Portfolio / Showreel
My strongest work this year, and the work I most want seen, has definitely been my 2D character art, because of this I have decided to instead update my portfolio. My ArtStation has all of my 2D art, video editing and my 3D work.
During semester 2 in 2022, one of the assignments was to organise a portfolio. Since then, I have cut down on the work shown, as I want only my best to be visible in my Artstation. Furthermore, I created a linktree that holds all of my socials; Artstation, LinkedIn, Instagram and Sketchfab – as well as contact and ‘about me’ info.
CV
My previous CV design was interesting, however I don’t think it really represented me or my skills. The pixel art style, which is an art form I’m not practised with, didn’t portray exactly what I wanted. Furthermore, as suggested by the staff, our team’s CVs should all be cohesive, be that through colour or style. We decided to go by colour, our general table colours being grey, navy and orange while our poster’s colours were purple, blue and orange. Chloe and Acacia took orange and blue respectively, so I wanted my CV to be purple and grey.
Instead of handmaking the CV in photoshop, which was my method for 2nd year, I designed it using Canva. I do like the design for my old CV but this year, I definitely wanted it to be more sleek and professional looking, rather than artistic. On the left is my newest CV design!
Logo and Business Cards
In an attempt to keep with a particular theme relating to our project, I took to designing some rabbit/cat-themed logos – as well as a name logo. I’m certain MEM has the potential for a great design, but nothing I came up with really stuck. I asked for some feedback when in classes from a few different members of staff, and the general consensus was that the leaping rabbit and cat was the strongest design. I personally liked the first yin-yang style rabbit and cat, however I agree with the criticisms that while the cat was recognisable, the bunny wasn’t due to the body not being visible. This was a tough one to design!
I was unsure whether or not to do a double or single sided card, so designed both. While I like all of these, I’m hesitant to choose 1-3, as all 3 of these art pieces will already be visible on the table. I liked the colourful aspect of 3, so for my revised cards I explored this more.
As I’m more confident with my 2D art, I only chose drawings for my business cards. I want them to be memorable, so designs 3 and 4 were definitely my favourites, 4 just needed some more detail!
Table setup
Concepts
I had 2 very different ideas for our table setup, one was to mimic Claude’s desk (but as a crime scene, after the events of Dimension Hopper Claude disappears) I was able to source most of these items – caution tape, fake cameras and I already owned hats/torches/mugs etc. I also thought of adding a high-vis vest, as Claude wears one.
The second design was much more inspired by the poster design. Pastel colours rather than greys and navy, to match the swirling purple/pink/blue/yellow clouds. We could layer 3 different table cloths to represent these, or hint to the dimension colour profile we had. To make it seem more magical, glitter, marbles. jewels and other little items could be added on top, to reflect the archives.
Final Table Setup
Originally we bought quite a lot of little items – marbles, glass jars, gold string for accents, so as we could decide on the day which table design was better – crime scene or magical, or as we actually set up; both. We put all the items on the desk to see, but after setting it up and rearranging we decided it wasn’t cohesive. We stripped the table and kept only the minimal details, instead of making the desk reflect the whole archives, we made it just appear like Claude cat’s desk – complete with a CCTV camera, manilla folders, and his hat, mug, torch and high-vis vest.
I sourced and paid for all of the items (some I owned already), though we went a little over budget. The team agreed to repay a share. Still to be bought was the business card holders (since ordered), the artbook and our cards/CVs to be printed. The table looked a little flat, so another plan for before the EOYS is to elevate the artbook with a stand or box.
Stickers
Using some previous character art, I revised the art and designed 2 sticker designs. It was a challenge finding cheaply priced stickers, as we were on a budget, especially contour cut style individuals. Stickermule was a good option as they had a 10 for £1 deal, and I ordered the others via Stickemupgraphics.
Artbook
We decided to split the artbook, everyone does their own pages. I was originally meant to design the whole book, but turned out to be lots of work, especially when we have text to go in. Most of the art book was designed directly in Vistaprint. This is just the cover, I cut down as many pages as I could for my parts, as not every image was necessary to show in the book!
Poster Design
All projects needed a poster, and it was suggested we review professional poster designs for existing films. Immediately my first thought was to examine Aardman and Laika posters, as they are stop-motion studios, and the majority of them feature a busy scene with the main character large and centred.
We took a whole Friday class discussing the poster, but it was clear we all had different preferences. I personally prefer more minimalist posters, with 1 character or even just an object shown (Pagemaster, Snatch, Kubo and the Two Strings). We also looked at thematically similar designs – spy, horror (more for the ‘night-time’ aspect) and action fiction. We noted that the protagonist, front and centre, is often shadowed by the antagonist (Sonic, Home Alone, Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run) so that was a design element we wanted to explore.
I also particularly liked the Home Alone posters, as the background and antagonists are tilted upwards, giving the illusion of grandness, or threatening aura.
Concept Art
All 3 of us in the team created poster concepts, based off of our collection of inspirations found in our Miro Board. I was especially drawn to more minimalistic designs, though many stop-motion animations usually feature busy posters (i.e. Chicken Run) something more like Aardman animation’s Flushed Away was what I had in mind – these would be easy to set up, render and light, only having the 2 characters in studio lighting, and a very simple background.
I initially had 4 sketches on paper, but digitalised only 3 of them, or the stronger concepts. Concepts 1 and 2 went down well with peers and lecturers, but multiple people, including staff, criticised that poster 3 was more confusing. I personally liked the first design the most, but the group’s overall verdict leaned more towards the 2nd – which Chloe then set up in 3D and rendered for us to review.
The plan was that we would 3D render the poster, and paint overtop anything extra, including a background like the concept. The swirling clouds were meant to both draw attention to the middle and reference a vague idea of a ‘dimension’, something creating a vortex and causing clouds to be pulled within. Though it may not immediately look like it, the 2nd poster is actually a reference to Michelangelo’s ‘The Creation of Adam’, I had planned on making the hand positions look a little more similar to that of the famous painting.
There is no real meaning to this reference, other than the comedic angle of silly cartoon referencing a highly revered, historical, serious masterpiece.
The Final Poster
The renders were not turning out as envisioned, so it was discussed amongst the group. Either Chloe rendered it anyway and I painted overtop as best I could, or I fully paint the poster. I believed I would get a fully drawn poster done faster than doing a back and forth with a 3D poster, so I took the largest file size possible (only giving me room for 6 layers) and recreated my concept.
The reference is much clearer here, I think, when fully painted! Probably still subtle enough it wasn’t strange. I used my technique learned when I painted Aardman-style Hopper, using a halftone brush and rake for fingerprints and a custom brush for textured fluffy clouds. The massive, full photoshop file had no compression artefacts, however when downsizing the image some gradients are much sharper than intended – that said, they sort of work for the clay style.
Though Hopper wears gloves in the film, I believe I was right in my decision to paint her orange hand rather than a white glove, which would have been lost amongst the bright swirling clouds. It also gives a nicer contrast with Claude’s blue hand. The box was trickier, in the film the box is various shades of greyish green, which did not work with this colour palette, so it was changed to a light purple/grey. The fingers were another problem, while Hopper’s look fine trying to remake a 4-fingered palm up pose was challenging, and I think his fingers look quite odd. I think I should have more directly copied my concept for Claude’s hand!
I am so pleased with the final poster regardless, I just wish I didn’t have to compress the image for posting! I’m happy with my decision to have a more whimsical, magical colour palette, and I think the box draws the eye immediately.
Fundraisers
I was also directly involved with most of the fundraisers for the year, mostly behind the scenes organising. Due to working part-time I was unfortunately unable to attend both the pub quiz and craft fair, however! I am glad I was at least able to help organise them.
That being said, I ran my own personal fundraiser as I knew it was likely I wouldn’t be able to join the actual fundraiser events, on a social media platform I have a decent following on, I hosted an art commission bid – from which I raised £200! £50 went to the actual labour, doing the art, and the rest went to the whole year’s fund pool.
Social Media
When discussing the groups during our fundraiser meetings, we also designated some people to social media adverts. Everyone who wanted to could send one of the social media team their posters, stills, or short teaser for their films. We sent our poster with a little caption!
Be First to Comment