Pick Me Up, London 2014.

We took a university course trip to Pick Me Up in London on Tuesday 29th April. It is a really great illustration and graphic art festival full of wonderful prints and huge amounts of colour!

I really enjoy going to this event (this is my second year visiting it) because there is tons of work by illustrators and collectives, most of them having graduated only a few years or so ago. If I had enough money, there were so many prints that I would have bought, but unfortunately I am a poor poor student and don't have the luxury yet. I did however get loads of inspiration and found a few artists whose work I really liked, (and took their names down on my phone to research later.)

It was a great day trip and a good excuse to get off the computer and take a day out from animating.

(English Artist, Billy, lives and works in Berlin & UK. Digital, gyclee and screen prints. Observations made from living in unfamiliar places and travelling to exotic and not-so-exotic destinations, mixed up in a whirl of imagination.)

I also got to use a very small screen printer which printed this unicorn onto some coloured paper with circles, and keep the print as a token of my visit this year in the Handsome Frank section of Pick Me Up.

Animated cars

 

I have used two types of animation to make the car appear to move.

 

The first one is completely rendered through Photoshop. I drew two different versions of the car and four different versions of the wheels, with the lines of the wheel moving around each time to create the illusion of movement. I really like the jittery effect.

 

The second animation was drawn in Photoshop and animated using After Effects. I have used a more simplified angle of the car to make it easier to animate. Using After Effects allowed me to easily move the car physically off the screen and to rotate the two tyres indvidually as it moved along to highlight the movement. This style works really well as I want the car to physically move off the page.

 

However I still want it to have the jittery effect of the top one, and I am unsure how to combine both effects as of yet.

Moving Car

I have created what I hope looks like a moving car. My next aim is to move it from right to left, from small to large and off the screen. This is a basic animation, but it most likely become part of my animation, with hand rendered textures imported into it for a more interesting appearance.

Shifty eyes.

The quality is absolutely rubbish, but this is just an example of a zoom in on the rhino looking rather shifty just before he turns into a unicorn. There are 25 picture frames in this sequence, 50 over all. I find it quite fast with not very much time to appreciate the movement of the eyes.

On this example, I have increased the length go frames per image for every other change, so there are a total of 75 frames in this sequence. I think it works a lot better as you have more time to see the rhinos eyes. I am thinking of contenting the zoom in with some more eye movement to make the sequence longer, and maybe adding some more frames in-between to lengthen the build up before the rhino turns into a unicorn.

Storyboarding

These are some of my story boarding illustrations. The top one was referenced with photographs for the rhino and unicorn, which I then created more in-between frames for on the computer as a gif (see previous posts). Now that I have gotten around to scanning my drawings in, I can use these as referencing for my digital drawings. The lilac colouring was a random choice, but I have come to like it and will be using it for both animals as the merging link.

The bottom images show the idea of the sun setting, to mark the beginning of the secret world. The colours are bold and bright, to grab the attention of the viewer in the beginning.

Colour Concepts

I've been playing around with my letraset graphic pens, which I had kind of forgotten about these last two years, to create some colour concept work for my animation. It's great using them because I have a nice variety of colours, many of which are bright and bold, which is what I want my animation to be! Something that catches the eye and retains it for the short amount of time.

I like the idea of blending yellows and lilacs together for the rhino, as I can then turn this into lilac, pinks and oranges, or whatever other combo for the unicorns.

My next aim is to play around with acrylic paints for smoother and more intense blending, like Gerhard Richter.

Drawing studies.

Some studies to help me visualise and get a clearer idea of the movement of these animals. (The idea of animating still baffles me. I am finding it a bit hard and quite daunting still. I fear it won't be a very long animation due to my lack of patience.)

I am have been quite rubbish and lazy with scanning my own work into the computer so there will now be a string of posts with various drawings and illustrations regarding my work process so far with my project. Enjoy-

General Inspo

I am fascinated with the work of Sara Fanelli. I would love for my sketch book to look like her book "Sometimes I think, sometimes I am". But that's probably why I am so fascinated with her work, because it's not something I do, or how I work. I am a big fan of the quotes and illustration combination though, and have started to experiment and cut out bits and pieces for my personal use/diary/journal type book. In regards to my current project, her use of bright and contrasting colours and and compositions attract me, which I can hopefully achieve in my own work. I also hope to achieve a similar effect with layer and collage to keep a analogue feel to my animation, even though I will be creating the line and base work digitally.

Viewers Perception

After one of the tutorials I have had with my tutors, one of things I noticed on my tutorial sheet is from what perspective will the animation be viewed. I hadn't thought much about this, only seeing it as a third person perspective, similar to that of Toy Story. It also highlights my idea of a secret world, as the toys only come to life when there is no human presence, similar to the morphing of rhinos into unicorns. However I want to keep an element of realism in my animation as well. This bought me back to the idea of viewing it almost as a documentary. In the BBC's Africa, they use camera traps to capture the rhinos behaviour at night, and I feel this could work for mine too. It creates the illusion of spying on something, and discovering something new - like a secret world.

Children's Books as Inspiration

I've always been a big fan of fully illustrated pages, bursting with colour. For my last project I wrote and illustrated my own children's book. It had all double page spreads which were completely covered in art. I find it attractive, eye catching and immersing, particularly for the younger audience. So I am going to keep this animation along the same lines, full of colour that the viewer can immerse themselves in when watching it. This bodes particularly well with themes of fantasy, as I can really explore colour combinations and create something that pushes the boundaries.

This is the work of Mathew Robertson. He combines hand rendered, collaged and digital work to create these wonderfully appealing illustrations for children’s books. I hope to use a similar style, combining digital line and base drawings with hand rendered textures and washes, which can be scanned in and used in the background and for the characters.

This illustration is from the children’s book Mr Clockman, illustrated by Eberhard Binder. This particular double page spread is full of life and colour, engaging with the audience and bringing them into the narrative. Books that are “created with integrity, both artistically and in relation to the needs of the child, can lead to picture books that will continue to enchant through the generations.”^[1]

^[1] Salisbury, M. (2004). Illustrating Children’s Books, creating pictures for publication. London. Quarto Publishing.

Think Bright!

I'm having some ideas about my colour scheme for my animation, and I'm thinking bold bright colours! It is only a short animation and so I want it to pop, stand out and draw my audience into watching it. The idea of fantasy, with there being unicorns, means I can play around with textures and create something that balances reality with fiction.

I have always been a fan of Gerhard Richter's work. He uses collage to blend colours, which in turn create patterns and textures to create abstract pieces of art. I plan to experiment with this style to use as backgrounds and skins for my characters.

Animations from old National Geographic magazines.

"Art, I believe, is articulated proof of otherworldly exploration – being able to share the unobservable. The methodology of scientist and artist are one and the same; they just have different subjects of fascination."

- Nathaniel Whitcomb

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/19518/1/how-to-create-a-moving-collage

Courtesy of Dazed magazine, this article shows the fascinating work of Nathaniel Whitcomb who uses old National Geographic magazines and creates animations. I am going slightly off topic of my work with this post, but I find his work quite fascinating, as I have a particular interest in National Geographic myself. It appeals to my idea of exploring the 'unobservable' in nature.

Inspiration /1 :Colour concept

After just having my interim critique for my Convergence/Divergence project (and also my last critique of level 5), I am doing some research to help me further develop and inspire my work over this next week. My next aim is to start creating animated sequences that can go towards my final outcome, introducing colour and texture.

This is the work of John Agnew, who creates wonderful coloured paintings that focus on the theme of his book: Painting the Secret World of Nature. I really like his use of bright colours and compositions, which will appeal to my intended audience of children.


Their are numerous colours that can be depicted from the rhino painting, such as yellow and purple, which are not necessarily associated with the colour of a rhino, and I want to play upon this aspect in my own work. To capture my audience's attention I will be using bright colours and building upon the theme of fantasty, unicorns and the secret world of nature.

Transformation trial 2

I have added a few extra frames to make the transition of the rhino into unicorn look more smooth. Although I still like it looking sketchy to make it seem more analogue.

My next aim is to start creating textures using various hand rendered methods and materials for the skin and background. I also need to plan some background ideas with some concept art, inspired by some of the art created for the Lion King. Examples will follow when I have scanned the images from the book to my computer.

Transformation Trial 1

Using Adobe Flash I have done a test trial on the merging of a rhino into unicorn. Its quite jittery and I think that some more frames need to be added in between to make the transition more smooth.

Practises using digital methods.

I had a go at rotoscoping a scene from the BBC's "Africa" over the weekend. It's just a rough animation but it serves quite well as a way of animating the rhino's movement in a realistic way.

I actually quite like the sketchy feel to it, as it makes it more authentic and analogue. This was created by drawing digitally, but I would also like to try it out with analogue drawings. However by drawing each individual scene, it will take a lot of time, and this worries me with only 4 weeks remaining to create my animation. Therefore I am tempted to create my line based animation using digital methods, and playing around with hand rendered textures that I can then import and combine for my final outcome. This will also allow me to screen print and continue my practise in this area, as I hope to get a degree in Illustration, specialising in print making.

Intended audience outlet.

To expand upon my idea of showcasing my animation on children's tv channels, I found this competition by Nickelodeon:

Animated Shorts Program

If I can get my animating skills up to scratch and produce something I feel quite proud of, maybe I can enter this next year, as this submission has passed by already.

On this page, they also mention other outlets where the winning animation will be shown, which I feel is very appropriate for my own work. For example on air, on the website and on an app. This makes it accessible to a much wider audience who have interests across the technological spectrum.

We live in a world of unseeable beauty.

I've been having trouble trying to find a context for my animation. Have no fear though, I think I have finally found it! It takes the form of a TED video by Louie Schwartzberg, titled: Hidden miracles of the natural world.  

"We live in a world of unseeable beauty, so subtle and delicate that it is imperceptible to the human eye. (TED, 2014)

By looking at unseen worlds, we recognise that we exist in the living universe, and this new perspective creates wonder and inspires us to become explorers in our own backyards.

Who knows what awaits to be seen and what new wonders will transform our lives." (Schwartzberg, 2014)

Here is an exert from my Learning Agreement about my audience:

My intended audience will be children who are interested in wildlife, but I hope this animation can also be a tool to introduce and inspire all children to explore the natural world. The ideal placement for my animation would be on kid’s area of wildlife related websites, for example National Geographic, as an interactive and fun video to watch. It could also appear as a short animation before programs on kid’s channels such as Nickelodeon and CBBC. 

The idea is therefore to create a fun animation that explores the hidden world of nature. The narrative will be simple and mainly focus on the transformation of rhinos into unicorns after the sun sets, and the people have left. 

It also highlights rhinos, which may encourage children to find out more about them, leading on to the themes of conservation and the problems that rhinos currently face.

Animating

Over the last week, I have had the privilege to participate in various animating workshops.

Last tuesday for example, I took part in a rotoscoping workshop, where I videoed myself swishing my hair from side to side. The animating aspect, is created by opening the video in Adobe Photoshop and converting it into frames. I chose to create 24 seconds per frame, which is actually quite a lot and I still haven't gotten round to finishing the animation, so maybe next time I can get away with 12 frames per second, or something in between. You can put all these layers into one folder. In another folder, create a new layer to match the layers of the video, and draw over each frame on these new layers. When you then hide the video layers, you are left with an animated sequence of your drawings.

These are some of the layers I have done all shown together:

Down the right hand side you can see all the layers. On the bottom is all the frames. Each new layer will be correspond to each frame, so when played, the drawn images will look animated.

And below is how far I have gotten. I have drawn 39 frames so far.

I feel this particular style might be useful in depicting the movements of the rhinos, by using the footage provided in the BBC Africa program of rhinos at the watering hole during night. This scene was particularly influential to my animation ideas as a basis for the setting and scene.

I have also participated in an After Effect workshop where I drew a very rubbish drawing of a rhino, drawing each moving limb separately and very simply. When transferred into After Effect, these limbs can then be moved accordingly, to create the appearance of animation. Here is my incredibly rubbish animation: (I suppose you have to start somewhere.)

And the last one is an animation I created using Adobe Flash. This was a workshop with alumni student of Illustration at the Arts University Bournemouth, Jonny Clapham. I like the techniques involved in using Flash, although it is more suited to graphic illustration. This has got me thinking that maybe working digitally may benefit this project more than creating the images by hand, as it seems it will be more time consuming. This is something I will have to test out through a series of day workshops I give myself, to create a moving character by means of analog vs digital, and how much I can achieve with each using the same process of animation. Anyway for now, here is my animation using Flash: