ILLUSTRATION
Ballroom &
VOGUING
Images sourced from, paris is burning. Google images on Voguing and Harlem
Final year project:
In my final year of uni, we were given the opportunity to create a project brief that was entirely our own along with deliverables. Voguing and Ballroom was something that I felt was exploding with creativity and self expression. It would be a real challenge to create something visual that could capture the essence of Ballroom culture and the history of Vogue.
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The movement within the world of ballroom is so unique, with tonnes of energy, it allowed me to experiment with a whole host of different mediums, such as animation, illustration and 3D stop motion.
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My Brief.
A brief history of Voguing:
'Voguing; dance to music in such a way as to imitate the characteristic poses struck by a model on a catwalk.' - Google definition.
Voguing is a dance genre, created in the 80's in Harlem, New York. It was created by young African American and LatinX people of diverse genders and sexualities.
Source: https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/voguing-definition-self-expression-within-lgbtq-com
Ideation, exploring visual language:
The New York City 'Club Kids'
Ideation and visual research.
I began my ideation by visually exploring a group of people called 'The Club Kids'. Each individuals style was completely unique and outrageous at the time. It gave me such a visually rich palette to work with as I experimented with a visual language.
Above; Studying style and movement.
I had cut up some scrap paper in random shapes to help visualise poses and began drawing characters around them.
Studying some of the Ballroom pioneers such as 'Peppa Leibieja', I began to broaden my ideas and style, further developing expression and mood.
I did some energetic mark making and drew characters around them, with this method i was able to create some unique forms.
Experimenting with text and images:
Hand movements are one of the key elements of voguing. I bean doing some studies of hands in preparation of the animation i planned to do next.
Above; Exploring letterforms.
I used ink and some digital media to draw the hands and their unique movements.
Digital drawing of hands.
Voguing Poster.
Animation process:
To continue the expressive ink/ sketchy style i decided I'd start with a frame by frame 2D animation.
I wanted to have a reference, so reached out to a member of the ballroom community; Gravity Balmain Jacobs (member of the house of Marc Jacobs, formerly the house of Balmain). They were happy to allow me to use them as a reference for my voguing animation. I used a bold pen to draw the hands, so they stood out as the main feature.
I used various other references from YouTube. A lot of the frames, I traced around on ProCreate, then added variations and differing levels of pressure to specific areas of each drawing.
