Visual Forms: Repreposal

Repreposal

Just a reminder there are many layers to this module the main part is a research diary and a presentation on a specific topic and the second part is an unrelated sketchbook on a chosen topic from: Ruined civilisation, Market Places or Processions.

Part 1

I was looking at the aesthetics of the art David Mack and his link to the Netflix shows Daredevil and Jessica Jones. I do have a bit of research on these but far as my research has got me it is still not enough to fill my research diary, I have also been warned of not turning it in to a fan letter to Marvel comics and David Mack. I will keep it but i am widening my range to the colours used in setting and how they are comparable to the comic books and Lighting and touching a little bit on semiotics. This has been a bit of a set back for me, I still have the prior research I did but it is just need a re-word and it is due January.

Part 2 

My original proposal for my sketchbook was to look at ruined civilisation in games, mainly looking at backgrounds and setting to start off with then develop in the character design. However, chatting to my lecturer it is clear it is more about -actual- first hand visual studies. Not a research sketchbook in to already done concepts. I can link my research that i find into games and concepts towards the end but fundamentally the core of my sketchbook has to be first hand visual sketches and ideas.
So my new proposal is keeping in mind that I was going use Fallout as my main inspiration i am going to be studying war and as secondary; 50's culture.
My plan is to get into a war museum which would be perfect if i was at my home over the break for a while being as it is very close to a WW2 museum. I am going to have to look in to museums in the area.
I plan on starting off by looking at typewriters and technology that is rarely used nowadays, perhaps uniforms and weapons that are now modified and then the horrors of war and then perhaps some of my own concepts and then some research into artists that have studied this topic before.

Below are some shots from Fallout that were the main inspiration for my research.

Advance Animation Techniques: Update #2

UPDATE #2

 06/12/15
 As I have already mentioned, I restarted the the project the other day because the lines weren't  correct and I started to colour in the line layer, so i made the judgement and it was easier to just start again. I think it has gone well actually although I had a minor panic attack last night about the build up of work I have to get done besides university work.
For my own background I wanted to replicate the same techniques I learnt for the template backgrounds: using channels and textures mainly as I have found it a very useful skill to know.

Research for Own Background

I have had a few ideas for my own background. My first proposal for a background however was; on different layers of asatate paint scenery and stick photographs of buildings that i have tweaked with a wash of colour or ink. Although i didn't get any further with this idea.

I started off by taking a few photographs of Newport at night time. I was planning on doing a cityscape with photographs and handdrawn and painted drwaing, I was thinking in an scratch acrylic style, due to the photos that I took looked quite blurry (camera quality on my phone) but I liked the way they looked, they almost seemed like impressionist paintings.

 

On the subject of cityscapes, I drew the view from Newport city campus cafetria, I mainly looked to see how far into the distance I would see, rather than the details. It was quite an overcast day too.

I also had another idea that I would make a layered background in a traditional medium. I did two experiements with this, they both turned out quite nice:

<This one is acrylic paint on asatate. There are four layers: Bushes, park & trees, city skyline, and the sky.

>This one is on tracing paper, I really do prefer this one more. It is based on the overcast day I had in Newport, hence the monocrome colours. The layering up on the tracing paper worked really nice interms of creating distance too.






My third idea was to make a line background in a digital format and then colour the sections with different textures that would match, for example: the trees woulf have a bark texture, the leave would have a leaf texture etc. I desided i would try it but using substitue texture instead to leave an impression rather than a photograph of hte actual thing.

Here are some photographs that were going to be my textures:

I perposely chose things with a neural colour for two reasons; if i wasn't going to have a colour layer over hte tope, it would be interesting to see how I can use opacity to creat the background. If a did use a colour layer over the top it wouldn't be to drasitc to make the photograph greyscale and turn them into an overlay giving hte background a more "collage-y" feel.
I still want ot try this on out, I will attempt it over the holidays.

My Own Final Background 

My final background is based on a dream I had; it was a volcanic island and the earth breathed and out of holes in the ground came these fumes,  the earth slowly raised up and down. I think it would be quite interesting to animate actually. I will proably attempt to do it in the furture, although I am not sure of the best software that would work for it currently.

Here is my original mock up of my final piece:

My Final Drawing :

I did this digiatlly, much like the background templates we had to colour. I felt replicating the skills I had learnt in a similar format would be a good option for time management and practise.  

I had been recommended by some class mates that I look up The Good Dinosaur that was recently released as it has a similar thing. But I would porbably have to go watch the movie to get a good grasp of it, google didn't turn up any images either. With such short notice it was pretty unfeesable.


" TO-DO LIST

Just needed to check the lines of my day background, I have to scan in my research and Noah Bradleys work was inspirational- I wanna be that good. "

07/12/15 - 12:39 pm

 

Template Backgrounds:
I changed the line colour for the background layer to mimic the ones on the brief. I don't think my line looks as clear so I duplicated it to make thicker black lines and asked peoples opinion; the lines I had already done  (the mimic ones) looked the best apparently so I will stick with this.

Thick black lines. Not the one I went with.

My Final Designs 

Day Background with mimicked lines.

Night Background

I first completed the Day Backgorund then I worked on the Night Background - but I didn't use the hue and saturation technique as shown in the tutorial, I did it in the same way as the day background; Picking the colours and section myself to colour and altering the shadows slightly. This is why I have so many layers in photoshop and it looks a little hectic.
I did try and change the colours of the completed day background to look like night but it was very purpley and there wasn't much else within my knowledge to change it from that.


The textures I used for the overlay were also a little bit of an experiemnt:

B&W Acrylic, Brush. Not used- too harsh.

Watercolour paper, I used this.

Black & White acrylic, scraped. Used.

Conclusion

 

I thought this project was a success, I had a lot of setbacks but ultimatly I am happy with the outcome. I wish I did a bit more background research but I will be doing more of that over the holidays in my spare time.
Things I would of like to improve on; agian time management seems to be a biggy with me, it may be due to my inexperience with the software that sets me back, but that can be improved on. Also I would like to work on my quality of line, I am still not 100% happy with the lines I cleaned up. But I did my best for now. 

Advanced Animation Tehniques: Background Update #1

Update!

So I have been using PhotoShop from my last post.
There is a full log of my day working on the backrounds. A little update on that log; I have been working on pretty much the same things today (01/12/15) but .....it went completly wrong;
I started drawing in a line layer and I couldn't go back and unsure how to fix this and with my frustration I have restarted the project completly. Hopefully I am going to acheive more than average now I have had a bit of practice.
I have redone my lines and my selections, using channels much quicker and effieciently this time. Not perfectly but a lot better.
I have also labeled everything much more clearly -hopefully avoiding the last mistake I made.
I am to colour them now then I can add shadows and highlights, I have until the 7th so 6 days!! I am feeling some full days in the uni room coming on..

Advanced Animation Techniques: Backgrounds

Brief

 For this project we are given a template of a background and two versions of it coloured in; a day scene and a night scene. We are to replicate this to the best of our ability, we can put our own very subtle flare on it- as long as it looks industry standard.

Research

As for the research of this project, I have set out and drawn some backgrounds before the project was given to us, my target was 10 but I got 3:

 The images are more experiments- being as if or the past few weeks I have been working in a digital format, as a traditional artist I thought I would use layers in my backgrounds in my sketchbook. I like the effect, but they don't look very professional. I think I need to go back when I have a little free time to make some more professional looking ones but using the same and other techniques.




















My research will be on going through this project; I plan to look at actual animation backgrounds to gain an understanding of what makes a good line.

We also did some drawing form the projector in university here are my sketches!

I feel this is the strongest in terms of prospective.

This one was prety hard to draw, due to a fish-eye lense.

Log

23/11/15 - Throughout the day I just noted my thoughts and where my head was at at he time. I was in university from 10:00 - 19:00.

I have been doing the clean up on the background templates today, I have tried it multiple times now just to try and get it right. I have been struggling to understand what make a good line, I will be looking at other animation backgrounds later to learn more.

I am getting better at PhotoShop now, I have memorised all the shortcuts !! So that is something.

Note to self: it would be a whole lot easier to do clean up if the uni computer screens didn't have greasy finger prints on.

The pen tool is great for selecting an area like the trees in the background, due to the ability to curve the line.

I've tried really hard to get the lines correct because it is something I feel I need to improve on I often have a very feathered line due to preference, practise and ease.

I have now figured out how to use the bevel line on the pen tool- keep the "ears" from the node on the line you are drawing around then when the line is drawn it doesn't over compensate the curve.

I have been working my way form the back to the foreground but a useful thing I have discovered is to do the actual background- in my case the sky- last, because the rest of the then coloured in picture will highlight the white spots to colour in.

I have already learnt so much from this project, I can't wait to apply it to my own work.

Note to self: missed a stripe in one of the trees, that needs to be fixed.

MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT LAYER ! AARRGHH!

Actually, the channel feature that have just learnt is pretty useful when you botch something up- phew. But I do have to go back and fix some lines now. Not really sure how.

Double tapping with the paint bucket tool fills small gaps, the more you know!

Now that I have coloured the day colours, I still feel my lines aren't clean enough. On the upside I am getting the hang of PhotoShop.

Narrative: Story beats and Scripting

Brief

Reminder: For this Project I have to create an outline, script and a analyse Essay of the work i have done. It is a brilliant project and I will be using it to help me make one of the comics i have had in mind for a little while.

I had created two premises before; the Cafe one with a young inexperienced but diligent lady that owns her own Cafe and her struggles with troublesome customers. This was going to be in an animation format.

My second one was a a very brief idea about a comedy Zombie apocalypse survival comic book, which in the end I opted for because, it has been an idea I have had for a while and wanted to develop but mostly because I am more interested in the subject matter, if I am completely honest.

My last blog post on this was 08/10/2015.

My To-do List

Currently I am still working on the outline of the story and the brief, I have done a very rough version of the comic itself to help with the process.
I have now finalised my character outlines and my world setting, as well as what format my story will be told through.
I need to make the premise better, but that is now one of my last jobs to think about; I have the story all down, it is just a case of typing it up properly.
This blog in itself is going to help me log my toughts and account to some of my research.

I have done quite a bit of research on the topic, there is still more i need to do such as actually reading some more of hte comics in hate action/comedy/zombie genre. And grasping hte demographic of what my comic book will be targeted at. as well as cleaning up on most of my work; elaborating and condensing parts of my character profiles and the format of the comic.

My Script/Premise

It is all quiet on Randal Farm Texas, the sun is setting, and the golden light gleams on the fields of wheat, illuminating the dust and insect fuzz in the air.
The ground scuffled harshly by rugged boots, the pop of a Winchester shotgun...
Three wanderers arrive at the farm, their feet dragging, mouths drooling; they’re hungry. They rip planks off the barn groaning with anger and torment.
“Yeah, there’s chickens” one cries; Alana the leader of the group.
They tear at the barn more viciously; ripping the whole side of the barn off, straw and dust whirling up in to thick clouds. The farmer of the plot emerges out of the dust, mouth dribbling with blood, pitchfork in hand.
“F***”


 I know this premise needs some more work on it, to make it flow a bit more, it also downs meet the word count yet either, but it is a work in progress.

Drawings/Examples

COMING SOON!

Minor Project: Celaction Character Performance

Overview

After recreating a character for the first part of this module, I then have to put the character into Photoshop to cut up elements ready for CelAction animation. To create the animation in the software it helped me to think about making those 2D paper puppets with split pin joints.

A few notable animations in created in CelAction are Peppa Pig, Charlie & Lola, Mr Bean (animated series) and many others. 

Log

20th October - I made a list of all the artwork i might need and noted that it might be helpful to traditionally animate to see if I had missed any replacement shapes. Replacement shapes are used to actually animate in CelAction, for example to turn the head you would need to draw the front as the main element then 3/4  to the side as replacement shapes, and change them when needed. 

22nd October - I refined my list of elements to the parts that I needed for the animation --in hindsight this was a bad move as it restricted my animation towards the end, if I had made more than I needed I could of made the animation smoother. 

I also noted hotkeys for CelActions to speed up the rigging and animation process. 

25th October - I will be putting everything in to CelAction on Monday (26th) to animate and find out what I have missed.

29th October - After rigging my character, it became apparent that there would be gaps in the joints when the character moved. I made some patches for under the joints so the limbs moved seamlessly. Another option is to take out the line art completely.-- If i were to do the project again I probably would do this.

My character redesign.

I had also missed some replacement shapes for the feet and the head, so I

make those in Photoshop and added them to the rigged character.

31st October - I have learnt a lot from this though although the project isn't currently where I would like it to be at, I am still making steady progress for my deadline on the 9th November, I have been doing replacement shapes today .

31st Oct- 3rd Nov- I continued to animate the scenes. 

5th November - I tried to add "Limber" to the tail of my character. Limber is a tool that is use to make something move in a different way, through stretching and an manipulating through using nodes rather than rotating a limb from a joint without having to 'redraw replacement shapes.

I also figured out that when adding limber the character would have to be replaced. I learnt of Replacement Actor Wizard, which is a tool that lets you put a different character in the animated characters place. When the character was replaced the tail didn't show up but I found out if you clicked on each individual node and pressed "V" it would become visible, that was luck really. 

6th November - I started to rig my second character for the next scene.

"I have been sat at my desk  for over 6 hours and procrastinated a bit, i feel the software is beating me. But i think i have figured it out mostly. If I were to do this project again, after a short break of course, i think i would fair a whole lot better I manage to get a walk cycle down today, it is far from perfect but I have learnt a great deal." 

I also made a layered background for the characters and added it to that animation.

7th October - "I have nearly finished the animation today, both sequences. I will try upload my new storyboard later as well as my previous. I have to simplify it a lot due to restrictions of my skill in the software. I was in university today trying to change out a tail I made with limber, I thought it would work petty well in the tail, but it didn't look great. If I had more time maybe I could make it look better, I'll try it out again in a couple of weeks anyway. So I was replacing the tail today to just a normal element just to bob up and down no proper animation really, I would make an animation cycle with replacement shapes but time and skill restrict me currently. Alas the tail didn't work after 4 solid hours of trying to attach and replace a tail I have called it a day."

"after a number of attempts replacing my character by creating numerous actors and replacement shapes, the best outcome with a tail was a mess, also the limbs were not attached, meaning i would have to go through 500 frames reattaching them- but the tail was no where in sight, i tried pressing "V" on the tail element but nothing showed up, there must be a way to solve it, but with limited time and knowledge I think is it best I leave it as it is. In the end limber didn't really work for it and hindered my project probably again due to lack of knowledge."

Conclusion:

This project over my years at uni has been the trickiest, as I am not a digital animator. I have done the entire project digitally to kind of throw me in at the deep end and force me to learn things, needless to say it has been pretty stressful for me. However I have learnt a great deal and I will try it again, I would really like to learn more about CelAction and other digital methods of animating. I am planning to do a small side project of my own in a digital medium in the next few weeks.

Ruined Civilization, Market Places & Processions #1

Visual Forms

Everything on this blog will lead up to building my Visual Forms Sketchbook, Essay & Presentation.
So there will be a reoccurring blog posts well into next year.

What you can expect is research into some key themes i have been given to kickstart my project; Ruined civilisation, Market Places & Procession. I am allowed to interpret in anyway, as long as I have evidence backing up my argument.

Ruined Civilisation 

For this I will be mainly focusing on concept design of characters and landscapes in games & films. topic.
The games & films providing me with my concepts are things such as Destiny, Mad Max, Zombiecide, Matrix and Dishonoured and alike.

So all post-apocalyptic worlds this would be my argument that they are all ruined civilisations, civilisations that are not at their peak, but are now grumbling in the bowels of destruction clinging to that last piece of their civilised nature.
Firstly, the abundance of violence which is certainly not civil, is that is not our idea/ norm of what civil is. There is a threat to humanity as we when it in all of these texts; Darkness, machines and plague all an ominous threat to humanity's survival.

Also max max. I would like to take this excuse opportunity to look at things i am very interested in.
ZombieCide, i can talk on this about how you take part in you're own fate, it is a zombie survival base board game with beautiful concept

Looming extinction. a ruined civilisation (the last known point of the civilisation is before it breaks.)
A threat to cause one to be not so civil. thus ending civilisation.

Market Place Studies

I have been to my local market, I just wanted to portray a simple market place, no other interpretation. Just lazily simple.

Procession.

I will like to take a cultural route for this one, tapping into a bit of history no doubt a long the way. I will begin with local processions; my home town in England has a procession every year in the Summer. It has lots of fun and creativity involved, raising money for charities and awareness as well as advertising local (and now not so local) shops and businesses.
I am hoping that this will lead me on to other things such as fun fairs, circuses & festivals both local and around the world.

Minor Project #2

Character Redesign

For this project we get a design that a child has created and we have to make it animatable, without losing the qualities of what the child put in. We do all the usual stuff that goes into our animations (turn-arounds, storyboards, action/expression sheets) the difference for me this time is that it will be animated using Celaction. I am not familiar with this software yet, but just think "Peppa Pig" type animation.

For an example in the industry of how this process works, here is a concept design of Sully & Mike form Monsters Inc. (Please if you know how to credit for the art, let me know. I can't find it anywhere) .
As you can see from the sketch they have all the basic similarities to Sully & Mike as we know them, they are the bare bones they they were created from, loads of other designs were made but this sketch hold the fundemental likelyness of the pair. That is what I am trying to accomplish with my project, take one design and make it in to animation with out straying too much from the original.

Here is my breakdown for the week!

1. Decide on the sound clip and  drawing , start re interpreting  the drawing into your own unique style bearing in mind any opportunities for character development  and replacement shapes
2. Start putting together your sound-clip on the bar chart  and planning out  rough ideas of performance on your dope sheet Video referencing.
3. Start working on  expressions and acting poses (rough) to interpret your characters performance to produce completed  turn around postures refine and complete characters

Next week (starting 12th October) 

1. Artwork ideas for  possible replacement shapes .. expressions facial changes appendages etc….
2. Produce a storyboard and an animatic with the sound.

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So this post is a little late, I have been working furiously on this project for the past week. I have done nearly everything for the first week and have started the second week as planned !! There are just a few areas that need neatening up for the finished project but so far I'm on target!

Here are a few things that I have been working on! 

TL: My original design, TR: My design broken down and explored.

BL: The original drawing annotated. BR: Compilation of a few rough sketches, expressions, storyboards and action sheets.

I also decided I needed a 3D model, which i made from Plasticine, to help me with drawing proportions.

Currently I am working on my storyboards, backgrounds and soon, animatic. 

I will be making the final versions of everything this week too I have until Sunday 18th!

Narrative Forms: Animation, Comic Books & Video Games

Narrative Forms

For this project I have to write an essay and production log. with option of creating a practical piece.
To start I had to write 2 premises, my first premise is a 7 minute animation, about a small coffee shop in suburban New York, the young possibly inexperience owner has to deal with rude and obnoxious customers.

The Characters I have been looking into mostly;
There is a young woman that owns the coffee shop, she is of slim build quite dainty, and delicate but she is a strong person that looks for the positive in everything, she is very kind.
She wears a white blouse with a salmon coloured pinafore and a black knee length circle skirt. Her hair is short, bobbed and is dark red. She wears dainty red mary janes on her feet. 

The second character is an old man, he is very small, and shuffles about with his walking stick, he is also a very kind old man that admires how strong the owner of hte cafe is, and how gracefully she can deal with ignorant customers. He wears grey dull clothes; a shirt, cardigan and corduroy trousers with sensible brown shoes, he has a flat cap and big round glasses.

Thirdly, an obnoxious woman with an up-tuned nose, she only goes to the cafe to gloat how successful she is and cause drama. Her hair is dyed black in a 50's up-do, she wears a matching burgundy blazer and pencil skirt, she is medium build and had black high-heels.

Finally and obnoxious mother and her very loud son. The mothers description is not needed because she is in none of the shots, you can only hear her, her son is about 7 years old and is very used to getting his own way, he has a blond bowl cut and is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, he has very grubby knees and hands and is missing a couple of milk teeth.

Here some artwork that I think will go well with the animation:

Thorsten Hasenkamm

Jisoo Kim

Ami Thompson

Jordi Laferbre

(I sourced these pictures from a character design page on Facebook).

My second premise is still pretty in early development but it will be a light-hearted "comedy" zombie survival comic.

My mood-board for this would include; Sunset Overdrive, Borderlands & Zombicide. I adore the art of Fiona Staples in the Saga comic books and Oscar Martin's "post-apocalyptic/survival" character design. There should be more on this once I have developed the idea further. I have until Tuesday 13th October to get something down and refined. 

Visual Forms #1

This was more of a warm up project, to go out an look at the world around you becuse first hand reference is the best kind of reference, because you'll gain your own understanding and htere for have your own stamp on your work.

It was a pretty easy project and it was very peaceful, it let me try out a few things I wanted to try, for instance; tissue paper and coffee painting:

Here is a compilation of the six trees I did for the project:

Watercolours

Pencil Crayon

Brush Ink

Felt Pens

Fine liners, Charcoal and Silver Pens

Water Soluable fine liner, tissue and brown paper collage and coffee. 

I would recommend any artist to try this, just go out and draw six trees with different mediums, try and go out of your comfort zone and try new things!!