R A Photography Sketch Book: New fashion brief sketchbook

Evaluation:

Final images:

Clothing / Prop ideas:

Below is an image of the transfer which I found on ebay which was easily ironed onto the white vest top to make it look less boring.

This is where the shoot idea became a little more complex than my original idea. I purchased some camo shorts, and the idea was to have a white vest top and transfer a black tankgirl image onto it which I managed to find. The white vest top could then be splattered with paint and mess and the use of camo paint on the models face along with doc martin boots to complete the army boy look.

The stylist on the other hand had other ideas and obtained a suitcase of the following clothing.

Quote from laura of the above: these are the props i have sourced for my tank girl photoshoot. a pair of girly pink and white doc martins and a pair of brown builder type boots. a range of funky studded belts. 2 types of bikini tops to possibly wear. a pair of blue denim shorts and i bought a white top from primark and a tank girl logo was transferred on to it. ray ban aviators. a karki jacket. headphones.army hat. a toy tank, a toy rhino and toy soldiers. ski goggles. a tutu. a water gun and a hip flask.

I'm one vor variety but the majority of the clothing was just not required and just caused arguments of who sourced the most stuff for the shoot. I felt like it had been turned into a bit competition for that very reason. The stylist also then managed to complain about how much she had needlessly spent on the clothing which had no connection to the theme what so ever, A tutu?.

Our initial idea was to use the tank location, but after constant ringing and trying to arrange to use the scene, I was only met with ignorance and incompetence, so decided to go for the graffiti style scenes. Since we couldn't use a tank, I suggested a toy tank and soldiers like the following image...

..and making a small war scene where the model can use the water pistol i picked up from Asda to attack the opposing faction while smoking a ciga which is obtained from the prop we where to base the shoot from in the first place.
Getting hold of toy soldiers was not an easy task, but argos sold them for £2 a pack and a toy tank from a kids store was not much extra either. But the stylist still wanted to complicate this further and avert from a tank completely any go for a bonny and clide type theme....

..and to add a male model to make this idea work, which I was strongly opposed to and refused to take on board as it would totally destroy the concept being built up which we had agreed on in the first place. I don't mind a conflict of interest but some of her ideas where totally opposite to what we was aiming for and I think she was aiming for a power struggle of control because of how much money she had apparently spent on the clothing.

Couple style of other helmets I had ideas for were more traditional modern army type..

To get hold of real ones though is rather pricy, so a plastic laternative would be easily found in a kids clothing store. Theres a few other head piece ideas which can be seen in the commic art . The helemet also symbolises masculinity as goes along with toy soldiers, boys and so forth. Another item which ill supply is the baseball bat which is seen in much of the art work and would help make the model look more tom boy.

A helmet or head piece would be a certainty for this shoot so we had ideas of an army style helmet to go in the army type theme of tank girl. Laura found this image from a tank musem she is aware of for example.

Further exploring concept: Random comic and fan art.

a great web link for books and such being..http://www.tank-girl.com/books.php

Location ideas:

The best scene we manage to find was this brick wall with spray paint over it. One of the main reasons apart from its looks and the concrete step in front of it as can be seen in the image below it, is the lighting.
This particular wall has the sun setting directly in front of it, since the model would be finished from work in the late afternoon, it made sense to use this wall to our advantage for the lighting of a sunny days sunset. This would look far nicer than using flash or the other scenes which where in the shade at the time of day we require.
The scene is also fairly remote in the sense that not many passers by are around and its out of the way of everyone else.

This scene looks great as its had a recent fire which adds to the effect. The only problem is this scene would require flash lighting as its fairly dark from mid day onwards do to the wall being fairly high and blocking the sun which starts to set behind it.

I personally wanted to use this scene since the tank was not available. It has great character, much broken glass and spray paint, yet remote enough not to draw attention during the day. This scene would be fun to have with a burning steel bin as the source of lighting as I don't feel flash would do it justice. The model would not be able to do anything on the floor or wold surely be limited to positions without preparation due to the amount of sharp objects on the ground.

This scene directly next to the university caught my eye with recent spray paint work. I thought id record it for future reference but it will probably get sprayed over again at some point in the future. It might be worth a future shoot spray paining my own design on a wall with a model to suit perhaps then trashing the scene again so its not usable thus making the images unique.

I wouldn't use this scene for this shoot as it stands as its to widely used and everyone is aware of its location.

This tank was the main concept for our choice of where to shoot. It is parked outside a volunteer TA barracks by the football grounds in Preston. I obtained the office phone number and range numerous times, various times of the day. I had the receiver lifted and put down once, the rest went un-answered which was rather rude of them to be frank. This left us with an unusable option and to look elsewhere to locations.

Model sourcing:

I personal had two models in mind for this shoot, both friends whom Ive shot before who have a boyish look about themselves as this is the type of appearance required for the theme of the shoot. A girlie model wouldn't be able to pull of the not bothered about my looks kind of look and would look to cute an innocent.

Alice.

Alice is a total none model type that only poses in front of a camera on rare occasions or when the girlfriend needs a model for her course work. Alice how ever has a very boy like figure and appearance complete with short coloured spikey hair and a rather insane personality to go with the smoking habit. She was my original main model idea for this shoot because she is also very local, but a week away from the shoot she informed me she couldn't make the shoot date due to her own work commitments. Not a problem though plenty of notice and many other people to find.

Rachelle.

Rachelle is my back up model should my stylist not have any models to mind herself. Rachelle is confident in front of a camera and Ive used her for a few of my past and current photo projects. Her recent look which is shown in the top image by myself has a great boy looking appearance and comments from that image mention her looking lesbian like. She has a figure the same size as Alice so any clothing the stylist has sourced would easily fit and she lives fairly close by. She also smokes which would help out in our ideas since we have a cigar/cigarette holder as the item we need to use.

Jadie.

Jadie is the longest haired model brought to my attention for this shoot as sourced by the stylist laura. Im often moved towards working with people I havent shot with my camera before so it was a mutual agreement to use her for the shoot. She has never modeled before which would pose to be a bit of a problem though seems confident enough and also smokes which is a bonus to us. She has a very masculine wardrobe as well as girlie so can be fairly versatile as she doesn't wear much makeup as standard.

Initial concept:

Jamie Hewlett I found, is the original creator of the tank girl character which spawned many comic books and the hollywood crash cult film. For those that don't know this guy, hes the creator of the animation for the band "Gorilaz"

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Typical example of military being portrayed with cigars, this is a cartoon sketch from coghill cartooning.

Quote from creator - "A recent project, “Major Change” was developed for a Canadian client looking for a cartoon character mascot for a promotional campaign. Interestingly enough although it was a Canadian client, they preferred to go with a United States military officer for the iconic quality. Kind of a bummer to think that when people think “military”, they think “United States”. I guess for some people that’s a positive thing. And before this post gets too political…For some reason I had it in my mind from the initial discussions that somehow the character was to be a gruff bulldog chomping on a cigar, General Patton-style. "

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So it begins.

Well we had to pick a random wrapped item once we got into our groups and we managed to pick the gold plated cigar holder. which looks simular to this...