Unit 3: Ideas & Concepts in Art & Design

Today I have been given a tutorial on how to use curves in Adobe Illustrator, here is my end result. A bitten pear with an arrow shot through its centre

Below are some samples of text or fonts I want to use for my chosen Film/Game. I have chosen to do the Japanese movie Perfect Blue which is a crime thriller based around the life of a singer turned model.


Here are a list of all the fonts I have downloaded as a possible use for my finished poster I have chosen three different fonts I would like to experiment with.

Here are my three chosen fonts I would like to work with. The first type is a simple typewriter font which I think will suit the feel of the film as I said earlier it is a crime thriller. The second font is called "Nervous" and I think this works for the style of film because of the slight blur within the font which implies imperfection and I also like how the word is still readable despite having some graphical imperfections. the third and final font is also a typewriter font but has a little less detail than the first one. I really like this font because of it's slightly distorted and ink effect.

This is my first type test for Perfect Blue. I have used various different tools in Adobe Illustrator to created different styles, art and colours. My favourite font so far is the text in the bottom of the middle row as it shows slight colours and simple texts.

Unit 53: My 2D Animations

During a small section of section of my course I was asked to produced both a "Bouncing Ball" animation and  a "Walk Cycle" to show my understanding of how to use Adobe Flash animation.

For the bouncing ball animation I have chosen to make it look like an eyeball to show my ability to use gradient colours specifically, here is the animation; http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14685444/

While working on the walk cycle I decided to make my characters similar to those used in the "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" series thus I have created a MLP walk cycle to use within my final animation; http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14685436/

I have enjoyed using Flash though found it difficult initially as I had not used an animation software before though I feel this process has gone well for me. If I were to do this over I would look closer into creating a more fluid walk cycle with better sound backing as I feel what I have done is not sufficient enough, however, I did enjoy making the bouncing ball sequence as I got to experiment with colours and gradients.

Here are a series of expressions I made for the character I will be using for my 2D Animation of The Magic Paintbrush. She is based on a MLP (My Little Pony) character base as I want to make this story an adventure for her to find her cutie mark.

Here is my moving leg gif I made using Flash bone tool. I feel that using the bone tool is difficult to learn however i feel it is easier to use than re-drawing the same character with a different movement each time. I enjoyed using the one tool despite it's difficulty and have decided that this will help me with the rest of my animation. I do however need to improve my skills as you can see from the above gif I am not good with extending materials while making the image, for example; jeans/trousers and socks.

Unit 2: Materials, Techniques and Processes. Sub Category; Pencils

The first item we looked at during this unit was "The Pencil", while working with this material I discovered it could be used in more ways than I had originally known. Here are some examples we were provided with;

When we looked into this media we were given a list of words which we had to convey using line strokes and the different thickness of lines. the words I chose to convey were banana, train-spotting and excitement, here is an example of my work;

The pencil has various different different forms & shapes. Some examples of variations are; B, 2B, H, 2H and F. the B pencils have a softer lead which made broader likes where as the H pencils are harder in dexterity and make thin sharp lines finally the F pencil is used to distinguish between the borders of HB and H pencils. When using a pencil of any shape and size it is best to hold them comfortably in your usual writing hand as this will ensure the best outcome when drawing or writing. You can either gently or firmly press the pencil onto paper, wood or other materials the move the pencil across the chosen material. This will produce a line, which the shade shall be determined by the chosen pencil and amount of pressure placed upon the paper. The pencil's shape is a hexagonal prism and when sharpened it is given the shape of an hexagonal cone. Some things you need to be aware of when using a pencil are; the graphite inside could damage your skin if sharpened to an extreme point, the wood surrounding the graphite may splinter also piercing your flesh and there could be a slim chance of graphite poisoning. I usually enjoy using pencils for work as they are erasable and easier to manipulate than other drawing materials. If I had to change one thing about what I drew it would be the inconsistency in the lines darkness and their general shapes, however my favourite part of this exercise was working to describe works using just lines. I feel my lines for excitement went extremely well and would ove to develop this further.

Unit 53: A history of 2D Animation

A Short History of Animation

Throughout history there have been several forms of animation, some being very simple others not so much. The times in which animation formed can be traced back to Roman origin where soldiers spun a series of pictures on their shields. Some animation examples are; Rotoscoping, Stop-Motion Animation, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, Paint-on-Glass Animation and Flip Book Animation. Each of these animation methods originated from Zoetrope Animation.

Zoetrope animation has been around since early Greek times, where they put images of heroes, gods and stories on to inner rim of a spinning bowl, there were either a slit between the images just wide enough for you to see the animation or a series of mirrors directly in the centre of all the images. An example Zoetrope would be "Subway Zoetrope" which was based on the busy Atlanta Subway System.

Subway Zoetrope

In 2D Animation it is common for designers to hand draw images and details such as, hair and cloth modifications and visuals. An example of 2D Animation would be "Hullabaloo" by James Lopez. this Steampunk based adventure has a lot of simple images as well as some intricate designs on things such as vehicles and scenery. Though it may not be an officially released animation, it has a good story concept and the designs and characters are well composed for a story such as this one.

Hullabaloo

Paint-on-Glass animation was a very obscure method of creating an animation sequence, the method for making the images was either slow dry oil paints on sheet glass or Gouche mixed with glycerine. A couple of examples of some Paint-on-Glass Animations are; "The Mermaid" by Aleksandr Petrov and "The Man With no Shadow" by Georges Schwizgebel.

The man With no Shadow.

The Mermaid.

3D Animations come in a wide variety of types and subsections (some of which are mentioned above). A good example of 3D Animation would be Puppetry for this form of animation is simple to create and manipulate to tell the desired story. A good Puppetry show would be "Punch and Judy" which was derived from an Italian story who were manifested by The Lord of Misrule.

British puppet show of Punch and Judy in 1770.

Flip-Book Animation has been used by people of all ages from all ages, some early Flip-Books which have been found date back to 1894. A good example of Flip-Book Animation would be the internet famous "Goku Vs. Superman" by etoilec1 on YouTube.

Goku Vs. Superman

The art of Stop-Motion Animation has a large role in the Aardman industry as a lot of their finished works are based on "Clay-Mation" which is the manipulation of clay figures while taking still short photographs of them. Each still shot is slightly different from the one before them as after each picture is taken the figure is moves a minuscule amount to represent movement. Another producer who used this method of "Clay-Mation" is Tim Burton who created "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Corpse Bride". Here are some song examples with the animation.

Jacks' Lament "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

Tears to Shed "Corpse bride"

The animation known as Rotoscoping is tracing movements and putting them into a "Real World" situation, the best conveyed form of this I have seen is the A-Ha song "Take on Me". The music video shows a young girl reading a comic which suddenly comes to life and drags her inside of it while still having a connection to the real world.

Take on me "A-Ha"

Last updated 09/09/14