Angels are perceived in many different ways, however being a
Christian I believe them to be strong and loving. This may be thought of
differently in different cultures or for people who are not the same religion,
but I believe I can still express the image and mood that I need to. I started
by looking at angles in general and got a glimpse that they are higher beings
than humans in every way, I automatically thought this would be a good way of
portraying a carer in the aspect that he is stronger than a lot of people
because of what he has to deal with. I then looked at younger angels such as
cupids because I wanted to add innocence to the character because children are innocent.
I really like Gustav Klimts work, and my clouds that I did
for the studio art project, I then decided to link this with a lecture we were
having about single line drawings. I did this because I thought the outcome
would be interesting. I created a single line drawing with a difference as I
used shapes and pattern to fill in the empty space rather than creating an
outline, and I suppose this would also link with the form lectures we have
received. I looked at Gustav Glimts work because personally I really like it
and think it gives the audience so many things to look at. I like the way he
uses shape to portray texture and depth.
This is a quick experimentation sheet that I did to experiment with the raw concept of my angel in different ways of drawing. I really like the mark method. It flows and adds a feel to the character, the form angel I don't like i feel that it is too difficult to determine what it is, however I like the simplicity of the line. I do like the single line drawing style but I don't think it works in this case because it is too detailed, maybe if the form and single line was mixed together it would have been a better image.
After discussion with my fellow television designers, the
idea came up for some sort of over the top futuristic television with the idea
of it not really being there just space, the ideas were portrayed as
explosions, clouds or smoke. I chose to do the clouds as I thought this would
be the most eye catching and something that I would be able to make my own. I
first looked at some clouds from the Disney Movie Hercules as I really like the
stylised image; I then looked at other clouds, such as Japanese clouds, and
incorporated that into my design.
I think the clouds link with the futuristic look because they are not what is perceived as normal and in my opinion they do look futuristic.
These are photographs from the studio design project that we have done, I have created a soft three dimensional cloud. I blended the blue with white to create depth. I sketched out the pencil lines first to allow me to visualise where the shading needed to be added. I tried to make the cloud dissipate into the wall around it. I used a wet brush to allow the paint to mix. I like what I have done and will use this shading in more of my detailed work, however it does consume a lot of time to create.
Today we had a lecture on single line drawings, having done several line drawings already, I wasn't sure I would learn anything more, that I hadn't already explored. However this wasn't the case. I used a different method by not going over the single line I had drawn already, I like this method as it again enhances the aspect of not being perfect and stops me going over lines to 'correct' them. I think that my drawings do represent what they are meant to but in a unique way.
I have looked into what colours would be appropriate for my character. I have tried to associate the colours with the mood I am trying to portray during my animation. I first looked at a colour wheel to see what stereotype colours are linked with each emotion. I decided to make a mood-board to help create the mood for my final character.
This is the mood-board I have made for the colour scheme of my character. I have decided to use these colours because the darker tones are perceived to warm earthy tones that I thought would link well with the angel idea being in touch with earth. They are also meant to invoke the thought of being cosy. The other colors are linked with tranquillity and serenity. I also wanted to add some happiness and friendly colours so I used the brighter golden colours. I want the audience to get a strong sense of what the character is about. I believe I have done this with the colors I have chosen.
This is theexploration that I did with the single line drawing, I decided to do a portrait. Again I like the roughness of the lines I have gone over a lot of the lines to see what it would look like in comparison to the bus picture. I think that it does really look like the. person also.
I really struggle with profile drawings however I think in this picture because I didn't think about it is the best profile drawing I have done. I think it is also slightly caricatured. I also think it is nice to have a different colour marker. I like the eye underneath I have drawing lots of eyes and i really like the emotion through the eye which is another thing I have struggled with.
Today we had our formative assessment for our Drawing and Visualisation module, I did a five minutes presentation to show the work that I had done over the course so far.
I think I delivered the presentation quite well considering I had a small amount of time to prepare with being away ill. I tried to communicate my 'journey' and the way that I have explored ideas we have looked at briefly during our lectures.
In my presentation I decided to start with the British Art Show and one of the artists work that I liked because that was the start of my year and the beginning of my 'journey'. I have participated in many lectures that have taught me a lot about the way I perceive the world around me and how I can experiment. I have taken what I have learnt from these lectures and built on that outside.
I created a mood-board for my carers character and put a twist on negative space by using a single line to create a rough texture. The feedback that I received from my presentation was that I was exploring ideas well and just need to continue what I am doing. I am going to do a lot more research to allow me to create something unique to me.
Young carers a day in the life of Eddie, first light…
The animation is made using stop motion and quite crude
models, I think it creates the feeling that a child has made it rather than it
being a polished and very professional, I think this is an important aspect to
keep the feeling of the story coming straight from the child. For the project
we are doing at the moment I would like to make it a bit more professional
looking. I think that the story is also aimed towards children and getting the
message across to them that there is help available and they don’t have to give
up their dreams or give up helping their parents.
Although this is a very
important message to young carers I think that I will concentrate on creating
the message, to make more people aware of young carers, what they do and what
they can do to help the situation, as well as alerting carers to the help they
can receive.
The story in this short animation is that a young boy looks
after his mother, and his little sister, it shows him going after a dream and
having to give it up to look after his parents, because he has no other
support.
My idea:
Possible perhaps the two children playing a game close up
shots while talking, in a way you see their faces and not their bodies. Everything is normal. Then you draw out
somehow and the younger brother is in a wheelchair and the other brother is
helping him, shows him helping him then everything goes back to normal?
Or something to do with the football…creating the harsh
strong side of being a carer along with something soft to portray the love for
his brother and the need for him to help.
Disney Pixar is a very well-known and respected company, Toy
Story the original was the first animated feature film. The characters that
were created the first time were few, in Toy Story three there have been over
one hundred characters created for this film, including all from the day care
centre. One of the main characters created for this film was Lotso Huggin’
Bear.
The picture above shows the range of characters made
for this film. When creating toys the animators have created well-loved toys like
the Jack in the box, and other plastic dinosaurs.
Lotso huggin bear, the first time you see him he is smiley
and very fluffy the animation show him as a big cuddly huggable teddy bear,
that also smells of strawberries. He is very large so he comes across as the
leader of the day care centre and he has a walking stick which shows he is very
old, he moves slowly and almost slides across the floor. This gives the
impression he has been through a lot because he is very heavy on his feet,
however in contradiction to that he is very fluffy which gives the impression
that he is cute natured.
The personality of a character is very important, especially
when the characters are not human, because when objects or animals are animated
you don’t immediately link that object or animal with an emotion or
personality, so subtle things have to be carried out and thought about such as
movement and posture.
The first thing you notice about Coraline is that her hair
is bright blue, this is to make her stand out from the rest of the characters
in the story, she also wears very bright clothes, and for example she wears a bright coat. This is to make her stand out as a character against everyone
else in both worlds; this creates a focus on her as the main character. She is open
and wants to spend a lot of time outdoors; you can again see this from her
clothing in the beginning of the film. Coraline is very brightly coloured in
comparison to the other characters in the ‘boring’ world this is to show she is
interesting and is adventurous.
The character of Coraline is animated using stop
motion the faces are used in a way to show a great amount of expressions, the
bottom of the face is clipped onto the model to allow a range of animations;
also the top of the head can be changed the way in which she is animated;
movement wise is very strong she is a girl a girl that knows what she likes.
She is also very caricatured, she has extremely thin legs and she also has a
very skinny body. With regards to her face she large eyes and the rest of her
features like nose and mouth are very small; I think this gives focus to her
eyes and eyebrow so the audience get the emotion that is being emitted from the
puppet.
From the way that Corlaine has been made and the way she is
animated, she is slightly ‘dorky’ with the larger ears. From the research into
this particular character I have found out that a large amount of work goes
into stop motion especially when rigging is included. To create the complete
effect of Coraline CGI animation was also used.
The cat in Coraline
is very mysterious and is animated in that way as he slinks around and appears
and disappeared, the voice actor used for the character fits the idea very
well. To make the character shadowy like he has a secret he is animated very
slowly and walks light in his feet, he is all black and his eyes are huge. As
an animal that can talk anthropomorphism is used and this makes the cat a very
important character. Again stop motion is used which creates a unique finish
that makes the cat very rough around the edges like there is a story behind his
life and like he is very old and has gone through a lot. He is wise and knows
what is going on in the ‘other’ world.
This is the design that I came up with for the studio to represent the stages of production in the studio. Pre-production, production and post-production. I thought that it was a good way of portraying the animation and the film industry in a practical way for our studio. I also decided to keep the colours neutral to make the importance of the numbers stand out.
Today whilst on the bus i decided to try and break out of my comfort zone with drawing and stop striving for perfection and look more at the exploration or technique and my personal style. I took what we learnt in our negative space lecture and built on that with using a single line for the entire picture. I decided to do the inside of the whole bus to create some depth and movement in my picture.
I like the rawness of the lines and I think it allows the viewer to be captured in the same moment that I was at that moment in time, I really like this effect and am going to experiment more with it.
This is a mood board that I created to help create the concept and 'look' of the character that I am designing. I chose the angel idea as a character because of being a guardian and caring, however being strong also. I have decided to use a textured blue to portray a soft look, and also because blue is a stereotype linked with boys. I also wanted to create a tranquil mood with this board and I think I have done that well with my choices of colour, texture and the composition of pictures that I am going to draw inspiration from. I will create my carers character using this reference material and then build on that to create something unique that will create the message I wish to show.
For the character development I have looked at eyes that would be able to portray a number of different emotions but also be quite cartoon in appearance, after looking at such eyes that are used in Anime drawing I decided to create a page of eyes. I have selected my favourite and will use this in the final character design because I believe it will all a great range but also will match the simplistic design of the character that I want to enhance the message I am trying to get across. I also think it will enable me to experiment with different techniques well.
This is the one of the characters that I have developed from the work I have researched. I have also added different ideas for changes in mood for the character and am gong to develop this more. I am going to use different colours and techniques to enhance this character further and create the final one.
This is a picture of some bark from a tree close up that I have decided to draw, I have decided to make it a little different from the rests of the drawings that I have done by doing it on black sugar paper to enable me to create a lot of different lighter tones. I like the way that I have used brighter colours to recreate the texture of the bark.
I used crayons to complete this and like the way that they blend together because you can still keep the crisp line, but it doesn't look too harsh to the eye, because there is never a definite line in nature.
Today we did a mark making this was the first picture I did whilst listening to so upbeat music. We were instructed to sketch the music, which I struggled with, because I continued to draw a recognisable object. We were then asked to just make marks, below is what I came up with. I have fully explored my marks, however there are more marks that could have been made. I don't really like using the charcoal as it's very dirty. But I do like the line you can achieve with it. Then we were asked to link the marks with emotion and concentrate on two opposites. I used a dark line to emote strength and short wispy lines the create nervousness, when I don't think about what I am doing I am able to create a picture that is linked with emotion.
Today we have experimented with negative space. The picture that I have create was all the negative space around the drawing room. I have done the negative space drawing like this because I think concentrate too much on the outer lines of an object. The top edge of the drawing is very much about the line around the easels and people that were in front of me, however the bottom right-hand section is more about the idea of negative space about the outline of the shapes in-between rather then the edges of the easels.
I like looking at the world in different ways and not always doing the expected. It creates an image that gets the viewer interested and that's very important within the animation industry.
I think that I have done the obvious outlines because I have drawn like this all my life. I like the way in which these look and am going to research more into negative space and making drawings more interesting.
I have attempted rotoscoping before, however it was a very
detailed way in the style of A Scanner Darkly, this took me a very long time
and was again a quest for perfection. This year I have looked at changing my
ideology’s to create something that has more emotion and movement. I have
learnt that although something may be ‘finished’ and look what I perceive as
good, it loses it’s character and potentially the message that I want to
portray with that piece. I first created this animation of Jason and decided to
play a little bit with the actual animation by creating another character that
wasn’t really there. I decided to do this because of a video we were shown
called ‘A Family Portrait’. I really liked the use of creating something that
wasn’t there that explain mood more in-depth.
This is the character sheet that I came up with from the initial mind-map that I did. I composed them all together to enable me to compare them. I have also decided to shade and draw each character concept differently to see what method looks the best and is more realistic to produce at a high quality and quantity.
I first started looking at the words associated with caring, and built on that with some obvious concepts such as the teddy bear and the dolly, to more abstract ideas, which include the water droplet and the alphabet block.I think that all of the concepts have something different they can bring to an animation, however I think some work better than others.
I really like the idea of the hands, holding the young baby as a whole animation concept and I think it would give the impression of caring, however I think it would be too soft and would not give the impression of strength, which is a vital part of being a carer.
I think that the angel would be the best as it is a soft like guardian character but can also be strong when it needs to be.
These are the characters that we came up with after our lecture on character sheets and heads bodies tails. I liked the exercise and decided to expand on the idea more. I researched into other examples and found different ways of creating characters. For example:
I like this take on Consequence especially the plant And I like the way it uses 'fairly' real things to create something completely new. I have created some of these to So some more exploration. I have also developed this idea into not only matching the heads bodies and tails, but also combining the elements throughout the whole character to create a more rounded character.
