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.
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.
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.
