I'm still not really getting anywhere. I seem to be just sitting here and worrying, not getting much done at all...
I think it's because I'm really not quite sure what I want to do with this — maybe I'm worrying too much about what will look amazing and wonderful (which is an important consideration) and not spending enough time thinking about what I want to do. Because I feel like I'm getting behind, I'm sitting here panicking that I've not got time to really experiment and decide.
At any rate, I've been messing around and started to try and figure something out in terms of style. I liked them at the time (maybe that's just because I was struggling so I was just pleased to see that I'd made something) but looking back... no, they're horrible and ugly.
The gradient I think is very distracting. I liked the idea of a subtle gradient to give the impression of a horizon but it's really not working. Maybe it's the colour — it's way too light, so the white bird is getting lost. Tried to rectify it by making him purple but that just looks even worse. BAH.
I had a surprising amount of difficulty with the small bird, mostly his beak. The front view is always a tricky one for such a simple character but the beak was especially problematic. I wasn't sure how to suggest it was there without it looking completely weird. I think he's too short — needs to be a bit longer and maybe have the beak a bit lower?
My grasp on colour is utter crap.
Second one — again, really really ugly and boring and static. Trying to sort out the problem with the bird's design. I kind of liked the beak on the small bird at this point — I could imagine it flapping really wildly up and down, in a very kind of "cutout" kind of way (almost like the heads of any Canadian character in Sound Park) which would be quite funny but thinking about it now I don't think it's especially fitting.
Tried to fix the gradient, looks even worse now. I think it's just... the wrong colour, and it just, I dunno, it's too obvious. It's so distracting. There're maybe too many colours going on here as well.
I did do another mockup of the whole satellite thing as well, but it's so hideously embarrassing. At least now I can see that the whole thing definitely isn't working, though...
I can definitely see that it's really not working. At all. The satellite REALLY breaks everything apart even more — colours don't fit, it's distracting, makes no sense and oh my god the composition of this whole thing could not be worse. It adds an unnecessarily complex element into what needs to be very straight, short and to the point. I'm definitely missing the point here...
I'm also starting to think that those speech bubble things just aren't working at all. Shame. I liked the idea, but I don't think I'm good enough to pull it off...
Getting wound up with myself at this point I started trying to draw some stuff to calm me down... and be a bit productive.
Just thinking about those monster birds again (I hadn't quite clicked that I was still being too complicated) and trying to get more of a design in place. I'm still not keen on any of them. They just don't feel right in any way... the only one I'm really liking is that coloured one at the very top towards the right. Underneath the crow. Even that's bad.
Regardless, I was stupid. Rather than stepping back and asking myself why it wasn't working, why I hated what I'd done, I pushed on and wasted more time on yet another crappy mockup. Then I panicked and started rushing it because I just wanted to get it done.
Colours again are ugly. I wanted to give another sense of location — the birds maybe on a kind of rocky spire thing in the middle of the sea (oh my god why did I not see this was such a crap idea) so when it pulls out to reveal what's eaten them... yeah. He's kind of perched there, then shrieks his "E4!" thing. Ed was absolutely right — it just doesn't look like an E4 ident.
Good god.
I think the biggest problem I'm having is a kind of... visualization one. I still don't really know what I want to make and I don't feel I've got the time to develop it. Rather than being able to say "this is what I like, this is what I want," I'm trying to do way too many things all at once and am just kind of doing them less than adequately.
Ed was absolutely right, it's just getting really complicated, so I need to really step back and just bring the complexity down. He said the idea of the birds bouncing was fine — just keep it to that. Then at the end maybe their silly bouncing contest is kind of interrupted by this GIGANTIC E4 that crashes into the middle of the wire. My brain is still really frazzled so I'm having difficulty pulling exactly what he said to me out of the bowels of my brain... I was a bit of a panic and so embarrassed by what I'd made I wanted to sound like I was understanding everything he said when in reality I was a heap of mush. In terms of visuals, I believe he said to try losing the gradient and giving a darker, block colour with the telegraph poles in white to eliminate some of the busyness in the backdrop. So I think that will work. Hopefully.
I don't know... I feel like I've wasted so much time on these things that so clearly aren't working. I just hope I'll be able to pull it together.
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