OUIL504

Moving Pictures Development

For my Sting I am considering to take some inspiration from the animations in Monty Pythons' Quest For The Holy Grail. They are minimalistic and effective, using good humour to make them all the better. 

I think I will animate small bits in my illustrations, like mouths and eyebrows and go for very simple actions. Im thinking timing in this piece is going to be what makes it effective and humorous. Comedy is all about timing right?

RESPONSIVE
COMIC DEVELOPMENT
CHARACTER DESIGNS

I have been working a lot on my comic over this break. 

I have been watching many tutorials and learning about the process of taking your comic to print. I feel I have learned a lot. 

I have also been working on my character development. This is crucial at this stage because I after working out the dimensions on my  comic print I am going to have to make sure that my characters are simple, yet detailed enough to appear well even in the smallest panel. 

I have experimented a lot with different mediums. I tried fine liner, inks (coloured and black), coloured pencils and graphic markers. I decided I will do my comic in black and white, which can be challenging because there isn't any colour to help raise the level of your drawings. I want it to have a strong horror and Noir feel to it, so I am confident in my choice at this stage. 

Below are some examples of initial designs in the ink, brush, and fine liner medium. These designs would be for close ups and larger panels. 

Responsive 

COMIC BOOK DEVELOPMENT


This is a study for establishing shot in my comic, first page. Taken from a fisheye lens image of New York city scape. I added lots more buildings though.

Its a bit much, but its just a draft of the image to come. Im going to simplify the buildings, put less in there so its less busy, and add a lot more smog and pollution. My comic is not meant to take place in NY in fact, its a made up metropolis somewhere in the US. I think NY is way too over done so I want to add elements from different prominent US cities and make a bizarre mash up. Nothing too recognisable, just enough so that they don't think its New York.

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Positives For Screenprint

Below are my 5 positives for screen print. I decided against any grey tones and will do a simple border instead. I think less is more in this case and I find the borders really pull the drawings in and together. 

The border will be yellow

Border will be blue

Border will be brown

Border will be green

Printed Pictures Development

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I have finished my five illustrations by hand, and they are going to be ready soon as positives for screenprinting. 

Below are the five images, in order they are:

Modern Day

Industrial Revolution

Renaissance 

Ancient Civilisations

Stone Age 

The idea is to bend the time scale and have our oldest relatives as modern beings continually to the stone age, where modern man is living in neolithic fashion.

 Depending on how you may look at it, it may sound that I am judging our modern man, and modern mentality. In truth I mean the opposite, I am showing that we would not be where we are today, and that there is belief that we are so much more intelligent than our predecessors, at any of these eras even. 

The human brain has always been something that has been adaptable and a true problem solver. The only thing that has changed is that now we deal with a modern puzzle. If our ancestors didn't have the same level of adaptability and ingenuity that we do to overcome and be resourceful, from monkey to man, we wouldn't be where we are today. 

I have started doing the colours for positives on Ps and I think they are coming along well enough, even though I hate photoshop and struggle with colours a lot. The first one I was experimenting with was the Modern Day one and I did a pink background and added greys to that, but im not really a fan of how that was turning out. Below are some examples. 

I think the image is way too busy, so I stepped away from that one and started looking at my Industrial Revolution drawing, I think I have had more success with this one.

I opted for lots more grey tones, and just a hint of colour on the faces. 

I start with colouring in the images in whatever colours I think they would be and then turn them to greyscale so the greys are more apt. I am not sure if this is making the whole image too dark and muddy so I am hoping once I do a bit more red the images will pop more. 

Study Task 6

Sound Study Task  Prt. 1:   Stings with Sound

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I'm going with animations from Animade again. Cant help it, I really liked their stuff.

The following animations are great examples of how sound can complement video. I have a couple of animations in Study Task 4 that would fit just as well in this post, but I decided to go with animations that use music only as their source of sound. 

This can be more challenging to pull off sometimes for the animator because there is less going on, in a sense, to keep the viewer interested in what is being shown. There is a lot more pressure on the actual animation itself to be interesting in order to keep it up to par as there is less stimuli, so the viewer can lose interest faster.

When there are a number of different sound sources, say music, plus voices, plus added sound effects to complement motion (like in my Animade Lenz clips), it keeps things interesting because you don't know what sound is going to be introduced at any given time for any action or graphic. This can also lend really well to the comedic element of a sting. 

Below are to animations that did really well with having just music, and not only that, being quite long in themselves. 

They still use humour effectively and are delightful. Not sure if I'm happy with the McDonalds one on principle, but I can't deny that it is a nice little short. 

Title's the link

VIRGIN AMERICA

MCDONALDS

3 Stings 

Moving Pictures

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I picked all the following stings because they have great use of pacing within the animations and an excellent choice for sound which adds to the comedic effect perfectly. They also, especially the last animation, decided on a smart visual style to keep the animation light and fun, when dealing with dark, and sometimes disturbing, humour.

Really happy I came across these animations and their company website.

First Sting Artist I chose is Animade Lernz.  I was going to put 3 of them up because there's a bunch but then I found a compilation of all of them. Score.

They are basically ten second tutorials at a time on how not to animate, and then the correct way. So, not only are they funny, they are a bit relevant too.

The link is below the image

                                                                            STING COMPILATION


I found other animations from Animade that I enjoy so here's the next one. I'm not going to lie- the fart sounds sold this one for me. Excellent use of sound for an animation if you ask me.

SAUCE 2 STING

Last one is long and kinda disturbing, but funny if you have a dark sense of humour which I do. This is still Animade, and the link is to the actually website. I think if I have to choose a favourite, its the shoes or ballsack.... 

WONDERFULLY DISTURBING 

Comic Initial Development

The idea for this comic started sometime last year, before I was in uni. I have been sitting on this idea a long while and have given it a lot of thought. I had even drawn the first three pages I had originally thought would be the beginning. 

The colours were not what I was aiming for and the I needed more practice drawing the characters. I would like later on to sculpt my characters out in chavant clay to help  me get a better 3d understanding of what they would look like in different scenarios, different angles and different lighting.

Below are the very first thumbnails of my first chapter of the comic. It is meant to be a mature comic for adult readers but I still think that this is overkill. I was going for that horror movie damsel in skimpy clothes getting in trouble. like Scream? Yeah, it didn't pan out. Not the look I want. 

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Sergio Toppi is a fantastic comic artist. I tried to copy some of his drawings for reference and to study his line marking patterns. I really love his work.

ACTION PLAN

COMIC BOOK BRIEF

I have decided to focus on the comic book brief as my main brief. 

I will dedicate the next few weeks, now and during the holidays, to develop the actual pages of the comic book and do some storyboarding, storyboarding should be done before the new year. I would like to have all pages drafted up before we come back into the next semester, ready for inking by 15th of January.

Once I have dedicated all the time for storyboarding I can gage realistically whether or not 24 pages is doable, or if I need to narrow it down to 12.

I will have all the character drawings and sculptures done by the new year. Small sculptures will help me draw more dynamically the characters I have come up with. 

PENGUIN

I have developed some sketches for the To Kill A Mockingbird, and In Cold Blood book covers. Because I have picked up the Comic book brief I will make this in to a secondary project and focus on the comic one as my main. I am keen on my In Cold Blood cover concept I have developed so I will drop the Mockingbird one, and focus on the other. 

I will have the finished drawing in two weeks and will start experimenting with colour schemes for it. I aim to have the finished illustration ready at least two weeks before the deadline to leave room for error. 

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY

I have done two illustrations so far. I dedicate two days for completion. I will focus on topics I really enjoy, not do it weekly, and try to narrow down the time I spend on the final illustrations down to a day- so as to not get sidetracked from my main projects. 

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Storyboarding Task

Storyboarding is something that is crucial for not only animations but illustration in general. It is important in visual narratives and even as a tool to develop an eye for composition. 

The image above is too busy and I didn't follow instructions and added a bee. Meant to illustrate in storyboards the word 'pop' with a circle.

The image below was more of a success because I followed the 'brief' and created motion, scale and flow within the frames.  Gives the idea of an object 'floating'

Initial concepts for animation. Trying to follow the vertical, horizontal and static guidelines Fred had us follow. But instead I left myself with something that was near impossible to animate from the prints I will have because that is not what I have mapped out to be printed. So adding more work and creating a dull and unchanging composition. Won't do. Back to the drawing board. 

Comic Book Brief 

Brief Deadline: 4th of February 

The style of the comic will be a supernatural horror/thriller aimed at adults with adult themes

Major Brief:

Put together one chapter of your comic

Comic will be 24 pages including front and back covers

Front and back covers must be coloured 

Develop comic using storyboarding and initial draft ideas

Develop title, plot, characters, and script

Research and consider compositional elements for the comic looking at other artists

The final chapter will be a limited print of ten copies

Minor Brief:

Develop and present main character designs for final comic

Include first drafts of main and minor characters that will be introduced in the comic 

After Effects Session 4

OUIL504

You can have more than one composition projects open on AE

HD 1080 25 for final animation 

Select transform to work with any of the layer properties

At the bottom of the selection there is the auto orient button

Orient along the path

Select this and the rocket layer, the rocket will travel in the direction of the path by its nose

When setting up a motion path, you are focusing on the layer moving along the key frames at different path

To achieve a consistent speed between keyframes 

Spacing between key frames determines the speed

Select all keyframes in between the first and the last

Right click on key frame for options

Select rove across time

The keyframes will turn circular and will have been spaced equally between 

The Dot represent a moment in time/ frame within the motion path

RAIN SCENE

Right side panel within Project selection

Shy Switch 

Allows you to simplify timeline 

Layers part of the timeline might become too long, and the shy switch will condense the selection 

Click on the icon and then click on the main Shy switch and the layers will be hidden so you can work with the only layer you need to work on

Star Icon

 Tool is for illustrator files, will retain the smooth vector edges

Quality Switch

Allows you to change the resolution of the single layer you are working on, so you dont have to change the resolution of the whole animation

FX

Photoshop for After Effects files, adjusting brightness contrast per layer

Knowing what you are looking for, you can search in the Effects and Presets, find the file, drag into the composition 

Controls will appear on the left hand of your project

Enable Key framing button will appear, which means any effect to have keyframes applied. 

Which means hue and saturation effects can appear in any space and time in your animation. 

Select change range button, adjust time bar where desired

Select key frames and in between add the variation of hue and saturation between

To Undo effect, select to effect controls and click backspace

The layer switch will allow yo to turn on and off effects on the layer

Film Frame 

  This tool is the motion blur option

You have to activate Master Control

  Select Blur and then Master Blur

Adjustment Layer Option 

Creates a new layer, free of content, only contains an effect of adjustment so you can apply it on all layers

Select the top layer, layer should be created at top because it has priority

Add new Solid layer, make the solid layer Composition size

Our composition is back once we select the Icon 

  Our composition no longer be solid and any effect applied will be applied to all layers 

If you you would like any layers to not be affected by this effect, move the layer created underneath any layers you don't want to change

Last layer allows you to work with layers in 3D

 This wont be covered in our AE sessions 

PHTOOSHOP

Create new file\pick film and video preset

For brief select top option

Import photoshop image, with blank background

Create New composition in AE 

Photoshop file on top of other layers

Toggle switches, select normal tab you should see the following menu

Four options to do with the above layer 

Alpha Matte, first selection in the drop down menu

Within this circle you can still apply key frames. It will retain all of its transform properties 

If you swap keyframes, the acton will happen in reverse and the circle will appear at the end of the animation.

NESTED COMPOSITION

Drag rocket composition onto the following icon

this will create a compositiion

Untick lock ratio, and increase width

Change anchor point to be behind the rocket

Change the scale over a timeline and change scale of flame 

You can add one composition to another by dragging it into the other composition 

You can also break down your animation into scenes, by making 2 or more compositions, and nesting them

You can keep track of your layers within this tab, collect files 

This will create a separate folder in Finder with all layers and compositions.