Further development...

After gathering all my objects, and with shooting imminent, I played around with them on a piece of board to get a better idea of how I want the general formation of the 'set' to look once it's all together (bear in mind my actual background will be black).

This first image was my initial layout as I'd sketched it in my roughs, but somehow I wasn't pleased with how it looked. The addition of the pieces of bone and the Ouija board meant I had to rethink the layout, so I messed about further and settled on the next image.

 I think the balance of objects is much nicer here; also the addition of the glasses works well. The next thing is to decide how all these objects will move as I lay them out, which will already be there when shooting begins, how long they'll remain in shot for and so on. I'll make a separate storyboard for this in order to have a clear idea in mind when it comes to shooting.

Another way to add depth to this idea, I feel, would be to hide the E4 logo in different areas so the audience have to spot them. 

Places I can hide the logo:

• Inside the matchbox,
• among the pages of the book, 
• appearing from behind the car,
• flickering beneath where the glass marker lies on the Ouija board,
• on one or more of the playing cards

If there's enough going on so that the audience might spot something new on a second viewing, rather than just building up to one big and obvious reveal, then the final outcome will be a lot more exciting as a whole.

Rough ideas for E Sting.

Here is an initial sketch of my idea. The objects involved aren't yet definite, but the idea of it is to have it all moving in its own way - the watch hands and pages will turn, the cards will travel across the set, the matchbox will open etc. Then the hands come and mess it up/wipe it all away, and when the board is blank the E4 logo will form from various chalk smudges.

Another concept I had was to make my idea more heavy on drawings- so I'd have the E4 logo and surrounding doodles all moving around. Then once again the hands would smudge it up, only to be replaced by a large purple splatter that forms the logo, giving the impression it's come back of its own will.

I decided the top idea had far more potential than the other, and it means I get to experiment with interesting objects rather than focusing on drawing (which I've done a lot for other units). 

Before shooting plans will be necessary in order to make the process more time efficient, especially since stop-motion can be a rather lengthy process- this means gathering objects, arranging them, deciding exactly how each will move and how fast etc...

E Stings inspiration.

When I was thinking up a concept for my Sting, I initially thought about the colour purple. I remembered a nice pair of purple gloves I own, decided I wanted to involve them in my idea somehow and from there began to think of ideas that could include the use of hands.

These sequences immediately came to mind. In South Park I liked how one of the opening themes showed the hands actually arranging the pieces of the characters along with the stop-motion equipment.
The second video is from an old show I used to watch as a kid called Zzzap! and I always loved the Handymen characters. Watching some of those sketches inspired me to think more about the visual theme of my idea, and so it was decided it would be magic.

The intention for this idea is to create it using stop-motion techniques, though I'll also be thinking of including some drawings and taking stills to edit digitally, giving me an idea for how I'll edit the look of my film after shooting.

General Inspiration - Max Gärtner

Painter, illustrator and character designer. He has a very bold and detailed style, often based on nature but with a very modern and surreal edge.

His illustrations are very busy and often look as though they're made up of one long piece of string, giving a very loose visual effect. He uses white space as a stark contrast to the masses of heavy black lines; this along with the direction of the strokes cleverly gives a sense of depth and movement to the work. I think the way he made the birds head out of many bird's heads is very cleverly done, and I like how sections of solid black are added for the eyes. My favourite piece I saw was actually the gorilla one (middle), because I found the watercolour wash worked very nicely with the black lines. I also like how the shape of the snout on this one was quite messily sketched in as it differs to the crispness of the fur.

General Inspiration - Sue Doeksen

An Amsterdam-based designer who works in various mediums but retains a very colourful, simplistic but busy style.

These pieces all have a very similar look to them, and yet all were created differently- one digitally, one using cut paper and the other as what appears to be a painted mural. This shows her style is very versatile and is applicable to various functions. I like how cute the designs are, and how there are many hidden characters within a single piece. The colours work nicely without outlines and give the work a flowing look.

These designs blend cute and creepy quite nicely while having some humour about them. Again the style remains fairly constant but these posters show that the designs work well individually as well as part of a larger piece.

General Inspiration - Will Sweeney

London-based illustrator and graphic artist who specialises in clothing graphics, comics/webcomics, animated videos and music packaging.

I like the detailed linework in these character designs, especially how it is brought to life by the vibrant use of block colours. The faint screentoning gives a very retro/comic feel while the lurid colour palette is reminiscent of vintage horror movie posters. This style compliments the gruesome design of the creatures very well. I also like how the fruit/vegetable elements of the monsters are quite subtle so you have to look closer to spot certain details, and how it contrasts with the aesthetic of metal/machine parts. The same goes for dressing the monsters/food creatures in typical street fashion- I particularly like how the mushroom monster has nothing but a pair of Converse on. The broccoli biker is also a favourite.

These illustrations show even greater detail as far as the linework is concerned. Again, the lurid but flat colours gives a very surreal edge to the drawing, especially since they clash a lot with the lineart itself. The pencil drawing beneath it is no less surreal, and shows even greater detail with the more subtle shading and the sheer busyness of the piece.

I would definitely consider using vibrant colour with future drawings since my own style is often heavy on the outlines and drawn detail.

An example of Sweeney's work in another media. I think this design translates well to a figure, which is always a factor to consider when creating my own designs. Will it work well as figurines and translate well to 3D programs?

Animation and timing.

Today I changed a walk cycle to a run, and experimented with timing and posing in order to create convincing movements in a character.

To change the speed of the initial walk cycle I opened the Timeline window.

By entering the 0.5 value I doubled the speed of the walk.

After seeing how fast the character moved I doubled the speed again, making sure to adjust the number of frames in the loop each time.

To make the walk into a run I accentuated certain movements, for example made the main body sway side to side more dramatically and raised it. I also made the arms pull back and extend more, and raised each leg to show it leaving the ground. That gave the character a unique, rushed-looking run.

General Inspiration - Esad Ribic

An artist who works for Marvel, known for his work on titles such as 'Thor and Loki: Blood Brothers' and the ongoing 'Thor: God of Thunder'. 

A quick sketch by Ribic sold at a convention panel. I like how he only draws very faint pencil guidelines before applying watercolour but still manages to capture shape and lighting with nice detail. Still you can see where details such as the eyes have been penciled in with greater precision which makes those features stand out well.

Samples of comic cover art. The level of detail in these traditional pieces is beautiful, especially in the muscle definition. I like how this contrasts with the bold, black shadows on the monster, the red cape and the stark, bleak backgrounds. Ribic stands out from many comic artists with his traditional style, especially since he doesn't adhere to the usual thick black outlines and bold colouring of many other Marvel artists.

A two page spread from inside one of the comics. Here you can see that the art is digital, most likely for time efficiency since issues are published monthly, and yet his delicate style isn't compromised. The art still has a gentle and attractive painted look to it, and the higher detail in the linework more than makes up for any that's lost in the colouring process. Even so the lighting on the ridges of the creatures spine is stunning, and the fade in colour and line towards its back end gives a strong sense of perspective.

Morph.

A simple morph I made in 10 hand-drawn frames. I think it worked quite well other than some minor inconsistencies- I mostly like how I formed the facial features and head shape from the shape of the bottle cap. If I have enough time to do another morph I may consider something more complex, perhaps morph two objects that aren't all that similar to challenge myself more. 

Sketching.

Since I missed out on some of the life drawing classes, I've been gathering photos of my various influences to use as reference for my drawings.

For this drawing of Björk I limited myself to only a few minutes of sketching in order to capture the basic form, along with the most dramatic shadows and highlights. I quite liked using marker to draw since it's nice and bold, and I think the sketchiness of it would look quite nice with a delicate wash of ink or watercolour. Even so I do also like the messy pen shading I added after the initial marker sketch.

General Inspiration - Yoshitaka Amano

A Japanese artist who is well-known for his work on the Final Fantasy game series.

I love how he captures movement and form with such freely drawn lines, and yet there is a certain level of detail and delicacy to his work so that it works even with very minimal colouring and shading.

Conversely many of his illustrations are highly polished and refined, such as the above. I find the soft, whimsical colouring to be a perfect contrast to his use of bold and often highly detailed black outlines. The influence of traditional oriental art and mythology is present in the linework and in the figures he draws, which often seem to be a cross between beautiful humans and spirits/demons.

Outcome of Character Design unit.

An update of how my character for the character design unit ended up looking. As late as I am in updating this, I'd like to reflect on how pleased I was with the outcome. The character ended up well fleshed-out both in style and substance; he's definitely a personality I feel I could write some interesting and funny short stories about in the future.

As far as translating the design to 3D was concerned, time constraints meant I was unable to fully build the character; however I was able to build the parts necessary to rig the entire body. Here you can see that I was able to give my character the reclining posture that I tended to draw him with by adding extra controllers in the spine. The only things I slipped up on were the head and foot controllers- fortunately this is something that could easily be fixed at a later date by changing the direction my character faces and re-organising the hierarchies. Overall I was pleased with how he translated to a 3D model, and was able to animate him with a basic walk cycle for the deadline.

Time plan and targets: Mon 15th April - Fri 3rd May

Monday 15th - Sunday 21st: 

• Work on initial ideas and research for E-Stings project, form project proposal and treatment. 
• Begin making up for material that I missed- particularly life drawings and researching my various influences.
• Update this space with material from my older projects that I didn't get round to posting at the time.

Monday 22nd - Sunday 28th: 

• Gather all necessary materials for production of my idea.
• Refine my idea, capture stills for digital tweaking which will help when it comes to post-production of my animation.
• At home, focus on getting up to date with life drawings and animation experiments: for example the morph and work using puppet pins in After Effects.
• Update this space with material from my older projects that I didn't get round to posting at the time.

Monday 29th - May 3rd:

• Produce my animation using stop-motion techniques.
• Finish off animations to go with my life drawings.
• Begin writing reflective analysis for PPD unit.
• Make sure to update all progress here!

Targets during this time:

• Try various techniques while drawing - continuous line, eyes closed, set myself time limits, use different media.
• Schedule specific time at home for work and breaks to keep up productivity.
• Keep searching for new inspiration - artists in various mediums and from differing cultures/lifestyles. Broaden my horizons.
• Complete E-Sting with plenty of time for editing - I want it to fit how I visualised it well and to have time for music and sound effects.