Chapter Twelve - More Reflection

Reflection for the Modules that have just pasted.

In this post I'm going to reflect on modules 5 and 6. In my last couple of blogs I not put much of myself into them, partly because when I'm updating my blog I'm running around doing loads of other stuff. I'm mummy on a mission, full time, the jobs never ends and I never stop, well only to sleep... Ah sleep thing I miss the most. All you child free people, enjoy your sleep because your lucky to have it *sigh* sleep. 

Module 5 - Digital skills Acquisition

In this module I will be using Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier and Cinema 4D to produce several pieces of artwork which will show my Character development from 2D to 3D. I will attend workshops and computer sessions to extend my knowledge of the software and techniques. I will also compile a research file to show how I developed my ideas and learnt new techniques/skills. I will build a range of ideas and concepts within my sketchpad.

I will create a model sheet that will have detailed elevations, expressions and dynamics of my character using Photoshop and Illustrator. Then build on that to create my 3D model and make a walk cycle and facial expressions. To help this I will design and develop a detailed set of character deigns that will show my concept. I need to think about my pace and timing when animating my 3D character and ensure I manage my time well and hopefully finish everything to the deadline. 

On reflection I wish more confidences in myself to do more challenging character, I feel that was my down fall in this module. Apart from that I did very well and even though I did finish the final model, I learnt loads and this carry me forward into the next year.

My strengths in this module are (and across all modules) :-  

• Time management
• Quick to pick thing up/learning

My weakness in the module are (and across all modules) :-

• Lack of confidences in my skills
• Poor grammar and spelling

Module 6 - Contextual Studies

This module was about writing an Essay about the historical development of animation, and I will research each area of animation and pick one to write an in depth Essay about. The eight areas are –

•          Direct Film making 
•      Pixilation1.      
•      Rotoscoping1.     
•      Stop Motion 
•      2D Stop Motion   
•       Mixed Media  
•       2D Animation 
•            3D Animation

I hope to build my knowledge of animation theory and context. Through my research, I hope to show examples of animation developed through time, with the improvements of technology. 

Looking back I feel I did okay, writing my worst area and I'm working on it. I have learnt more about myself and how I need to leave more for writing up my work to a good standard. It's expanded my knowledge of different types of animation and how they shaped animation today.

Side Quest - Reflections & Evalutions

Side Quest... wait a minute.... Why.... Okay I will roll with.

Okay, I'm stepping up one, from now one I'm updating my blog twice a week, and say my son would say 'Oh Yeah' you got my twice as much. It may mean two biscuit  with tea or coffee, for me that good thing hope it is for you. 

Anyway I been send to damsel in distress from evil monster... erm yeah no wrong word document *cough*

Starts again I bash together some photos to get an idea of composition and to help me with my line the next step for me is do the outline. I feel they came out well and may do some more and play around with angles to see if I can improve upon my ideas. 

The Brief

In this proposal I am going tell you about the artwork I’m going create though the brief of ‘House of Illustration’ and ‘The Folio Society’ competition of creating 3 Illustration from ghost story of which there is 3 to choose from. I have chosen to create Illustrations for the ghost story ‘A tale of an Empty House’ by E.F. Benson. The concept is formulate 3 ghostly, gloomy and may be spooky Illustration at portray the story that I have chosen.  I have researched a number of Illustrators including Xenz, HelloVon, Zanna Allen, Cosimo Miorelli, Federico Infante, Rob Smyth and Paul Hess. 

Here are the three Illustrations photo bashed to give you all an idea on how I want my final pieces to layout and look, I think all the Illustration will be black and white or dark colour with flashes of bright colours. You see what mean when you get to see the W.I.P's .

On reflection could been neater but his was just to help with arrangement. On evaluation I could of improved the the way in I put the photos together, make them more seamless but it is suppose to be a rough ideas on my pieces. 

Chapter Eleven - Illustrator Research

Illustrator Research

For my final module I had to look at Illustrators that fit in with the brief.

Paul Hess

Paul Hess was born in Sydney, Australia as a graphic designer then moved on to Illustration full-time in 1991 and now lives in England. He mainly likes to draw children picture books as well as bool covers, cards, and posters. He works in pencils, watercolours and digital art. His website address is http://www.alisoneldred.com/artistPaulHess.html.

The reason why Hess is in my research is because it has the right atmosphere I want in my own piece for this module. The style is simple with photograph background and flat colour on top is the composition. The technique I think is hand draw then put on to a computer and put all together.

Association of Illustrations

Zanna Allen

Allen is a freelance Illustrator her passions are book Illustration and cover design. Her website is www.zannaallenillustration.co.uk.

The concept of putting Zanna Allen sketches in my research is the landscape and shadow and her artwork feels like it telling a story. The technique she uses is pencil on paper and this demonstrates sense of space in her work. The style is simple and sketchy that catches the eye of the viewer. Her sketches have influenced me too keep my landscape uncomplicated, not too much details and simple shading.  The composition is mix of organic and geometric shapes that adds structure and strength to her artwork. 

Little Chimp Society

Cosimo Miorelli

Is based in Berlin and he is a visual artist, Illustrator and live performer. Miorelli likes to work in video productions and focuses on live multimedia storytelling. As well as painting live and producing exhibits in festivals, projects and venues around the world. The website I found my information on was www.cosimomiorelli.com.

I admire Cosimo Miorelli animation work and how creates drawing and changes them in developing the story. I put him in my research for my project because I love how Miorelli constructs his pieces, the roughness and it really open to your own interpretation. I like to reflect his work within my own by taking some of his ideas and adapting it to my own. The technique he uses is digital work, with computer software like Photoshop. The style is organic and love how the soft light is in his pieces and use of silhouette giving an eerier feel. 

Federico Infante

Born in 1982 in Santiago, Chile and is living in New York. His work inspired by the Chilean landscape and style is hazy with soft colour that gives his work a dreamy feel. Federico Infante’s website is www.federicoinfante.com.

I put his artwork into my research because I wanted a contrast of ideas in project, all the Illustrators so far have been quite dark and lack colour in their work apart from ‘Xenz’. Infante piece light and yet give that feeling of space and aloneness.  The style is very soft, natural. How this will influence my ideas in constructing my pieces is that it’s roughness in it making and that he makes his artwork look really old which I like. I want my Illustrations to fit in with the time period and to have aged according. 

‘Big Active’ an Illustration Agency

HelloVon

HelloVon is an art studio based in London by the artist Von in 2006. He used both traditional and digital to create his pieces, works mainly in portraits, his free flowing, dynamic art. His website is www.hellovon.com.

The concept of why I put HelloVon artwork in my research because I like how Von distorts his portraits to give mixes of realism and fantasy. He will influence the way in which I generate the character and try the smoky distortion that I think would give a mysterious feeling to my artwork. I like to use his techniques to create the threatening feeling that happens in the book when the two characters get attacked by this ghostly apparition. The purpose of putting Von artwork in my research is that I’m fond of how he adds atmosphere to his drawing. The style he uses is organic with soft lines and shadows. The technique he uses is 90% traditional art, painting and then finishes off that last 10% in digital producing sullen, shadowy creations. Von’s prints influence me to ponder on the expressions of my characters and I’m going to carry these emotions across to my audience. 

Rob Smyth

Based in the UK as freelance Illustrator and concept artist, he specialises in digital environment art and sequential illustration. His website is www.robsmythart.com.

The concept of putting Rob Smyth into my research for creating backgrounds and composition of the landscapes because this is what Smyth specialises himself in. I like how his work looks like photographs. His style is organic, soft, realistic and above all simple. The technique that Smyth uses is I believe is using digital, using software like Photoshop. 

‘Pictures on Walls’ A Contemporary Illustration Gallery

Xenz

Xenz’s started off being a graffiti artist in his home town of Hull in 1987. Over the years that became his foundation for his painting and draughtsmanship skills. Now based in London he creates studio-based art and murals. He’s influenced partly Asian art with it impressionistic brush stokes used within Chinese painting. I like how he creates depth and space in his artwork. His website is www.xenz.org.

Xenz quote ‘I love to create infinite depth, to divide a surface with a few lines, stand back and keep dividing it up until I can walk into it.’

The concept of why I put Xenz into my project is for his depth and how his art feel like you walk into it. I love the brush strokes he uses and how he uses light in his artwork to construct realistic looking work with no much detail.  He influenced me in by creating depth within my Illustration and use of lighting I like to give a dark, gloomily atmosphere in my artwork. The style of his work is organic with fluid brush strokes. The composition is that he composes like 3D artwork, distance, a deepness that draws you in and yet it retains a simple-ness in his artwork. I like to drag a bit that into my style of drawing and love my audience to look at my work and fell they could walk into it. The technique he uses is paints and pencils. I ardour how Xenz layers up the paint in his artwork and even though I don’t want to do my Illustration by paint, I like to construct the layer the same way in Photoshop.

Targets for this week, to be completed for next Monday :-

1. To Photo Bash the 3 Illustrations
2. Sort out and update blog
3. Write up progress

Chapter Ten - Pose Morph

Pose Morph Tool

Today in today lesson we was shown how to use the pose morph tool in cinema 4D. This is where you can animate the points on your mesh and change how the model looks.  you do this by adding character tag to your mesh 'pose morph' then add points tag. In the bottom right hand corner this will show up. you can lock the starting pose and add poses to change how the model looks. 

Chapter Nine - A Means To An End

Having been given the final module for this year, has given me mixed feeling, yay only 5 weeks left and erm... only 5 weeks left. In this module I'm going to create 3 Illustrations from a ghost story (we were given a 3 to chose from). This task had been taken from 'House of Illustration' competition website. Taking ideas from other Illustrators to help improve my drawing style. 

So my target for this week are, to be completed for next Monday :-

1. Chose a ghost story from the list and highlight all the description.
2. Do research on Illustrators and story.
3. Create a small presentation for Thursday showing which story I'm doing and which Illustrators are going to influence me.  

Chapter Eight - Review

Well it gone past the deadline, and manage to hand in on time. I wasn't happy with the work that done, I wish I could of done more with 3D model and got it completed. I was up too weighting the joins for animation and still needed to add colour and texture. I do feel my write up should been more in depth but I hope I put across that understood the tools in cinema 4D. Apart from that it has been an enjoyable module and as it only  2 modules left till the end of the first year. YAY! 

My targets for this week are, to be completed for next Monday:-

1. Check my blog over and beef it up
2. Go over what I have learnt

Final Work

These two screen shots show scenes where I played around with texture and lighting. It was fun to play around with the software to create thing simple scene.

Reflection Continued

Module One : Principles of Animation

'Loop' Animation 

The concept was to create a 'Loop' animation using the keyword 'Childhood'. I brainstormed ideas of ideas but in the the end I came up with a squirrel jumping for a nut. I found doing the hand drawn animation interesting but time consuming, it's a good way to get rough look at setting up my animation but I prefer working on the computer it's much faster. I have learnt from this module the principles of animation and loads of different techniques, along with using dragon frame and Photoshop. This has been a good base for me to move on to the next module, the tools and skills I have learnt will helped me though the next modules.  

Module Two : Sequential Imaging

Storyboard 

The concept was to create storyboard made from script, that I created from an object chosen from the Hancock Museum. The object I chosen 'Key' and started making up ideas from the object that I chose.  I found this module very difficult, having to think about all of different camera angles and making sure it be interesting to the viewer. Writing a script was fun and it was a bare script because I wasn't sure on how in-depth I should go. Then transferring that over to storyboard was really difficult and portraying my story was a big weakness for me. Research was an other big weakness for me and I didn't feel confidence in this module and that did reflect in my marks. My strengths for this module was setting myself targets and keeping to them and time management. I learnt a lot from this module through mistakes and if I ever had to do storyboard again I feel do a better for it because of this module.  

Module Three : Animation Production

The concept was to turn your storyboard from the last module into a 2D animation using Cinema 4D. There was loads of information to take with using new software, Cinema 4D creating the assets, characters, background, foreground etc. Turning my concept into the real thing was a difficult to start with thinking about camera angles and how I was going to go about creating my character in my story board whether I draw it pose-to-pose or create a cut out character. The over all animation was okay with floaty in place but for a first try at creating an animation with sound was not too bad. I feel things have learnt this year will help my through the next year and I will hopefully do better for I have the base knowledge I need to create my ideas. 

Module Four : Practice Enrichment

Practice Enrichment was a mix of lessons, techniques/exercises to help improve our art skills. Also I help with the next module, character design to help think up our character back story and looks. This model was mix of life drawing, character development and metamorphosis work. I enjoyed  doing the metamorphosis work where I had pick and animal and change it into a machine. I chose to metamorphosis chicken to alarm clock and here the finished results:- 

Life Drawing was a great experiences that I wish to continue, for I feel I have a long was to go with my artwork and from doing those few class I feel I improvement within my drawing. Finally creating a Character with just a reading their back story and turning that into a visual drawing. There so many different way of going about this your imagination can run wild. It was hard thing for me because I suppose i'm quite a boring for I like to draw simple realistic style.  

Chapter Seven - Progress

Progress

Last week I used an example model and created a rig and blinded it to the character ready to animate. Here you can see the controls, shown by the circles. I used different colour so I could tell apart each controller.   

Targets for this week, to be completed for next Monday :-

This Friday is the deadline for 2 modules, Contextual studies and Digital skills Acquisition. 

For my contextual studies all I need to do is finished up the essay and thats done.

For my Digital skills Acquisition I still need too:-

1. write up my 'How to guide' 
2. finishes and replace the face on my model (if I can get that done in time if not I will have to keep the face I have)
3. Finished the rig (only need to add the fingers and ears joins and fix the head control)
4. blind to mesh and colour (still need that lesson on that)
5. Add texture and lighting
6. Animate and render
7. Then lastly write up the evaluation and conclusion. 

Chapter Six - Development

Setting scene in cinema 4D, Making objects, Textures, etc...

Today in our morning class, David showed us how to use the Lathe Numbs by creating say half a glass in illustrator saving it as illustrator 8 file then dragging it into cinema 4D.

Above David also showed us how to create table cloth by using Cloth tags and collider tags.

Below shows class work on a walk cycle.

Rigging

Here show setting up the bones for my 3D model and creating a foot roll. 

Above an update version on my 3D character so far.

Targets for this week, to be completed for next Monday :-

1. Try and redo 3D character head.
2. Rig the whole body.
3. Go over my rough Essay.
4. Do development write up.