For this exercise we were given a pre-drawn image and asked to add colour to see what effect different colours would have on the atmosphere and feeling of the images. I decided to try a couple of different ones, to try to create different feelings and see within my own work how to experiment with different colours.

For this first image I originally planned on doing a triadic colour scheme, with very bold colours but I naturally found myself using these colours so I decided to just work with it and see what I could create. I chose to use quite bold colours, not very much shading because I wanted to keep this one quite simple. I did add a little shadow to the rocks and water just to give the image a little more depth. I think that the response this one provokes is quite a sunny, upbeat feeling. It reminds me of the kind of bright, colorful backgrounds you might find in kids tv shows, such as on cartoon network.

For this image I wanted to focus more on a mysterious, magical feeling which would match more with the world I am currently in. It is a world surrounding magical academia so I thought the mysterious purples and royal blues would work well. I also included the green and pink shades in order to add to the sense of mystery I was creating in the image. I think that this colour scheme could work well in my current world so I think having this colour palette as a reference will be helpful for world building further.

For this experiment I wanted to capture something which has quite soft, romantic lighting. I made sure to use quite muted tones, with nothing too vibrant and eye catching so that all of the colours will work together with nothing being too over powering. I think this one turned out well, with all the colours used working together to create a calming atmosphere.

I was pleased that I was able to come up with three very different feelings in the exercise, to really experiment with how colours affect the mood of an image. I think I was quite successful with this experiment and I look forward to applying it to my own drawings of the worlds I experiment with.

For my redraw of a thumbnail in colour I decided to go with the monochromatic scheme. The thumbnail was based off the idea of a Hell landscape so I thought that the red colour often associated with Hell would be a good choice. I also wanted to practice this monochromatic scheme as I am not used to only working with different hues to create an image so I thought it would be good practice.

I think the colour redraw has really helped to add emotion into the piece, giving it quite an ominous feeling. It almost creates a post-apocalyptical feeling, with the red hues in the sky and the darkest tones of the leaves. I think this works well given the world I was trying to create and portray in this thumbnail.

In the colour image I think the sky captures a better gradient which in turn helps to add to the atmospheric perspective so I am happy to see my work improving in this way. I also think that the gradients and different hues of reds works well in the areas of land in the image, particularly more towards the back of the image.

One area which I think could do with some improvement in comparison to the first image is that the light streaks which fall on the rocks. I think the lines appear softer is the first image, so I could try using a blur tool or a softer airbrush tool to make the blend softer and more like a light.

Since we started learning about Perspective, I have been noticing a lot of images in the real world and starting to think about what is one or what is two point perspective. I’ve found it very interesting, as it’s not something I would have nessicarily thought about before. Some of these photographs I took for the exercise task Alec set on week 2 to take some photographs around the city center but I found myself continuing to notice perspectives when I was just out walking so I thought it would be good practice to photograph this as well and include them.

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For some of the images I found it hard to work out exactly where the points would lie but in most of them it was quite easy to see the lines of perspective and the horizon lines. I did also start to find myself noticing how the colours looked in the images as well, and how to light faded more as you get closer to the horizon line (Which I think is particularly visible in the image in the line above which I have *ed).

In order to grasp the lines and perspective a little bit more I decided to try and do a draw over on a few of the images, just to get myself a bit more used to the lines. This practice helped me out and I think it will help me in the future with drawing perspectives.

I tried to pick colours which could stand out on top of the photographs but I think that it would maybe be a good idea to make the images black and white first so that I can focus on the lines and perspective without getting lost in the colour.

I was trying to practice shading using cross hatching as a technique. I found this quite difficult, because whilst there was some tone created in the areas of shadow, it was quite hard to get it to look tidy, and well polished. I was trying to also look at interesting perspectives and I think this also made it difficult to focus on both things. I think there should have been maybe more texture and shading on the ground in the top right image, but I couldn’t think how to shade the ground and also keep the shadow from the door standing out.

After I had trouble with cross hatch shading in the perspective drawings, I thought it would be easier to take things back a little simpler. I started by drawing the 3D shapes of a cube, cuboid and a cone. I looked at different light sources and how that would affect where you put the shading of the form. I think making the shapes simple helped me to work out with the crosshatching and really be able to think about how the light falls.

For this weeks tasks I really tried to keep take the feedback I got last week and use it to improve my work this time. I still had a little bit of difficulty but I was definitely able to improve the atmospheric perspective and tone in the thumbnails. I really worked on the advice given in Alec’s lecture, specifically about how the colours change as you get the horizon line and get lighter. I also noticed how he mentioned that the colours and horizon line tend to blend when you get to the line. I really wanted to try capturing this in my work.

I think these thumbnails were better in both their perspective and the tonal values which I added in. When I was getting some feedback, Sarah said that there is definitely an improvement from last week so I’m glad you can see the improvement in my work. She also pointed out that although the perspective of the road is not quite right in the first thumbnail image, you can still see the work on the gradient and tonal values. I really liked thumbnail 4 and 6 in particular. In 4 there is a lot of nice work on the lighting on the rocks and along the river, and the perspective works well. I also liked how the gradient and tonal values out in this image, and you can see how the light hits it. There is also a nice gradient in the sky, leading down to the horizon line. I decided that this would be an interesting image to develop more so I decided to choose it as my HQ image.

The larger thumbnail took me quite a long time to draw, because I wanted to capture quite a lot of detail. I think that I could maybe have taken the perspective a little further and made it a little bit more interesting but I think that it is good that there a difference in sizes between the large castle in the foreground and the city in the background, beside the horizon line. I think that there was some very nice tonal work in the castle and I’ve been able to add depth to the image. I also worked at adding quite a lot of gradient and tonal work into the sky, making the top darkest and getting lighter the further to the horizon line it gets. However, I found that once I exported the image, the colour gradient was not so prominent and it sort of lost a bit of the perspective. I think this was a shame, as it did sort of detract from the perspective work. Sarah gave the feedback that a few stars sprinkled across the sky would help with the perspective as they would only be visible at the top of the image due to the glow of the city lights. Overall, I think that there was a clear improvement in this image compared to the smaller thumbnail of the same design, as well as the images from last week. I still think that I could improve it further by practicing more so I will continue to work on it and develop my atmospheric perspective work.

I also read the book ‘Dream Worlds’ by Hans Bacher, after hearing Alec recommend it during the lecture. I found the book very interesting and it was very helpful in coming up with ideas about how to create a world. I also found it quite helpful in terms of thinking about perspective and looking at how composition works alongside perspective.

I started with a quick design for the Chihuahua/ Cerberus character, showing the three heads. I wanted to show a different personality in each of the heads, as they all have their own brain. I played with the idea of having a pitchfork on the end of the tail, but I think I would need to explore this further. I wanted to capture the very large, spherical shapes of a chihuahua’s eyes and how they sometimes point in different directions. I think that the shape of the body needs to be looked at and edited a little so that the heads fit better together.

I also did a quick design for one of the demon characters. It was a quick 5 minute sketch, but I thought I would include it anyway so that I will have it recorded for if I want to develop it further, perhaps digitally. The proportions are not quite right, particularly with the mouth/ nose area but that’s just something I can work on.

This week we were placed into teams which we will be working in for our assignment ‘Design a world’. Originally, we were placed in teams of teams of 10 and tasked with coming up with 100 ideas for worlds. The brainstorming went well, with everyone contributing and suggesting ideas which came into their head. The teams were then split in half, and divided into two groups of 5. This came as a bit of a shock but we were able to come up with 100 more ideas to work with. At the end of the session we agreed to each take our 5 top ideas and rank them from 1-5 so that we could decide with idea we all liked the best. I also posted in the discord channel all the information for one of our team members who had to leave early. We arranged our meeting place before we left class so that we could easily coordinate with everyone’s schedules.

When we met on Monday, we found that there was a few common world designs which everyone liked. The top 5 were:

I have chosen to use Pinterest as the main site of reference images. I am familiar with it and I think it will provide a good base for gathering general imagery and idea. I am also practicing with Pure Ref as it is handy for keeping images together in one image file, as opposed to in a folder.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jazzy_121/design-a-world-settings/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jazzy_121/design-a-world-characters/

After we were split into our teams, we got to work making 100 ideas. Our team had a group meeting on Monday to narrow down our ideas to a top 5, and then come up with 13 thumbnail sketches based on our ideas. I did 6 ideas all based on our groups final idea, but I decided to do 7 other thumbnails with different ideas so that I could practice some other perspectives. I found the task quite difficult as I’m not the most confident at drawing perspectives but I used the recommended tool of ‘caraspace’ which helped me in creating a good base to work on.  

In thumbnail 1 I liked how I worked with the low angle perspective to show the convenience store. I like the gradient of the flames in the window but I don’t think the tiles on the floor are the most accurate in terms of perspective. Also, I feel like more depth in the tones of the tiled floor would be a good way to add depth and form into my perspective drawings.

For thumbnail two I wanted to create something which looked like a hallway to a sketchy backroom. I wanted to try an angle which would look like a set of stairs descending downwards but I couldn’t get the perspective right so I changed the idea to show a low angle shot of a corridor, focusing on the sets of flames getting smaller to show the perspective of the thumbnail. I should have added gradient into the image, or perhaps made more use of the flames and how they could work with shadows on the floor and walls.

I liked how thumbnail 4 worked out, as I think it was one of the most successful ones in terms of perspective. I tried to work with incorporating the bright fluorescent tones of a typical convenience store inside the store and contrasting it with the darker values outside. I think this worked well but it could have been taken further.

For thumbnail 5 I think that because the image is quite simple I should really have worked on adding more tonal values into the image. The tonal values would provide more depth and form to the objects in the image. I kept it quite simple for because I’m still getting used to drawing perspectives but I think I still should have worked at bringing in more tonal values to improve the over all thumbnail.

For thumbnail 6, I again kept it quite simple in order to get a better grasp on perspective. I tried to capture a scene which was supposed to look like a backdoor auction house but I couldn’t get the angle of the room right so in the end I simplified it in order to make the perspective work better. I think I should have added some gradient in here in order to make the atmospheric perspective look better because at the minute the image falls a little flat. I do however, like the the composition of the large cage in the foreground and the smaller podium stand in the background.

For the next 7 thumbnails I experimented with some of the other ideas which we had discussed in our group and that I was thinking about. I thought that this would allow me to explore perspective a little bit more by working with other angles and shots which wouldn’t fit into the main idea. For thumbnail 7 I tried an extreme high angle shot, of a person reaching towards a mirror. I thought this would be a cool angle to try and work with perspective. When I saw showing my work, it was suggested that whilst it was an interesting angle, adding more tonal values in would be helpful in making the over all image look more interesting.

The feedback I got on my images was that whilst the perspectives were interesting and there was nice clean lines, there was not enough depth in the images. It was suggested that more variety in tone would help create more form and depth in the sketches. I think this is right and it is an area which I will work hard on improving in the future. Another more specific piece of advice I got was that the lines of perspective in shot 3 were not quite right. Sarah said not to change it though, but instead to take the comment and work on it in the future which I will do.

After watching the lecture videos I had a go at drawing over my favourite animations in order to practice getting used to drawing perspective. It’s not an area which I feel I’m particularly confident in and so I did struggle quite a bit. I ended up doing a few extra practices in order to try and get myself used to noticing the different perspectives (i.e. One or Two point) as well as compositional elements.

Not all of the practices worked and I did find myself getting a little frustrated, but I decided to include all of the practices on my blog so that I can use them as a reference point later on to check my improvement.

For this draw over of ‘Fantasia’ I looked at composition and using the Phi grid. The flower is the smallest part of the image, and the shape of Mother Nature curls around the rest of the space. I found it hard to find perspective in the image, apart from the horizon line but I was pleased with the composition.

For this screenshot from ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ I was looking at the symmetry and perspective. I remembered how perfect symmetry in an image can suggest a sense of unease. This scene shows the main character being chased by the shapes in the above image so it seems as if the shot was designed to give a sense of danger. Looking at the draw over now, I think that I got the horizon line wrong, which threw off the lines of the image.

This shot is from ‘Song Of The Sea’ and I thought it would be interesting to look at the angle of decent. The main character is going down the hill to find her true identity so the perspective of the scene is a decline. This shot was interesting because the whole animation is quite flat, with only certain areas having much depth or form but you can still see how the scene is darker in the foreground, getting lighter as it fades backward. There is also form created in the shadows given to the rocks.

The above screengrab is from a Japanese movie called ‘Summer Wars’. I thought that the composition of this piece was really interesting. I looked at it in terms of the phi grid and the golden composition rules. There is a nice balance between the bigger house in the background and the smaller entrance way in the middle of the image. I like how when you look at the smaller image, the eye travels over the mountain and leads your eye in a natural curved form.

I picked this scene because I thought it would be interesting to look at 2 point perspective. However, I really struggled with finding out the lines and how they would match up. I ended up retrying it twice and I still wasn’t happy. I think that since I’m quite new to perspective drawing, this scene was maybe a little overcrowded and I would have been better to pick something simpler to get started. I noticed in terms of composition that there is a good balance between the smaller character in the foreground and the adult characters in the background. This balance provides a stronger image than if everything in the image is weighted the same. If this occurs it can result in a static, boring image.

Overall, I think this was a helpful exercise in terms of learning about perspective and getting used to drawing the lines and grids needed for these scenes. I found the exercise difficult since I wasn’t used to it drawing perspectives so I did find myself getting a little frustrated when it didn’t work the way I wanted it to. I can see the areas where I struggled with, so I think by practicing more I will be able to develop these skills and improve my perspective work. It has definitely helped me with composition and how to lay out my thumbnails and work going forward.