ARP – Findings and Reflections

Findings

In broad terms my findings pointed to a positive interaction with the resource ( 71% of comments) and that it had a strong impact on the majority of the participant’s designs (79%, 53% of drawings).

Many participants commented that they thought the selection of models were representative and had inspired them consider different body types for their characters. For example:

“I liked having a reference to draw from and thought it expanded my drawing skills as I probably wouldn’t immediately think to draw from different body types” (Participant A1)

“resources were very diverse! It was really helpful to practice creating designs on different figures” (Participant F3)

“I really enjoyed this task, I don’t usually draw men or motioned characters so this helped me experiment with that and the use of using drawing materials and trying out different techniques” (Participant I3)

For the majority, their drawings were influenced by diverse body types leading to innovations and adaptations of the clothes they designed, pointing to thought processes that considered the needs of different bodies.

This drawing ( Fig 3) is an example of a participant, having made an initial design without the reference, develops a costume and character that incorporates the models’ wheelchair. They keep him dynamic and active, while sensitively thinking through the adaptations ( kneepads, helmets) that a wheelchair user may need

In this example ( Fig4) , the participant has adapted their character to reflect the models figure and skin type , using shading to illustrate her Vitiligo.

Next Steps in the cycle

Changes to the resource:

Prompted by two of the participants comments ,

” I do feel like the samples steer towards white/Caucasian, but it might just be our class” (Participant C3)

“More of a variety of models and maybe randomize it” ( Participant G1)

which arrived at the same time that I noted on my mural board that :

“I feel that I missing some people that would widen representation here .. I am thinking about actors with Down syndrome, and actors of restricted growth – This is an evolving process that should have student agency as well as being informed by my own practice”(Curtis 2025)

 I spent time looking at the resource itself again and other examples of diverse reference collections  and asked the following questions:

• How can I make this as representative as possible and what metrics could I use to ensure  this?

ACTION – I have started to look at protected characteristics, student and staff input, check lists forum one – and categorisation in other respected resources ( see Mural )

• How can I make it available to people and accessible for co creation – a digital collection would help : perhaps each year has a session around drawing the figure in the first year where we introduce the resource and invite student input of new material we then print and add to the physical artefact.

ACTION – Create a Padlet which has all the images to date on it that can be used by everyone to upload images onto

• Offer it up for colleagues to review and add to should their needs change : set up a criteria for the images

ACTION – Add a note to the Padlet with guidance for selecting images : Full figure, neutral clothing that doesn’t overly change the figure’s essential silhouette, plain background, confident or neutral gaze

Changes to the teaching context :

• Really think about the co creation model – give it time and space so that this becomes an co-owned resource now that the case for it’s existence has been made

ACTION – Design a focus group to enable participant consultation on the nature and use of the resource

• Provide more colour media so that skin tones can be represented and suggest this to participants

ACTION – Bring more media into the session as well as asking the participants to bring colour media with them

• Reframe my question to be more student focussed guided by the co-creation model, for example, “You have had an interaction with this resource – what effect did it have on you? “

ACTION – Develop a feedback form and explore other ways more visual ways of giving feedback

Further Next steps

• Reprint the resource
• Develop key first session with Isher for 2026
• Find a way to credit photographers and models
• Create other iterations – portraits for hair and make-up face charts, clothed references in context : these can be developed in conference with each course
• Introduce the resource to colleagues in the next staff meeting