Month: October 2020

For the 5th week, I studied Character Design. Usually, I am the type to be too specific with my linework but after a few practice attempts I found myself loosening my wrist, creating a looser sketch. I also really struggled with the anatomy of the face for my first character, I usually copy the outline of another sketch, just the basic shape, but this time I decided to freehand. It took me a while but I think I made a good attempt to capture his basic outline and features. Following this, I started playing around with his features and adding in the antlers/tentacles I wanted when creating this character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used some photos online to help guide me, along with some videos. These helped me to break down the anatomy of the face and playa around with cartoon like features to suit more to the plant themed world. I added antlers to give the character a more fantasist look and played around with proportions etc.

From this I worked on the other character I was creating for this plant themed world. It is a Groot inspired character and so I focused on tree creatures, luminescent plants and colour. I came up with 4 tree creatures that I think suit the world best.

I created this mood board of ideas for this creature, including luminescent sea creatures, mushrooms and orchids to incorporate into my design.

Videos & articles: 

• https://youtu.be/REB1eZRAz_w
• https://youtu.be/s-HrG-p-2Po
• https://youtu.be/hmGG-PGpjuM
• https://youtu.be/Ucqv5bM5mfQ
• https://youtu.be/3rYZLkW8Z78
• https://youtu.be/MueXD652zxg
• https://archive.org/details/PrestonBlairCartoonAnimation/page/n9/mode/2up

For this week we learned about Colour. When watching the lecture video I learned:

• Hue, saturation and volume.
• Colour Systems: additive and subtractive.
• The Colour Wheel.
• Monochromatic, Complementary, Analogous and Triadic.
• Colour and Emotions.
• Colours on Screen.
• Colourscripts.

From the lecture I moved onto the three exercises we were given, firstly to use a thumbnail from a previous week and use one of the four colour schemes to colour my environment. For this I decided to use try out colours from all sectors and chose a colour palette that I thought would suit best. Finally choosing Complementary.

 

To achieve these colours I used a application from Adobe called Colour Wheel, I was able to choose what colour pallets I needed and it quickly gave me results, it will definitely be used for my future projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed working on this piece, I find these colours have really expressed the Japanese atmosphere I wanted. I love how the different shades of blue, show depth and shadowing and match great with the pink and brown buildings on either side.

For the second exercise I was asked to use colour to portray a landscape given to me, in two different emotions. For this exercise I decided to choose calm and fury.

I chose these two emotions as I thought they contrast to each other dramatically and show a lot of change within the landscape. I enjoyed this task as it allowed me to experiment with shadowing and the blending of colours, it also helped me with how different tools work on Photoshop.

Lastly, I completed the last exercise. It was to look at different artists styles of their use of colour, I chose the following images to work from and produced varied colour pallets.

For my first artist I chose Hayao Miyazaki. The amazing animator who co-founded Studio Ghibli. I chose this scene from Spirited Away due to its bright and vivid colours, that vary and show the main feature with ease.  The  colours  are pasteli, very much in Miyazaki’s style, the use of greens and pinks work well together and show the abundance of nature surrounding her.

I chose this scene due to its pastel colours, that reflect Miyazaki’s style within his films. Its a very simplistic shot but shows the environment perfectly and keeps the viewers eyes on the main subject in the middle, just like the photo above. The colours used show a setting or rising sun, setting a calm mood and a fresh start to the scene.

 

The next animator I looked at was Andrew Stanton who co-directed multiple of Walt Disney films, such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

I used this image from Finding Nemo as it  shows the definitive colours of Marlin and dory  that anyone could notice. Marlin’s bright orange clown fish colours and Dory’s yellow fins. In this scene these colours stand out against the dark blue background and the many fish surrounding them, it gives the proportion to other fish and depth within the environment.   

 

Another piece of Stanton’s work, is the infamous Toy Story. The colours used show the iconic colours of Woody and Buzz. They stand out in many scenes due to their bright colours, this helps the viewer keep an eye on them especially if its in a wide scene. The colours of Woody are more simplistic compared to Buzz and his colours seem more futuristic.

Videos & articles: 

• https://youtu.be/gwLQ0cDb4cE
• https://youtu.be/4atFicBvhMM
• https://youtu.be/kxqnXn1NGYI
• https://youtu.be/FXxfjs017CA

Within the lectures I learned about the definition of tone, value change and form change, atmospheric perspective and the change in form. I also looked at some examples to help give me an idea for the homework. I also looked at some crosshatching work and some designs from an artist called Raphael Lacoste, below are some examples of his work:

His work is amazing and has so much detailing through the simple use of crosshatching. It shows great depth and atmosphere.

From these lectures we were given some tasks to complete to help us understand tone and value further:

Firstly create 6 thumbnail value studies within my groups world. I used reference from Japanese streets and traditional walkways and new/modern alleyways to show depth and give this claustrophobic feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, to chose my favourite thumbnail study and illustrate it into a larger study, combining both composition and tonality. I really liked this drawing as it shows the true streets of Japan, and includes the claustrophobia feeling which adds to the cyberpunk theme.

Videos and articles: 

• https://www.deviantart.com/sebastianwagner/art/concept-thumbnails-313348253
• https://www.artstation.com/artwork/environment-thumbnails-6af5fef2-75b8-408f-9738-e80b00d52c2e
• https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library
• https://youtu.be/YZU-K-TQJDI
• https://youtu.be/ax130yILbw0
• https://youtu.be/xWMMo1v594Y

 

This week I learned about how to use the rule of thirds, The Golden Ration & Phi Grid and symmetry.

Following this I completed three exercises to help me understand further composition and perception. The three tasks were to use the rule of thirds, symmetry and geometric compositions to take photos. Below are my attempts to capture these techniques.

 

 

For the homework I was given the task to complete 3, one and two point perspective drawings from my favourite animations. Below is all the work I completed for week 2, plus a minor set back due to all my of my thumbnails disappearing and me having to restart again (which was not fun).

 

 

 

 

 

The next section was to complete 12 thumbnail drawings of composition studies based upon my groups world theme, for this theme my group chose a Cyberpunk/City Pop world.

I used references from Japanese streets and American skyscrapers to try and find different perspectives and experiment with mixing them together.

The last thing to do was to concept and ideate basic creatures/character form and shapes from within our world theme.

We all decided that the main character should have a sidekick, and so from the board above we wanted a dragon like creature with robotic functions. This was so it could fit better into our cyberpunk theme. I took on this challenge to create a side kick and so used real life images and added my own twist to them, giving them robotic features and playing around with ideas.

Videos & articles: 

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGc-K7giqKM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsI8UES59TM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufmKqZZd3w4&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWMMo1v594Y&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8i7OKbWmRM&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library

In my first week I learned about form and shape. I learned about 3 warm up exercises, using Photoshop, that help before beginning any work. For the first exercise I had to fill a page with long straight lines, then with circles and finally practice ‘S’ lines in a continuous stroke. These exercises are useful when warming up before starting work, to build muscle memory and to build confidence in my line work.

I found this exercise was helpful to do before work, practicing line work to make basic sketches much easier to do and also speeds up practice work by making it looser.

The next task was learning about basic geometric shapes, that can be broke down to create general ideas. These shapes are a circle, square and triangle, which in turn can create 5 forms; sphere, cube, pyramid, cone and cylinder. Combine these shapes and they become any basic planning of any object I wish to create.

From this I then completed an exercise of drawing basic shapes and forms and using contour lines to help discover these forms. These forms become 3D and show the depth and dimension.

After this I then attempted the next exercise to create a flour sack using a sphere and a cube. Below is my attempt:

I liked this exercise as it gave me more of an insight into how dimensions work in different shapes and how they aid in showing the angle and depth. It also helped me discover how to build characters upon the three main shapes and how they can be transformed.

Following this I then looked into the homework of underlying forms. This homework was to take 3 of our favourite cartoon characters and find their underlying forms. I’ve never done a task like this and so through this I think I understand forms in characters better.

Below are my 3 favourite characters; Woody, Venom and Ahsoka. I am really happy with how they came out!!

Videos & articles: 

• http://brendanbody.blogspot.com/2008/12/flour-sack-exersize.html
• https://www.karmatoons.com/category/drawing/
• http://www.thedrawingwebsite.com/2015/02/18/practicing-your-draw-fu-forms-forms-are-like-sentences/
• https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/think-with-forms-not-lines-take-your-drawing-to-the-next-level–cms-24486
• https://archive.org/details/PrestonBlairCartoonAnimation/page/n11/mode/2up
• https://www.justtodosomethingbad.com/blog/2018/9/14/what-even-is-animation
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsdkhQis34U&feature=youtu.be
• https://youtu.be/srK-vV-YzUc