Amanda Clarke is an accomplished artist and designer with more than 15 years of industry experience working for such clients as Harmonix, Sega, Proletariat, Barbie, WGBH, Hasbro and Cartoon Network. Her engaging illustration style has been featured in mobile and console games, apps, webisodes and museum exhibits. Since earning her BFA in Illustration from RISD, Clarke has made New England her home, and she currently works in video game development. When she’s not drawing, she loves to read, travel and spend time with her partner and mischievous pup.
This course is a study of the theories and methods of character design as applied to narrative forms. This class asks students to push beyond stereotypical designs to develop two-dimensional characters that are both personally and culturally resonant and imaginative. Particular emphasis is placed on the expressive power of abstract forms and color. Through exploring individual perceptions of good and evil, success and failure, as well as beauty and ugliness, students create characters that are highly original. Research, thorough craftsmanship, and sophisticated design are stressed.
With the wave of new technology, it's easy to forget what we can do with our hands, putting pencil to paper and utilizing traditional materials. There is no question that digital tools are integral to the illustrator, but in addition to mastering the technical functions of a program and using it directly to create images, they can open up new possibilities in what we already do with traditional materials. This course will create a dialogue between the handmade and the digital through in class exercises combining age old techniques, including linocut, collage, drawing/painting, with modern tools such as the risograph and photoshop. We will explore different ways digital methods can help with workflow and use the computer to facilitate the steps involved in creating an illustration. This course will challenge students to think beyond the realm of digital brushes and filters, with projects touching on the ways image making can be applied in the real world of design, advertising and publishing.
This course fulfills the Illustration Computer Literacy requirement for Illustration majors.
