Week 4 (Colour)

In week 4, the groups were shifted around again for our ‘design a world’ project.  Megan and Una left the group, and were replaced by Timothy Magilton and Leticia Leggett.  We then had to explain our thoughts and plans up until now on how the world would work and about the hybrid animals. 

As a group we decided to expand more on this idea and change some details to make the story stronger.  We eventually decided on having the hybrid animals being subjected to experiments in the laboratory.  There are scientists experimenting on them trying to find out how they are able to live and breathe in the other areas of the world, as it is toxic to humans.  This idea was inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Avatar, in which humans must either change themselves to become more like the other species, or have complex equipment to allow them to survive in the harsh environment for certain lengths of time. 

One of the scientists will go too far and begin to torment the hybrid animals, not just examining for scientific advancement.  Any of the other scientists who stand against him go missing, and I suggested that they could also be subjects to his bizarre experiments. 

I created a Pinterest board to help me form some more solid ideas around how the laboratory would look and the mood I wished to created for this building.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/SamanthaSavage_/hybrid-animal-testing-lab/

I think we are going to make the laboratory very dark, but futuristic as we had planned to have this section of the world based on future earth.

 

For this week, we had to watch the lecture uploaded to Blackboard by Sarah Dargie.  This was an introduction to colour and what each colour signifies, for instance red indicating danger or anger, and blue representing sadness or emptiness. 

I have always been quite hesitant around this subject and so mostly work in monochrome, so this week was a challenge. 

Our first task was to take one of our tonal thumbnails from the previous week and choose to either add monochromatic, analogous, complimentary or triadic colouring. 

 

 

I choose to do this using an analogous colour scheme, which is any three adjacent primary, secondary, or tertiary colours on the colour wheel.  This is because I wanted a more harmonious and visually pleasing outcome.  I used Adobe Colour to help me pick the right hues to use in my work.  Here is the colour wheel I made as reference to create this piece. 

 

  

I created a mood board before starting with other paintings that used an analogous colour scheme as reference to help me with my own. 

 

 

 

 

 

For the second task, we were given this sketch and had to convey an emotion through the use of colour. 

 

 

I created a mood board to help me form ideas.

 

I wanted to choose two opposite emotions/feelings for more range of colours and to test myself.  I ended up choosing fear and hope. 

 

 

For this I stuck to mainly dark and dreary colours, including various shades of black, brown and blue.  I also gave the moon a foggy/hazy appearance to make it seem like there were thick clouds suffocating the sky and choking any escaping light from the moon or stars.  I think this worked well to bring more of an eerie feeling to the piece. 

To further portray this feeling in my work, I added waves as though crashing with force into the rocks and the land leading to the water to show that the atmosphere was harsh, windy and cold.  

To make everything seem more united, I integrated some blue reflections from the sky onto the rocks and mountains in the background.  I also included a weak reflection of the moon in the water to further link everything together. 

This one is my favourite as I think I did a good job depicting the strong chilling emotion, however if I were to go back, I would possibly add another colour like purple to add a feeling of mystery to the piece as well. 

 

The mood board created to help me with the second one is definitely a lot more cheery.

 

 

I found the second one much more difficult as I wasn’t sure exactly how to best portray the feeling of hope at first.  Here I tried to show in the foreground a dark and bleaker atmosphere with the waves crashing and the sky a dingy overcast.  In the background, at the lowest point, in between the two mountains, I added more light and pastel colours to try and show hope as the sun is shining and illuminating that part of the sky… Either the sun is rising, soon to engulf the darkness and shed light over the landscape, or looking at it as a frame from an animation, what the character has been searching for is over the mountain and they are close to achieving their goal. 

To bring everything together, as there were a lot of colours included, I added some pink and yellow reflections on the rocks and almost blended the far mountains into the sun to show just how bright and powerful it was.   

I’m happy with the outcome of this, however I think I could have added more contrast in the colours, for instance made the light colours of the sun more vivid, and the darker colours in the foreground harsher and more unpleasant.   

 

 

 

I picked four scenes from animations and created a colour pallet from the colours used in that scene in order to set the mood.

A really helpful website I looked at when creating these colour scrips was:

Color Palettes From Famous Movies Show How Colors Set The Mood Of A Film

 

This went through and dissected famous movie scenes, bringing out the colours used.  I liked their description, “Colour sets the tone and mood of a film before any of the actors have even uttered a word.”  This is something I had never properly thought about, but realise I do subconsciously.

 

 

Haikyuu!!

 

There are lines of bright shades of orange and yellow which seem to shoot out from the vanishing point to the characters.  The use of these intense colours suggests joy and excitement.  They also tie in well with the colours of the uniform the characters are wearing giving the scene a more harmonious feeling.

 

My Hero Academia

 

This scene is far darker and evokes a more unsettling feeling.  As the character is pointing at their hopes and dreams and looking back into the dull reality after learning they can never reach their goal, is supported by the use of light friendly colours shining through into his gloomy room.  These contrasting colours work well together to show the trauma he is feeling in that scene.

 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

 

The colours used in this scene are complimentary and produce an eerie notion.  The dark purple shade brings a hint of mystery along with the dark blues that suggest sadness and fear.  The orange pumpkins make the scene more interesting as they break up the gloomy colours.

 

The Lion King

 

This scene is mostly made up of blue and orange, which are complimentary colours.  From looking at this, the hues make me think that while the characters are happy and joyful (as they are the only bright colours in the scene), the atmosphere around them gives a sense of foreboding.