This week started up with another switch to a different group, this time focusing on a world of flora and fauna, where plans and mushrooms live in a civilised community, the story involves a plucky young mushroom character trying to free a group of slaves from a glow-worm. One of the biggest things I contributed to this group was the design for the main character, designing a character sheet for the group and finalising the characters designs, based on initial sketches done by previous members
This week also focused on colour, and how we would implement it into our stories, with some exercises giving us a view into how we could perceive colour and then how effectively we would be able to adapt it into our stories.
With the focus being on how we would implement colour into our stories, this started off with us taking one of our thumbnails from the previous week and using ether: monochromatic, Triad, complementary or Analogous colour schemes to create the look, I myself choosing monochromatic and going for a dark red, as the scene I choose was a murder scene, in the story, as such I wanted to convey a sinister feeling, a feeling of rage and to show the viewer that this is the villain, almost like a form of storytelling despite being a single frame of a story that’s still to be made.
The other assignment that was needed was to take a black and white drawing and add colour to the scene, choosing whatever feel we wanted, whether it be hopeful, adventurous, ominous, sad, but we’d need to be able to express it through colour.
For my scene, I chose to go for a warm, home-like feeling almost as if this scene is very familiar to the viewer, using shading to make the scene look more homely and to give it that seeing sun feeling, this was my first time using shading and I feel as though it worked out well especially for the way that I made the sky dim with an overcast. I feel that with the use in warmer colours gives the image a calm feeling to it, and re-enforces the homely feelings.
The final task that was given to us was to take a few scenes from our favourite films and create colour scripts for them, I chose 4 different films, all created by different animators and studios, with most sharing a sci-fi setting, but taking on different sci-fi tones, which allows me to not only analyse how the story impacts on the image, but also how the colour palette influences the scene and story
The first image comes from the film, Titan A.E, a film about the destruction of earth and how humans are going to rebuild it, this opening scene, which takes place in a bar, uses a lot of dark green colours, which could be an indication of the dark tone of the characters situation, and how the once silver walls have stained over the years, but it could also be a way of simulating the greenery of natural life, instead of having a sterile look to the environment like in most sci-fi films.
The second Image comes from, Redline, a film about a massive race that spans several planets and a government conspiracy to shut it down, In this scene the two cars, one on the water the other on the road are racing at insanely high speeds, it conveys this through its use in exaggerated proportions, but also in the colours, with the use in a bright blue sky which blends into the sea. The use in yellows and reds helps to contrast the overuse in greens and blues, as both the racers cars are shown in these primary colours, it helps them stand out.
The third image is from the Road to El Dorado, a film about two con men who are believed to be gods in the eyes of an ancient civilisation, as this is a film about gold and about Spain the use in colour is vibrant and unique, as in this scene there’s an emphasis in orange, as this is a musical number it promotes energy, which the signature blue of el dorado being a unique contrast to the vibrant orange and giving the orange something to stand out against. The two main characters are drawn in this very vibrant orange, whilst their servants are coloured in a darker orange, making the two main characters stand out more.
The final image comes from treasure planet, a film about a boy who discovers the map to a lost treasure, being that this comes from Disney and is a much lighter film, it uses a lot of dark greens in this scene, which helps ground the characters in a classical, if futuristic setting, with the wood boat helping to enforce that look. The dark colours on the rightmost character help enforce his dark outward appearance, however, later in the film, it’s revealed that he’s kind on the inside, which is symbolised by his white top.
