My boards for the presentation
I've chosen YCNs save the children brief
Mostly because I don't want to make free work for any of the other companies.
And this brief sounds quite fun
And who doesn't want children to read more
I just wish the colour scheme weren't so darn awful
I made some sketches for my save the children entry
I'm working with the idea of 10 things you can do in ten minutes, and it will be parents and children doing various ten minute tasks to show how their time could easily be better spent reading with the children
I did not do well with this module. From start to finish my main problems were poor time usage and planning. It meant I was delayed finishing my author research and subsequently the ideas and development stage was a month behind. Also in November I spent two to three weeks working solidly on Thoughtbubble for the Responsive module which I had also previously neglected so I got quite behind then. Since that I have been constantly trying to catch up with things I didn't do at the time which is incredibly stressful and exhausting. I hereby vow to not do this again.
Despite all my many failures during this project, I'm not entirely dissatisfied with the outcome. My print designs I ended up being quite pleased with after they went through multiple redesigning phases and I put a lot of work into the animation which I really enjoyed making. So overall the projects went badly, but they could have gone worse.
Visual Journal
I liked this element of the module because I work a lot in sketchbooks but often I struggle to keep them focused and coherent, so having to make my sketchbook a more presentable object meant I reigned in my planning and drawing processes and as a result my plans were clearer and much easier for me to use in the production stages.
In the beginning of the module I enjoyed experimenting with collage and loser more ethereal media and themes. I wasn't content with the motifs I chose because at the time I hadn't finished reading the book I focused on so I couldn't pick well related motifs. Despite this I think I developed some useful new processes I can use in future projects, like manipulating images with the photocopier to make textures and using different kinds of line in my drawings.
After these tasks I mostly used the visual journals functionally for planning prints and making storyboards. Perhaps the most useful work I did in the journal was the dictionary of Alan Moore's movements and mannerisms which I continued to refer to even when making the final animations.
Moving Image
This was my favourite brief as I've always wanted to have a real go at animation as I am a lifelong appreciator of cartoons. I really enjoyed the hand drawn task because the process was very theraputic and involving. The product wasn't as succesful as I'd hoped because of the sloppy nature of the drawings so when I reprised this idea I decided to move onto the cintiq and draw each frame digitally. This was infinitely more simple because you can play the animation back at any time and see how its progressing so I'm glad I chose to use this method. Making the final animations was a very long process as I drew each frame out as a seperate layer on photoshop and assembled them into a gifs and finally a video. I think the timeline feature in photoshop has a lot of potential I'd like to explore because it's simple and quick to use but still maintains a good level of quality. I even ended up making gifs for fun I enjoyed it so much. A very valuable newly acquired and developed skill.
As much as I like the plan black line on white part of me wishes I'd made the frames more detailed with a colour or some kind of embellishment. At the time I began producing them this would have taken far too long for me to complete in time so this is something to consider for the future. Although when I remembered contextual references we were shown using only black lines I became more fond of my decision.
I was quite pleased with myself that I managed to think well in terms of making plausible movement. I think this is a result of my working with comics and my constant absorption of animation and cartoons and the skills I've developed doing this will surely go on to help me in making comics and hopefully animation in future. Often I used reference from peoples animation tests on youtube and real-life reference courtesy of my very patient friends. I think I will start attending life drawing again though because as much as I am pleased with the movements I created there is a lot to be developed with regards to my interpretation of accurate anatomy.
I would love to do an animation project again except next time I will put as much consideration into the aesthetic as I do into the movement, and I want to continue to develop my skills by exploring other programs like After Effects and Dragonframe, which I made minimal use of following the inductions.
Printed Pictures
I've learnt from this brief that screen print is not really for me. I attempted it again and again and still I ended up with substandard final prints. I don't think it particularly adds anything to my work, but perhaps it would if I'd managed to complete the prints to a higher standard.
It was difficult altering my image production process to make it suitable for screen print because I had to think about factors I wouldn't usually consider, like how I will minimise the amount of inks and screens I need and how I can make areas of different tone. I think in my final designs I did this quite well because they looked much more suitable for print than my earlier designs but it didn't seem to translate well in the end because of all the problems I have detailed before.
I chose to use bitmap dots in my positives which I think its a great way to make y images translate to printing because I struggle to work without shading and tone. This did cause problems however in the printing process because the dots were very small and often wouldn't expose properly or wouldn't let enough ink through leading to my prints being patchy and pale. Next time I may try a different approach to bitmapping, perhaps darker or smaller dots.
Printing became much easier when I switched to the manual printing beds because it removed the problems of me being to weak to move the various heavy parts of the large printing bed. Also I found it oddly easier to align my prints without the vacuum because the paper is easier to move.
I'm not sure if I'll try screenprint again. Probably sometime in the future but not any time soon, at least not gladly.
Next time I will
-Blog regularly, if not daily
- Decide on a final plan much earlier
-Do the research and complete it much earlier, before the development process
- Allow more time for production
Six two/three colour screen printed posters, one for each of
the main characters in Watchmen, highlighting the books use of speech bubbles
and selection of colours, as well as representing each character using
related imagery
The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts
or concepts)
1. The characters Nite Owl, Dr Manhattan, Rorschach, Laurie,
Ozymandias and The Comedian
2. The importance of speech bubbles in the text and the
quotes these characters say that is most representative of their
personalities
3.Allusions to other
themes in the book such as doomsday
I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific
messages, ideas, moods etc.)
1. The characters personalities
2.The depth of the
world created in Watchmen
3.The visuals of the
book, colours and features and symbols
To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics)
1. Existing fans who will recognise the characters and
references in the posters
2. Younger people who weren’t around for it the first time
3. Anyone who knows of the books but wasn’t previously
interested
BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 05
OUIL504 Illustration 1:
Process & Production
STUDIO
BRIEF 2 PROJECT PROPOSAL: Moving Pictures
I intend to produce ……
3 hand drawn animations, one 20 second and 2 ten seconds,
advertising an interview with Alan Moore (Alan Moore in conversation) which
depict quotes from him in interviews .
The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts
or concepts)
1. Things Alan Moore
has said in previous interviews that seem enticing or representative of his
personality
2. Classic cartoon-y movements
3. His mad and fascinating life and creative process
I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages,
ideas, moods etc.)
1. The vivid imagery within the things he says
2. His personality and demeanour in interviews
3. Dispelling the
villainous front some news items have created for him
To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics)
1. Existing fans who want to watch the documentary
2. People who don’t know much about him so may be interested
3. People who have
never heard of him, perhaps younger audiences.
I like the music I ended up choosing but since it was quite a last minute decision I didn't get to put as much thought into it as I'd have liked. Also I wanted to record or source cartoon sound effects to play in time with the movements but I ran out of time. I'm not sure how much they would've added to the video but it would've been fun to try. Next time...
I definitely suffered at the hands of my lack of time planning in this project, but the planning I did do was all in list form
Here are some of those lists
I finally got five vaguely acceptable prints onto my chosen paper.
They still each have their own glaring problems, but they're the best I've managed.
I chose the light sand paper because the colour of it most complimented the colours in my designs and it was sturdier and more successful to print on than the sugar paper and newsprint in similar shades.
I ever solved the ozymandias print problem so I have chosen the print where it's least noticable.
Same with the blue ink on the rorschach print and the orange marks and colour similarity on the nite owl print and the general over-distress of the dr Manhattan print. In fact they all went wrong to the very end except the comedian, which still isn't great
I don't think screen print is really for me, I am clumsy and have no upper body strength which makes the whole process a battle. I started to get the hang of it by the end but I think thats just because I'd already made every mistake possible so there was nothing left for me to do wrong, which still didn't stop me repeating my errors. I suppose it's a learning curve.
I seem to be having particular difficulty with this one out of all the animations because of the moving parts layered together. My intention was to make the moving machine separately to Alan, which I did, and then combine the two in after effects. I attempted this and promptly realised I have no idea how. After I attempted it a few times After Effects decided to dramatically malfunction and henceforth refuse to open on my computer. I took this as a sign to abandon my plan and instead compile the gif in photoshop where I know what's going on. This too took forever because I had to flatten each of the seven looped frames of the machine gif into its own image and import them into the main animation and toggle them visible and reposition applicably. I got there eventually though.
can't help but think the plain black on white is a little empty and stark
considering some amount of blue/another colour/image
would quite gigantically increase workload
some possibilities in order of effort
minimum effort required. one layer behind all the frames. easy peas.
some effort required erasing shape of items in each frame onto a separate layer of blue for each frame. alternatively fill background of each layer. slightly less work but potential jagged edges and general unpleasantness
maximum effort required. going into each frame and adding simple shading in blue tones and some erased embellishments. would take literally forever to do on all three. roughly 300 frames of shading. so probably not this one.
My experience with screen printing has been one train wreck of a disaster after another.
Here's a list of things that went wrong and the failed prints to prove it.
I made my ink too think to fit through bitmap dots so it dried into the screen
Some phantom white rocks of acrylic paint stuck into my screen
I didn't know to flood the screen after each print and was instead trying to wipe the screen clean of ink each time
A mystery problem occurred while exposing which no print staff could explain but several of my screens just didnt expose at all
I put emulsion on too thick meaning the second attempt of exposing failed
Many of my screens had holes or blockages in which I noticed while I was using them, some I had to re-do, others I taped up the holes or allowed the damage to be an extension of the distressed aesthetic I'd attempted
I exposed my image too close to the edge of the screen so had to use a manual printing bed. Oddly I found this much easier as its not as heavy and strenuous as working on the larger beds and I find the vacuum disagreeable.
I made my ink too thin and it was indecipherably pale
I made my ink too thin again and it sploodged everywhere
I lacked the upper body strength to put enough pressure on the squeegee so the print was streaky
The small bitmap dots meant i had to mix my ink much darker than I wanted it to look, this took many many attempts to get each colour right.
Phantom blue ink appeared on my screen several times while printing rorschach and is on my final print
The yellow ink on my ozymandias print didn't come through the right hand side of the screen regardless of how much pressure I put onto it, this problem remained unsolved, by this point it was too late to re-expose the screen and try again
The brown ink in the nite owl print is pretty much the same colour as the orange
When removing the tape from my nite owl screen I pulled of a substantial amount of emulision, leading to the streaked dark orange marks on the bottom right corner of the prints, again I had not enough time left to clean and expose this again
In many of the prints the text is faint in some areas for unknown reasons. Multiple pulls only led other areas of the image to bleed or blur
I think thats everything that went wrong but there's probably much more
This is just a small sample of the many many prints that went wrong
I really love cartoons and I watch them every day and always have done. This being a brief about animation it seems more apt than ever to talk uninhibitedly about cartoons.
I love the simpsons and think it's the greatest show ever made, i make no secret of this. On the DVD commentary of the box sets are animatic commentary videos where the animators and other personnel draw on the screen while episodes or animatic storyboards play. They're really great because the animators dissect the show but from their thought processes, they discuss the composition and lines of motion and character models and animation mistakes and all sorts of exciting things like that. Also it's great to watch the commentaries on seasons 1 and 2 compared with that on the most recent seasons because of how much the process has changed and subsequently the results have changed.
a great post from a terrible website
http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/9-beautiful-hand-drawn-animations-from-disney-films#.ae41Vayjq
nobody gets fluid movement like disney
John lasseter moment
Brave little toaster, the first feature length animation he worked on and one of my favourite animated movies. combines traditional and cgi, one of first to use backgrounds
subsequently everything he touched turned to gold, mostly pixar
coincidentally ex-pixar colleague joe ranft also worked on brave little toaster
i have a theory about joe ranft, that he was a most integral part of pixar.
he died in a car crash in 2004
pixars releases pre 2004 are the ones I consider to be the best, classic and untouchable, toy story, bugs life, monsters inc, finding nemo, the incredibles
then came cars, which I consider to be the turning point in pixar quality, as from here it went steadily downhill with movies that are still excellent but not the same as the pre-cars films, eg. ratatouille, cars 2, brave, monsters university, wall-e (up is the exception)
joe ranft died during the prediction of cars which is the point where I personally see a dramatic change in the output of pixar, a cut off point
thus I think Joe Ranft was pivotally important to the 'pixar magic' of the first releases
this is of course speculation based on little to no facts but it's just a thought
I've spent quite a lot of hours watching golden age cartoons on youtube, mostly silly symphonies and other disney shorts, looney tunes, betty boo, flip the frog and other such old timey stuff
it's nice to watch and know there were none of the digital shortcuts available that we use to draw and animate now and the whole process was different giving it completely different aesthetics, also watching for the shortcuts they could take like reusing frames and movements and repeating backgrounds and camera movements.
South parks pilot episode was made entirely from cut out paper. The process proved too time consuming and for the other episodes various programmes were devised to emulate the cut out paper aesthetic but I think the craft behind the show is often ignored in favour of its controversial subject matter. I'd like to try the cut out paper method, it lends itself more to graphic shapes though so I would have to change my way of drawing
Terry gilliam, using drawn elements combined with found imagery, condenses workload? unites visual opposites with garish colours, humour through movement, movements are silly and simple because they are made of one of un-manipulatable cut outs. Must also try this, collage animation
Levni Yilmaz has hundreds of these videos, using a marker to draw onto the tracing paper canvas. it's all drawn from the back so he has learnt the skill of drawing and writing backward for this process. effective result from minimal animation and embellishment, commentary glazes over images and animation is all the image being drawn, simple but engaging
Spongebob I think is a modern animation classic, if there is such a term, started as cell animation but moved to digital ink and paint early on. Kept the previous aesthetic and has clear links to ren and stimpy, close ups mostly. Great example of absurdity and modern humour and writing combined with classic animation principles and movements.
massive impact of sound effects in time with visual stimulus. When first episodes came back from animators John K was horribly dissatisfied with the animation quality so the sound effects were exaggerated greatly to compensate for this.
Ren and stimpy is horrifying and sordid without actually doing anything wrong. Just the grotesqueness of the characters and the outlandish overstretched movements, combined with the campy innocent 50's themes makes something captivatingly playful and sinister the splotched backgrounds were said to represent the holes in reality or the vision of a person in a deep state of dementia also the pioneers of the grotesque cartoon closeup, made famous more recently by spongebob and its the first and perhaps only cartoon show to have fake adverts made to be part of the show, most notably log and sugar frosted milk
nightmare before christmas - Stop motion, balance of macabre and charm and child appropriate
Naive, charming, high production value, possible by large team of creatives, Jesse Monynihan, Ghost Shrimp etc. power of imagined worlds and invented logic
Half way through every episode a chasm opens and everything goes to hell. Hense the name regular show. They use textured watercolour backgrounds layered with the animated elements. Hand made touch humanises sleek digital animation
The visual quality of rick and morty seems to constantly flit between crude and simplistic and intensley comlex and beautiful.
Adam Elliot - Mary and Max, Harvey Krumpet. claymation, studies into a the life of characters, stories based entirely around character design, infinitely charming and moving.
what could i possibly say of Studio Ghibli that hasn't been said already
beautiful, hand drawn, investment of labour, pastel faded colour schemes, mythology and legend and rich cultural history gives stories and visuals depth. totally impeccable
made with toys, stop motion, using existing toys as puppets, manipulated slightly with cut out mouths and such, shows the process of animation doesn't require the lengthy drawing process, can be used as a medium to produce an idea, not just an extension of drawing. show is made up of multiple shorts put together. means less effort than planning storyboarding and animating full episode length sequences, instead fast fired jokes and snappy erratic puppet animation
There's an endless amount of other cartoons I could prattle on about but it's definitely bedtime now
Still not sure what level of relevance this post even has
this advert eleanor showed in a briefing initially influenced me to work in simple black lines on white as I saw it could be just about the movements rather than a complicated aesthetic. wanted to focus on making convincing and dynamic character movements
Finished my designs, much happier with these than the old ones.
The nite owl design could've been better, it looks a bit empty at the bottom, the glasses don't occupy enough space.
I used the same process for all of them, different opacities of two colours on two layers multiplied over each other. By the end I became very familiar with this process which made it easier to 'churn out' the designs,' It got a little repetitive but at least they fit together in a consistent and cohesive set.
