book and find the darker content.
I looked into children's books and school textbooks for inspiration. In the modern day, they all look a bit brown but I assume they were much brighter back when they were new. Usually a single colour background with a relatively simple illustration printed with black and white, with the background serving as the only colour. Children on these covers are adorably squishy looking. 

Overall, I'm quite proud of this one. It was entirely my comfort zone. My first attempt  was done in acrylic and I hated every minute of it. I also didn't check the template with the logo and barcode on, assuming I could change their positions. I had a lot more fun once I paid attention to the template and went back to my watercolour comfort zone.
I also ended up being proud of the title type, and that I managed to photoshop that shadow in, even if it did make me cry.
​___________________________ 

After sitting on it a while I decided I actually hated the cover. I borrowed a book from a friend about the history of penguin books and decided to go back to my original idea of a simple, vintage cover.

The final book cover with the faces edited to match the rest of the skin. I didn't have the tools small enough to do it on the actual lino print.

Girl, Woman, Other:
​Multiple interconnected stories featuring most black women and the successes and struggles they deal with.  

qwPaintings:
Abstract, geometric. 
Typography:
​I didn't want to use anything that came up when I searched 'African fonts' as they were all stereotypically 'tribal'. It needs something bold and modern. I found a font made by an African man specifically to bring attention to colonialism, called colonial bastard Rhodes. I thought it would be a fitting choice for the book. However, I couldn't find a place to download or buy it so I used something similar instead. 
​mamgobozidesign.com/colonial-bastard-rhodes-typeface
Fashion:
Wax prints
Hair wraps
Colour pallet:
Warm browns
Orange
Various other warm colours
Bright blues
Specifically for this book
Textures:
Cloth (for the wax prints)

Wax prints:
A very iconic and popular African look with each design having symbolic meanings. 
https://yevuclothing.com/blogs/stories/the-hidden-meanings-behind-africas-wax-prints 
https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/eight-stories-behind-traditional-african-wax-prints​
​For my design, I used many interconnecting lines to show both the different characters in the story and the various cultures of the characters. The colour scheme is based on the lesbian flag, and included the feminist fist as well. 
I looked into how to make a wax print but I didn't have nearly enough materials. So I dyed some fabric pink and painted my design on with watered down acrylic paint.

I struggled designing this one as I got stuck with how broad of a topic it seemed to be. Not only are there 12 completely different main characters, but they have an entire continent of culture I know nothing about. The story itself also tells a very important story that I was scared of not representing properly. I eventually decided on my first idea, the wax prints, as I ran out of time to find anything else. 

1- Sweet boy Thompson, the child wrestler
26- D'Artagnan Sinfield, 70's keyboard player
​38- Theodora Pandora Physik, professional mourner
28- Saint Faith of Scunthorpe, medieval martyr 

​I first designed Sweet boy Thompson as a rowdy lil boy but he must have got the name sweet form somewhere. Making his face angelic but his body violent made for a much funnier contrast.

I wanted to make Theodora a Victorian lady. They were pretty big on mourning and I'm always looking for an excuse to research historical clothing. Mourning dresses were made of a non reflective silk or a cheaper alternative called bombazine and were trimmed with crape which was a fabric that couldn't be paired with anything else due to it reacting weirdly to heat. 
Having attended over 1000 funerals, it would be worth it for Theodora would have a high quality dress. She would also have a copy of the most popular book of Victorian mourning etiquette.  
I thought a Tim Burton stop motion style would work well for her.

I was very excited about Faith of Scunthorpe as I spent my summer researching medieval marginalia for my dissertation. I already had many books on the subject of illuminated manuscripts so I didn't even need to do any research. The ultramarine blue of her head dress would've been made by crushing lapis lazuli, a stone only found in what is now Afghanistan, which made it expensive enough to only be used for the most important characters. The rest of the paint would either have been made from plant pigments or highly toxic minerals. 
The skeleton is a copy of marginalia found in the Macclesfield psalter and the decorative boarders are also inspired by what appears in the book.

Making D'Artagnan Sinfield a rocker in his prime would be funny, but making him an old rocker re-living the glory days is much funnier to me.
He needs a handlebar moustache and long frizzy hair. 
Dads assessment: 
- Very good musicians that got carried away and pretentious.

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