Stated in my previous post, as with any commercial project it is
integral for its success that any designs are based on strategic decisions. As stated,
before what this means is that any designs, I produce must appeal to the target
audience. After observing various competitors in the niche as well as lead
designers celebrated in the community, I have identified a trend in the design
patterns that I believe the community leans towards. Using this information, I
have selected a set of artists that I will analyse to allow myself the opportunity
to learn and decipher the creative rules of the style to begin the process of
developing my own for this project. This should allow me to produce artwork
that appeals directly to my target market.
Artist Three – Faline San
Faline San is a digital illustrator that is
extremely popular within the Kawaii and Cute Niche community. I measure her
success as been big due to having 147,000 followers on Instagram with many of
her posts receiving a lot of comments from the community showing love and
admiration for her creative works. I feel that out of other members in the
community who have less support and followers than her that she is a deep
influencer and leader in her space as a creative. I am seeking to serve the
same audience that she has a strong connection to and therefore logic dictates
that it is in my best interest to analyse the elements that she has mastered.
Therefore I believe performing a written analysis of her illustrations will
allow me to gain deep insight into my target market and how best I can appeal
to them.
Other than the strategic decision to learn and
observe the aspects of a successful designer In my target market, the reason I
am drawn to Faline’s artwork is the way in which it portrays value and lighting
to create depth resulting in a more refined degree of appeal when observed. I
am also drawn to the experiential concepts that Faline covers in her selected
visual aesthetic. I had not considered each specific arrangement of elements
that she makes use of within her design but, by using the target market as a
lense, it is easy to see why as an artist she has become popular within this community.
Another element that has drawn me to Faline’s
illustrations are the color palette that she has shown within her artworks
brand and style. Even as someone that is outside the niche looking in, I can
observe and understand what is appealing about the color choices that is included
within her work; even invoking a sense of appreciation for it myself. Throughout
the rest of this blogpost I will be discussing different aspects of Faline’s
work and creative process to refine my understanding of her work moving
forward.
This illustration portrays to original characters that Faline has
created to express herself.
Conceptually Faline’s artwork covers a range of
topics within the Kawaii and cute niche but there are 2 key focal points within
the majority of her illustrations. The first conceptual theme that is often found
within Faline’s work is human characters, often teen girls, wearing fashion
heavily inspired by popular aspects of the Kawaii and cute niche. The second conceptual
theme that is found within Faline’s work is symbolic items that are popular
within this niche such as sweet food, cute animals, magical symbols, astrological
elements, and abstract forms. These elements are often used in conjunction to
form experimental visuals that stimulate a specific impression that members of
the niche enjoy viewing and engage with. Oftentimes the concept of each piece
is an arrangement of experimental elements intended to portray a feeling that members
of her niche as well as Faline herself identify with. Therefore, one could say
the concept of each piece is a symbolic representation of a theme or emotion.
To dissect this concept using an example, the
illustration above features original characters designed by Faline as a form of
self-expression from the artist. The girls featured outfits are inspired by
aspects of harujuku fashion (a niche of fashion popular with this community) as
well as underlining themes such as angles and demons. One girl has soft horns
on her head as well as a backpack that is fashioning a demon tail and wings.
The other has a halo above her head and a backpack that has angel wings.
The concept of this piece can feel abstract, but I believe
it captures the duality of the thrill of doing something you’re not supposed to,
juxtaposed against the pride of doing something in good faith. The concept was the
portrayal of two characters, but the intention was the communication of an
underlining theme and representation of a feeling. By observing and analysing
the conceptual perspective of Faline’s work I believe I have begun the process
of refining my understanding of her artwork. I am keen to apply this in
practice through experimenting with what I have learned later in my creative
process.
The artwork above portrays an illustration consisting of various
elements of the Kawaii and cute culture.
I would define Faline’s illustration style as being
a modern twist on vintage Japanese animation combined modern fashion trends and
aesthetic choices. On the simple vs complex ratio I would express that Faline’s
style is more stylised than based in realism due to the simplification of features
and textures. In-fact texture has been removed entirely and utilises soft
linework, edges, and colour tones. All colour tones that Faline utilises are
pastel in nature meaning that they generally have a lot of white pigment in the
pixel ratio. This also means that Faline rarely uses high contrast darker shades
within her design excluding the dark tones she uses in her linework. The shading
that Faline implements into her designs uses a combination of blocked out
highlights and soft shaded light tones when determined appropriate. These soft
shaded tones persist the consistency of a gentle and inviting aesthetic.
Faline utilises a style that is very impactful when
it comes to portraying warm and cool colours. As an example, if a design is
predominantly warm in nature then Faline will utilise cooler colours to balance
out the image and generate a visual stimulus to engage with her artwork’s
observer. The line weight is often
consistent and although Is very present is finer than the works of Juancho Styler
and Drew Millward. All linework within a design is not one consistent colour as
well, when appropriate the colour is a softer tone, for example in the flash
sheet artwork above the lollypop utilises a dark pink tone rather than black
like the other aspects of the artwork.
Lighting plays a vital role within the designs aesthetic
but specifically when used by aspects of the design that appear to be glowing.
The artwork below features a character that has glowing stars in her hair, this
is a design choice that aligns with the concept and them of the illustration
but is core to the chosen style. I believe I have learnt a considerable amount
about the style and visual aesthetic that Faline implements into her
illustrations. I am keen to perform various experiments with this set of rules
that I have identified to refine and explore the potential aspects of Faline’s
work that would benefit my current project.
The artwork above portrays an original character that Faline designed as
a form of self-expression.
The technique that Faline utilises to create her
artwork is likely the same as the majority of professional modern designers. I
believe that she would likely create her artwork utilising a digital pen
display, such as a branded one from Huion or Wacom, within a drawing software
such as Adobe Photoshop. There is a possibility that Faline may start her process
by sketching directly onto paper, but I believe it likely that she begins by
sketching out some thumbnailed compositions, shapes, and forms on a layer within
her painting software. She could also as an alternative utilise a tablet-based
software such as procreate using an iPad Pro rather than a computer. Once her
sketch has been refined and she has decided the direction in which her artwork
is going in, I believe that she would then start illustrating more refined
linework until she is confident that her linework is satisfactory.
Once the linework has been perfected I believe that
Faline would block out the coloured areas implementing gradients where necessary
to add depth and define shape or form. Once the colour has been implemented, I
believe she would lock the pixels of the linework layer and alter the colour of
certain linework sections to stylise and define the forms further with her aesthetic.
Finally, she may colour a background out or implement a stock texture of a page
of paper to align with her theme’s intentions. Extra attention would be given
in a refinement stage to lighting ensuring that each illustration holds a level
of atmosphere that is representative to the intended tone that Faline desires
to convey. The final image will have a slight amount of noise edited onto the
illustration to cause a subtle organic feeling to be defined into the resulting
design. Understanding Faline’s creative process is incredibly important If I am
to be able to construct an appealing design for my targeted audience and I am
confident through this analysis process that I am refining my understanding and
ability towards my projects goal.
The artwork above portrays a selection of symbols and objects within the
Kawaii and Cute niche.
The artwork above portrays a portrait of an original character created
by Faline.
I believe that like many artists that Faline was
influenced by other artists within her niche that were established before them.
Qing Han also known by the tag “Qinniart”, in her life before she passed away, made
a name for herself for her signature glowing stars. I believe that these
glowing stars inspired a myriad of artists within the niche and has potentially
become a staple to the niche’s aesthetic. I believe Qing was a clear influence on
this artist due to how Faline now incorporates many aspects of Qing’s signature
style within her work.
Harujuku is a district in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
that is a major commercial location regarding Japanese youth culture and
fashion. It has become known in the Kawaii and Cute niche as been a leader to
the Kawaii fashion industry. I believe that the fashion and commercial
direction from Harujuku has directly impacted Faline’s art style and will
continue to influence her vision and aesthetic decisions. Sourcing Faline’s
influences back has provided me with further reference that I can investigate
regarding developing an aesthetic for my brand. I am keen to implement these
influences into my own design experiments moving forward
I believe the purpose and goal behind Faline’s
illustrations is purely self-expression. When researching into her artwork I
found that much of her illustrations were in response to her personal life and
her interests. I believe that Faline’s artwork is a portal for her to express
her inner monologue and receive feedback from her community as a result. I also
believe that her artwork is just a response to her own interest in the Kawaii
and cute niche. When viewing artwork within the niche that she admires I believe
she feels inspired and wants to contribute to the conversation with her own
voice. In response to this purpose I am keen to implement my own voice into
each artwork to produce a unique impression of the Kawaii and cute niche to generate
a response within my target audience.
Faline is the third artist that I have analysed during
this projects research phase. I will be performing one more analysis that is
different than the previous three outlining the smaller influences to my
research stage. This will be posted shortly after this post. Thank you for
taking the time to read.
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