Tuesday 20 October 2009
Urban Texture Photographs
Hey, for your viewing pleasure (if anyone is actually reading). Here are the 5 photographs that I used to create the textured backgrounds in my last post.
Monday 19 October 2009
Missing Slides
Ok, I'm sorry I put up those horrible monochrome slides yesterday morning. I was super tired so I didn't realise that the last few images had some how changed to CMYK. I don't know if it was automatic or something that I changed by accident, silly me. Well here they are as they were intended to be.
To begin with in all the images bellow is a background and and font that I developed by working through this tutorial (which I mentioned in an earlier post). It evolves through the various posts, at first I was a bit disappointed with it as I haven't quite achieved the finished effect as shown in the tutorial but by the time I had finished this exercise I was quite happy with it.
his first Image titled "Super Barrio" is to Identify Barrio as the starting point or initial Idea for the work I will be doing this year. The first quote that led me to take an interest in Super Barrio was found in "Masks 'the art of expression'" by "John Mack" British Museum Press 1994
ISBN #0-7141-2530-x.
The quote reads "A masked figure who is also a celebrated wrestler, Super barrio (superman), popularly appears in the poorer parts of Mexico City to drive away bailiffs arriving to evict tenants".
I found this tale immediately interesting, images of a plump, colourful, trickster Zorro in a wrestlers outfit were conjured in my mind. I was amazed that such a man could exist and behave in such a selfless, heroic yet theatrical way.
Second I have provided an image that shows the key areas of reading that I have engaged in so far. "Richard William" "The Animators Survival Kit" ISBN 978-0-571-20228-7 the focal point of this image is more of a tool to me than a piece of reading on the subject, I have my own copy that I intend to keep and use for many years.
The next book is "Joseph Campbells "The Hero with a thousand Faces" ISBN 0-691-01784-0 which looks at the structure of story telling and tells us that all stories at their core are essentially the same and follow the same principles, these principles are governed by our own psychology and hidden desires, "Campbell" uses examples of classic myths, folk tales and fairy tales from around the world (many of which I have never heard of before, at least not in their traditional forms as are still recorded today) as well as case studies from psychologists interpretations of their patients dreams. This shows how the same motifs, symbols and structures appear within our dreams and psyche's as do in our story telling. I still haven't completed reading this book.
"Basics Animation: Scriptwriting" by "Paul Wells" ISBN 9782940373161 forces the reader and aspiring scriptwriter for animation to look at Animation as a Form that has its own language and deep structures. "Wells" explains that it is important to understand this language and these structures if you have any chance of writing in a way that takes advantage of the medium and its potential which differs from that of live action film making. If you fail to recognize the differences in the two forms then you may end up writing in a way that simply apes that of writing for live action film.
The last book in the Image is "Christoper Vogler's" "The Writer's Journey"
ISBN 0-330-37591-1 "Vogler" explains that through his study of narrative and finding particular influence in Joseph Campbells work he seeks to explain how to write a successful screen play and which elements are necessary for a compelling story. He uses the structure provided by Campbell, simplifies it slightly and finds relevant case studies in contemporary classics such as "Titanic", "Pulp Fiction", "Star Wars" etc in order to back up this structure and identify where it exists and how it can be adapted.
This Image I created on the front of my A4 note pad using acrylics. I used an "Ultra Thick Acrylics" (stated on the tubes) in order to give the image a bit of texture, this exercise was simply to reproduce this character in another medium other than in my sketchbook and digitally and also to decorate my notepad, providing me with a reference point for the character and to inspire myself further.
This image identifies storyboarding as a part of my work in progress and to demonstrate the importance of constant visual storytelling.
This image contains 5 digital Macro photographs that I went out and collected over the weekend (I took more than 5 photos, I just shortlisted 5 for this image) The purpose was to gather some visual documentation of urban environments. My Lecturer Derick suggested that I look at inner city "sink estates" and areas of deprivation. I still haven't been into any particularly deprived areas (although I to take a trip into a couple along the Ashton road into Manchester) to take photographs however I collected a few images of urban textures and urban decay as a starting point.
Another reason behind my choice to look at these really close up textures was the work of
Jakob Dvorsky a Czech animator and games producer. In his first two games "Samorost" (driftwood in Czech) and its sequel he used extreme close up macro photography, predominantly of plants and pieces of wood to create a highly interesting and unique visual aesthetic. I attended a seminar at which he was speaking during the 2007 Bradford animation festival, the recent and critically well received release of his teams (Amanita Designs) latest game "Machinearium" (available on Steam and I believe X-Box Live) forced me to recall this seminar. In addition these two pieces of work have been brought up in group discussions during my classes at uni.
Just an additional note, at BAF07 I was speaking to a senior games developer and he felt that by changing the visual aesthetic of "Machinearium" away from that of "Samorost" was a bad Idea as it took away what made "Jakobs" first two games so special. Well I do agree that Samorost was visually something quite special (fun to play to boot) but I am glad to see that Machinearium has been so well received and widely distributed. Plus it is quite beautiful in its own right.
This image contains several images from my sketchbook in various mediums, predominantly coloured pencils tho. One in water colours and another in a thin layer of acrylics. The purpose of this image is to show that I intend to develop my project through Iteration and by throwing as many ideas down on the page as possible and to make heavy use of my sketchbook.
These are all images that are going to appear on either my mood boards or in one of my mood books. They are all colourful but in my opinion each have a slight edge to them that relates to my work, or in the case of Donkey Kong and the El Panta wrestler character something similar to the characters I have already been drawing. I see unintentional similarities between my Acrylic painting of Super Barrio and the image of Donkey Kong. I have had that feeling before with work, as if I was subconsciously influenced by an image that I might not have seen for months or even years. The characters in the image are Donkey Kong as seen in the game art of "Mario Strikers" on the Game Cube. The guy in the top right is "El Panta" designed by MuttPop , these vinyl figures were shown to me in class by my friend "Michel Goff" so thx for that.
The image in the middle is called "Alter Ego" by "Danieal Uhlig" check the link for her page and some very nice, often funny illustrations.
The Female character in the bottom is "Marcey Jones" created by "Harvey James" another cool illustrator check out the link to see his page, it is a very cool page and an interesting experience just to scroll down the page.
This image is a compilation of dark, heavy sketches from out of my sketch book. I produced this to show the people around me what I think my drawing style is like and to consider how I should relate this to the work I am doing where I am trying to produce things that are bouncier, more colourful and not so aggressive or depressing.
This is still a work in progress which I wanted to share with my class for two reasons. The first because it shows that I am trying to improve my skills when painting in photoshop, second of all is to force myself to show the group something that at present I think looks quite horrible.
I whacked this together quickly as a last image just to see what the acrylic image would look like on the more textured background and also to create a piece that was damn near complete just to say that this exercise had produced a specific image.
To begin with in all the images bellow is a background and and font that I developed by working through this tutorial (which I mentioned in an earlier post). It evolves through the various posts, at first I was a bit disappointed with it as I haven't quite achieved the finished effect as shown in the tutorial but by the time I had finished this exercise I was quite happy with it.
his first Image titled "Super Barrio" is to Identify Barrio as the starting point or initial Idea for the work I will be doing this year. The first quote that led me to take an interest in Super Barrio was found in "Masks 'the art of expression'" by "John Mack" British Museum Press 1994
ISBN #0-7141-2530-x.
The quote reads "A masked figure who is also a celebrated wrestler, Super barrio (superman), popularly appears in the poorer parts of Mexico City to drive away bailiffs arriving to evict tenants".
I found this tale immediately interesting, images of a plump, colourful, trickster Zorro in a wrestlers outfit were conjured in my mind. I was amazed that such a man could exist and behave in such a selfless, heroic yet theatrical way.
Second I have provided an image that shows the key areas of reading that I have engaged in so far. "Richard William" "The Animators Survival Kit" ISBN 978-0-571-20228-7 the focal point of this image is more of a tool to me than a piece of reading on the subject, I have my own copy that I intend to keep and use for many years.
The next book is "Joseph Campbells "The Hero with a thousand Faces" ISBN 0-691-01784-0 which looks at the structure of story telling and tells us that all stories at their core are essentially the same and follow the same principles, these principles are governed by our own psychology and hidden desires, "Campbell" uses examples of classic myths, folk tales and fairy tales from around the world (many of which I have never heard of before, at least not in their traditional forms as are still recorded today) as well as case studies from psychologists interpretations of their patients dreams. This shows how the same motifs, symbols and structures appear within our dreams and psyche's as do in our story telling. I still haven't completed reading this book.
"Basics Animation: Scriptwriting" by "Paul Wells" ISBN 9782940373161 forces the reader and aspiring scriptwriter for animation to look at Animation as a Form that has its own language and deep structures. "Wells" explains that it is important to understand this language and these structures if you have any chance of writing in a way that takes advantage of the medium and its potential which differs from that of live action film making. If you fail to recognize the differences in the two forms then you may end up writing in a way that simply apes that of writing for live action film.
The last book in the Image is "Christoper Vogler's" "The Writer's Journey"
ISBN 0-330-37591-1 "Vogler" explains that through his study of narrative and finding particular influence in Joseph Campbells work he seeks to explain how to write a successful screen play and which elements are necessary for a compelling story. He uses the structure provided by Campbell, simplifies it slightly and finds relevant case studies in contemporary classics such as "Titanic", "Pulp Fiction", "Star Wars" etc in order to back up this structure and identify where it exists and how it can be adapted.
This Image I created on the front of my A4 note pad using acrylics. I used an "Ultra Thick Acrylics" (stated on the tubes) in order to give the image a bit of texture, this exercise was simply to reproduce this character in another medium other than in my sketchbook and digitally and also to decorate my notepad, providing me with a reference point for the character and to inspire myself further.
This image identifies storyboarding as a part of my work in progress and to demonstrate the importance of constant visual storytelling.
This image contains 5 digital Macro photographs that I went out and collected over the weekend (I took more than 5 photos, I just shortlisted 5 for this image) The purpose was to gather some visual documentation of urban environments. My Lecturer Derick suggested that I look at inner city "sink estates" and areas of deprivation. I still haven't been into any particularly deprived areas (although I to take a trip into a couple along the Ashton road into Manchester) to take photographs however I collected a few images of urban textures and urban decay as a starting point.
Another reason behind my choice to look at these really close up textures was the work of
Jakob Dvorsky a Czech animator and games producer. In his first two games "Samorost" (driftwood in Czech) and its sequel he used extreme close up macro photography, predominantly of plants and pieces of wood to create a highly interesting and unique visual aesthetic. I attended a seminar at which he was speaking during the 2007 Bradford animation festival, the recent and critically well received release of his teams (Amanita Designs) latest game "Machinearium" (available on Steam and I believe X-Box Live) forced me to recall this seminar. In addition these two pieces of work have been brought up in group discussions during my classes at uni.
Just an additional note, at BAF07 I was speaking to a senior games developer and he felt that by changing the visual aesthetic of "Machinearium" away from that of "Samorost" was a bad Idea as it took away what made "Jakobs" first two games so special. Well I do agree that Samorost was visually something quite special (fun to play to boot) but I am glad to see that Machinearium has been so well received and widely distributed. Plus it is quite beautiful in its own right.
This image contains several images from my sketchbook in various mediums, predominantly coloured pencils tho. One in water colours and another in a thin layer of acrylics. The purpose of this image is to show that I intend to develop my project through Iteration and by throwing as many ideas down on the page as possible and to make heavy use of my sketchbook.
These are all images that are going to appear on either my mood boards or in one of my mood books. They are all colourful but in my opinion each have a slight edge to them that relates to my work, or in the case of Donkey Kong and the El Panta wrestler character something similar to the characters I have already been drawing. I see unintentional similarities between my Acrylic painting of Super Barrio and the image of Donkey Kong. I have had that feeling before with work, as if I was subconsciously influenced by an image that I might not have seen for months or even years. The characters in the image are Donkey Kong as seen in the game art of "Mario Strikers" on the Game Cube. The guy in the top right is "El Panta" designed by MuttPop , these vinyl figures were shown to me in class by my friend "Michel Goff" so thx for that.The image in the middle is called "Alter Ego" by "Danieal Uhlig" check the link for her page and some very nice, often funny illustrations.
The Female character in the bottom is "Marcey Jones" created by "Harvey James" another cool illustrator check out the link to see his page, it is a very cool page and an interesting experience just to scroll down the page.
This image is a compilation of dark, heavy sketches from out of my sketch book. I produced this to show the people around me what I think my drawing style is like and to consider how I should relate this to the work I am doing where I am trying to produce things that are bouncier, more colourful and not so aggressive or depressing.
This is still a work in progress which I wanted to share with my class for two reasons. The first because it shows that I am trying to improve my skills when painting in photoshop, second of all is to force myself to show the group something that at present I think looks quite horrible.
I whacked this together quickly as a last image just to see what the acrylic image would look like on the more textured background and also to create a piece that was damn near complete just to say that this exercise had produced a specific image.
Sunday 18 October 2009
9 Slides
Below are 9 slides that I finished up yesterday morning before heading out for my gaming day. I will explain them all in more detail with an update later today (sorry, still to sleepy to bother doing it now). P.S I have no idea what has gone wrong with the colour saturation on the last few images, they look great on my desktop.
Sorry, dont know why Blogger dosnt like next few these images.
Sorry, dont know why Blogger dosnt like next few these images.
Saturday 17 October 2009
Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrylic
Today I spent a good chunk of my time getting my scanner and graphics tablet installed correctly (it took me a lot longer than it should have). They are both working well so I moved onto my next task. I wanted to better familiarize myself with adobe illustrator so set myself the task of completing a tutorial I pulled out of “Computer Arts” magazine.
I found this tutorial for creating ornate lettering while rooting around in my universities library. It stood out to me immediately so I figured id give it a go. The tutorial was created by a chap called “Jeff Finley” who co-owns “Go Media”, theirs some great typography on his page, he also links to a lot of work by other people that he recommends.
I found this tutorial for creating ornate lettering while rooting around in my universities library. It stood out to me immediately so I figured id give it a go. The tutorial was created by a chap called “Jeff Finley” who co-owns “Go Media”, theirs some great typography on his page, he also links to a lot of work by other people that he recommends.
Anywhoo I quickly sketched out the words that I wanted to convert (I am afraid I took a little bit to much influence from Jeff Finley’s original design) Speed was the name of the game today (hence the shameless copying) but here is the typography I sketched out. I got round to drawing round it all in Illustrator but have moved on to other tasks before finishing it.
I also followed a quick tutorial I found on “Tutorialzied” however I didn’t take enough care in following it properly and mine looks a little rough.
I also rattled off the makings of a quick storyboard today, I aim to produce vast numbers of these by Christmas just as a way of getting as many ideas on to paper as possible. It is a simple introduction to the Super Barrio character.
Anyhow tomorrow I cant see myself doing to much work (perhaps a little in the morning) as I am popping over to
Anyway before I turn in for the night here are a couple of Images of Super barrio I have created, on the covers of my two note pads just so I always have the subject on my mind.
Wednesday 14 October 2009
Final Year at University
From this point onwards until next July, almost all of my posts will be directly related to my final year of study of animation at the University of Huddersfield. For this final year of study I have been given a completely open brief. I intend to produce a short animated film, somewhere between one and three minutes in length, however the first hurdle was to find a subject matter that would keep me interested for long enough.
The starting point that I have chosen came to me whilst I was reading a book on the subject of Masks. In the prologue of the book the author describes,
"The story of the Masked Mexican wrestler, who defends the rights of the impoverished. When thugs come to evict them from their land in the slums, he shows up in his mask to defend the poor and chase away the debt collectors".
Upon reading this piece of text last spring I became immediately excited and had to tell all of my flat mates about this amazing man living in Mexico City. His name is "Super Barrio Gomez" or more commonly "Super Barrio".
He seems to be something of a modern legend and it is easy to find information about him on the Webb, but like any legend I found that the information in the first piece of text that I read about him might be a little exaggerated. It turns out that he is a protester who believes his message should be put across without the use of violence. So this destroys the Zorro Esq images in my mind of him forcefully chasing away anyone who intended to cause harm or take advantage of the disadvantaged.
However even though my research has turned up some narrative hurdles, it does not change the fact that when I first considered using "Super Barrio" as the starting point for my final year of study I felt sparks/lightning/thunder, whatever you like to call it. I believe that the subject matter will be enough to keep me focused for the next 8 months.
The starting point that I have chosen came to me whilst I was reading a book on the subject of Masks. In the prologue of the book the author describes,
"The story of the Masked Mexican wrestler, who defends the rights of the impoverished. When thugs come to evict them from their land in the slums, he shows up in his mask to defend the poor and chase away the debt collectors".
Upon reading this piece of text last spring I became immediately excited and had to tell all of my flat mates about this amazing man living in Mexico City. His name is "Super Barrio Gomez" or more commonly "Super Barrio".
He seems to be something of a modern legend and it is easy to find information about him on the Webb, but like any legend I found that the information in the first piece of text that I read about him might be a little exaggerated. It turns out that he is a protester who believes his message should be put across without the use of violence. So this destroys the Zorro Esq images in my mind of him forcefully chasing away anyone who intended to cause harm or take advantage of the disadvantaged.
However even though my research has turned up some narrative hurdles, it does not change the fact that when I first considered using "Super Barrio" as the starting point for my final year of study I felt sparks/lightning/thunder, whatever you like to call it. I believe that the subject matter will be enough to keep me focused for the next 8 months.
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