This week we were tasked with creating six thumbnail studies focussing on tone as our homework, with two specific activities focussing on cross hatching and two toned scenes. As I was not removed from my group last week, I decided to base my tonal studies on the thumbnails I created last week:
Six tonal thumbnail timelapse.
My two tone study is the ‘Faerie Forest’ (first thumbnail on the top row), and my hatching thumbnail is the ‘Shopping Street’ (first thumbnail on the bottom row). I found them quite difficult but am happy with how they turned out — I tried to add some ‘atmospheric perspective’ within the ‘Shopping Street’ hatching thumbnail and I think it actually added an ominous, foggy, atmosphere. I attempted to improve upon my previous attempt at this thumbnail by adding more buildings to create more interesting shapes, focussing a little more on correcting the perspective and trying my best to build more contrasting tone and therefore depth with the hatching. I feel that the two tone approach to my ‘Faerie Forest’ worked really well, and that it looks much more striking than my previous rendition. I referred to the Tale of the Three Brothers from Harry potter in terms of how I wanted this to look, reference one, reference two, reference three.
In terms of the thumbnails overall, I enjoyed making them and definitely think I’ve improved on my thumbnails from last week, however I still think that I could do with pushing the contrast between light and dark a bit further.
We were then asked to focus on our favourite thumbnail, and create a large tonal study based on it. I chose my redrawn rendition of the library, reimagining an ‘Astrologers Library’ for my little bat girl teacher; I think that this is a much more interesting thumbnail in comparison to the thumbnail I created last week. I included the little bat girl teacher that I designed this week as I wanted to make her looking through the telescope one of the focal points — I also did this because I enjoy including characters in my bigger pieces, having them interact with their environment – I feel it makes the scene feel a bit more real and lived in. I think I’ve managed to portray more contrast in tone within the ‘Astrologers Library’ thumbnail, and am very happy with the bigger tonal piece:
Astrologer’s Library, Large Tonal Study timelapse.
I chose to employ the hatching effect and layered it over the flat colours in order to try and portray a sense of depth and direction to the room and the items within it — I think that the hatching effect really adds something and am very glad that I chose this thumbnail for my detailed piece.
I previously had imagined ghost librarians, but when I tried to add the ghost to this study it added far too much bright contrast, but I can’t leave things alone and so decided to make a little GIF just so that I was able to add this good little blobbo:
So precious. I love them. The references for the room are reference one and reference two. The reference for the ghost is reference one.
To conclude on this weeks homework, I found it difficult just like last week; I really did try to take on feedback from last week, and I do feel that I’ve made improvements, which is encouraging — I really enjoyed doing the larger tonal piece. These exercises have forced me to start thinking about values when tackling my own personal projects as well as my university projects and has been very valuable to me as an artist.
As I am probably going to be moved from this group in class tomorrow, I decided to draw my girl Lyra one last time to say goodbye for a few weeks (assuming that this is the animation I choose to pursue):
