THEORY TO PRACTICE

Using the images in my previous post, I began to draw up some illustrations for my publication. I didn't want to simply use the pen tool to trace the images as this would kind of defeat the point in me even doing them. I therefore printed each image off at a large scale and used these as reference to draw up my own images. These were to be done as accurately as possible, however a few differences were made. With drawing not being my strongest point, I'm extremely pleased with how these came out. 

Once drawn up in pencil, the lines were gone over again in a thick black berol pen so that the scanner could pick up on them. This would then make it easier to live trace once in Illustrator. On some occasions, there were gaps where the lines hadn't quite joined, or some lines weren't as thick as others, however, this was easily fixed, and in some cases this added a lot more character to the illustrations.

On some occasions, I felt that the colours needed to be changed, as they either clashed too much, or I couldn't quite find the exact match. However, most were kept to be the closest match to the original image. 

Once a few illustrations were complete and coloured, it was time to start looking at the aesthetics of the publication and how it was going to start coming together. The idea of using both illustration and photograph was a possibility, so this was experimented with to begin with. The hand rendered on the image works well. It's playful and I feel that the subject is appropriate to the model.

Another possible illustration, looking at using models from particular shows. The below model is from the SS11 show, which posed a lot of issues circling feminism, which is a reoccurring theme.

Style.co.uk had this to say

'The designers attacked femininity with femininity, perhaps taking their cue from Love's album Live Through This, in which the singer raged against her own desire to live up to an internalized sugar-'n'-spice-and-everything-nice idea. Working in candy colors of lavender, yellow, and pink, then veering into carnal reds and blacks, Meadham and Kirchhoff festooned their clothes with girlish gimmicks. Ruffles, poufs, bows, glitter, you name it. The look was sickly sweet, emphasis on sickly: The fit on the garments was cannily off, sleeves and collars parodically oversize, the fabrics burnt off and cut away, hems variously disarrayed. The designers appear to have been enjoying themselves. And not at their customers' expense: The clothes were, almost despite themselves, luxuriously desirable. You could extract a wearable item from every exit—one of the hand-screened jackets, say, or a micro-pleated, burn-out silk slip skirt with hand-embroidered lace, or a drop-waist bias-cut dress with bell sleeves and a frothy long skirt. A lot of work went into these pieces, to wit, the winning group of yellow Belle Époque dresses with graphic cutouts. From afar, the cutouts looked as though they'd been done by laser; upon inspection, they were hand-cut, with hand-embroidered black edging.

Though it demonstrated a development of ideas that Meadham Kirchhoff has been pursuing for a while, such as sheerness and palimpsest layering, this outing also represented a call to arms. It was a seething riposte to the retrograde "ladylike" look seen on other runways, and it reasserted the value of anger in fashion, at a time when most designers are consumed with making clothes that are mutely pretty or politely formal. That Meadham and Kirchhoff engaged this fight from the strangest angle possible, by coming straight through beauty, is a genuine feat.'
Although the Spring 2011 show demonstrated certain aspects of kitsch within design, it's not quite in the same vein that I feel the Spring 2012 show is. It's all very My Little Pony, referencing the 70s era, it's a little more bright and garish. Whereas, during the 2012 show I feel they develop a lot more on what they started with in previous shows, working in 'pale pinks, delicate lilacs, smoke greys, and vivd scarlet chiffons with bands of lace'. These are the aesthetics of cute and sentimental kitsch that are going to be focused on within the publication.

Starting to look at models and aesthetics from the SS12 show - candy colours, kitsch symbols, cartoon references.