Week 3 – Tone and Value

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

 

Week 2 – Composition and Perspective

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

Week 1 – Form and Shape

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