Editing the A3 Poster

I have made some changes to Michael's original A3 poster design.

This was the original poster

This is the edited version

I thought that the background of the psoter needed more colour, and to match the colour scheme of the A4 poster, which was a green background. It originally had a red and yellow background, but after discussing it with the group, I then changed it to green. I used a gradient and then used a Pixellate effect on Photoshop to make it look like comic book dot shading. I also added a coloured glow to the superheroes to make them stand out, like the glow added n Ben's posters.

Second Set of Illustrations

These were done with the same drawing style of the first set of illustration, but I drew them with action poses similar to the ones from the comic book covers.

Creating Illustrations from Photos

To go with the transformation theme and to "morph" the faces of us and the froes together, I have used the pictures we took a few days ago as reference pictures so the pictures fit together properly.

I started by tracing over the original image, and then adding the superhero motif to each of us. I have used a lot of black on the outlining as shading, because when I was looking at comic book heroes, a lot of black was used in the lines and shading of the characters.

I then added the base colours for the character. Again, from looking at comic, the colours used were bight, so I went with bright colours for the costumes and based the skin and hair colours of the photos given.

For the shading, I had one layer which I filled with black on the parts I wanted, and lowered the opacity so it would be a dark shade for all the colours, rather than just black.

Finally, I added white highlights to the pictures for the lighter shading.

Character Designs

For my superhero design, I have gone with a simple theme, of using bold colours on the uniforms so we all match, as if we were a team of superheroes. As well as this, I have also added a 'M' motif into the designs to go with the name 'Morphed'. The 'M' is in the masks and the costume design on the front. I have also added some media-themed weapons for the heroes to use to make it look like we are design heroes. The ideas I have come up with include a tablet pen, a bow and arrow with a mouse cursor as the arrow, and a camera.

Composition Ideas

As I was tasked with coming up with coming up with compositions for the poster, I have designed three different designs, which I have since shown to my team mates.

This poster composition was created with the discussions we had in class in mind. One of the ideas we had was to have photos of ourselves with one side of our face being hero and the other half being a regular photo. For this composition, I have the four of us with our faces in the background, with the four heroes in the foreground. There is also some space for a title and show info at the top and bottom.

The is an idea I had for the A4 poster. The diea was to make it themes around a comic book cover, which are generally A4 sized.They would focus on the action posed illustrations rather than the photos, and we could have one poster for the each of us. It would be simple enough to change the poster for each of us, as the difference would be changing the art to another person.

My final idea is based of a comic strip, rather than the cover. It has various panels which shows the transformation of us from regular people to the superheroes. Again, the show info and title are shown at the top and bottom.

Scheduling

To get all of the work done on time, we have put together a schedule for each part of the project to be done, as well as who is doing what part of the project.
Everyone in the group agreed to come up with the ideas and the visual style of the show. We split our group into two to think up compositions for the posters and video. Two will think up typography and taglines, whilst the other two will come up with the layout for the poster. Since then, I have started to come up with poster ideas.
I have been tasked with drawing the illustrations for the posters and 30 second video, so I need to start working towards completing my images around a week before deadline.

Looking at Comic Books

I have looked at various comic book covers to look at the artistic styles used and to get ideas for my compositions.

Many of the covers have the superheroes in action-like poses. The colours used range from very bright high contrast colours to black for the shading on the characters. To replicate this style, I shall also use bright colouring on my illustrations, as well as using black and white as the main colours for my shading, to contrast with the colours.

Group Project - End of year show prep

For this project, we have been put into groups to work on a identity for the end of year show. This includes an overall theme, A3 and A4 poster designs, and a promo video.
Our first idea was a colourful, hippie theme, and neon style.
After discussing ideas in a group of four, we have developed our idea from a comic book theme. I originally thought this would branch off from the colour hteme that was suggested by others in the group, and from the original comic idea we have come up with an idea that shows off our own personal skills and traits in a cohesive design theme.
The main idea is to make ourselves the superheroes, and have 'alter egos' to ourselves that represent our design talents. Coming up with a name for our theme was done by thinking up words that mean 'change', such as transforming into our 'designer' selves. Some of the words that we came up with include progress, metamorphosis, grow, unfold, develop, journey, transform. Morph was the word that we liked the most out of these, and we felt that we needed to change the word a little to make it sound more like a title for a superhero poster. Morphus or Morphed were the words discussed, and we eventually decided on Morphed.

From this, we are coming up with a time plan to schedule ourselves so be get it all done to the deadline.

Using After Effects for Animating

My animation was animated in a similar way to my previous projects, with the images moving, as well as certain parts of the pictures having their own animated parts, such as character's arms.

After having messed up timelines on other projects, I have put the separate scenes in their own compositions this time so the main timeline wasn't filled up with layers.

Again I have used several techniques in After Effects to animate, such as rotation, positioning and opacity.

Drawing my pictures in Photoshop

I chose to draw all of my pictures in Photoshop because it is easy to create a painted effect with the various brushes that Photoshop has.

After creating the pictures using various layers, I then flattened them to make it easier to place them in After Effects.

For the images that I am going to have movement on, I will cut up the different parts of the image that I want to move and put them on their own layers.

Drawing style

For my video, I am drawing all of my pictures in Photoshop. Here is an example of one of the scenes in my video:

 This is the first scene of my video. It shows the 'goal island' that the people on the first island that they need to get, which has a brighter sky to signify that this is a better place to be than the other one.

New story for my video

After talking about my idea with others, the idea of flight being the main focus of my story has been scrapped because it was not considered a 'different' idea. If flying was possible, everyone would do it, rather than building things to cross to an island.
To keep my original idea fairly similar and a bit more of a believable ending for the story. I am thinking of including a dragon and various obstacles that the people must traverse through to get to the other island. The others think of ways to pass or defeat the dragon, whereas the main character is thinking of befriending the dragon instead so she can cross on it.

Test GIF for animating frame by frame

This is my first test animation, which i made as a gif in Photoshop. I don't know if I will make the whole video frame by frame, so I thought I would test with a sketch animation.

Character designs

These are some of the characters that I am planning to make appear in my animation. They are humanoid, and I went with this character design for ease of drawing and to make the world they live in to seem like more of a fantasy world.

This is the main character I have designed. I have designed her to cover herself up with her hair/clothing a lot to make me come across as somebody who doesn't have confidence in their ideas, and keep everything to them self.

Other characters are mainly there to show the variety, and how the main character compares to the other. The other characters are all colourful, whilst the main character is a light grey, devoid of colour, more of a blank canvas.

Area where video is set

I have created an image of the two islands where the video is set. The one which is considered the 'goal' island is represented as being a nicer place to be than the other, which has dark clouds surrounding it etc. The islands represent the start and end of something, with the start being a struggle and the end being a feeling of relief.

A guide for animating characters in After Effects

http://provideocoalition.com/ryoung/story/animate_a_character_in_after_effects
This website provides several different ways of animating characters in After Effects.

The tutorials show how to import iamges from illustrator, showing how to layer the images so they can be animated, and how to change things like the anchor points on the characters so the limbs can move. I have found these videos helpful in thinking of how I am going to animate my final piece, as I am still undecided whether I should do it frame-by-frame or by separately animating pieces of the characters.

These are also tutorials for animating 3D models in After Effects, but I don't think I will be using 3D space in my animations.

Making my idea less literal

For my video, I was to make a story that could be more visually appealing than just someone trying to come up with an idea. I want to convey the message through a metaphor. My first thoughts are to make the video a metaphor for thinking up ideas, including the struggle to think them up and then the journey to getting to the finished product.

Taking the quote and forming a proposal

I have chosen to look at the quote by Susan Sontag.
“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
From what I can gather from this quote, it is saying that we you just do what went, block out all distractions, pay full attention to what we are doing. When paying full attention to what we are doing, we can do whatever we set our minds to. So we should keeping doing stuff, do not wait for other people’s input, keep going ,and pay full attention to what we are doing. Pay attention and stay eager.

For my design, I am proposing to create a video, which would be fully animated. Taking the quote into consideration, the video could be about the struggles of coming up with ideas, and turning them into their own creations. A person, metaphorically, having inner struggles with their own ideas, constantly being distracted by their own thoughts and worries. The person eventually tries to clear their minds of these, and pays full attention to what they are trying to create, and eventually creates their best piece of work yet. The video could start with them scrapping many failed ideas, with many thoughts piling up in their head as they are throwing away the ideas. They eventually get a single idea, and put their full concentration on this idea, focusing and putting their fully attention on it, blocking out all thoughts. Whilst building up said idea, the background and overall artstyle of the video could go from dark, monochrome colours to eventually becoming and colourful, symbolising the “vitality” and “eager”ness of focusing on this idea and making it work. The animation does necessarily have to be about a person thinking of an idea, the video could merely be about the idea of focusing on something to get it done to a great standard.

The video itself will be animated in either Flash or After Effects, and I will be drawing all assets for this piece. As mentioned previously, the start of the video could use a dull colour palette which eventually changes to be vibrant and colourful to fit the mood of the video. I have chosen to use animation rather than video as animation allows for exaggerated expressions on characters

Looking at existing animations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OumHY4gVgTg
This video is called 'Windmills' uses a mixure of 3D animation and detailed backgrounds, which look like they have been painted.

The detailed imagery used in the video is inpiring as I could create a similar effect using Photoshop brushes and textures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URNlAFP1KPY
'A World of Thing' uses a much different art style, which would be more suitable for using Illustrator for creating the images. It uses a lot of shapes and 2D animation, which would be a simpler approach than drawing everything in a handpainted style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMZQauWPzUU
 This video is similar to what I am creating, as it is an animation that seems to be based off of a quote. It is also created by an animation student, which gives me a kind of goal to reach with my own animation.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACHVwA1D8fE
Tarboy uses 2D animation, and mainly uses silhouettes during the animation. To contrast with the simple art style, there are also some realistic lighting effects used to make it look more dynamic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfkMLf05Ip4
 Taxi is an animation that was solely created in After Effects, and the animation style seems to be using assets created in other programs, and then creating the movement when editing in After Effects. For my video, I could pull off this style as I have some experience with it from past projects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLDyrun_Cc
http://webneel.com/video/seedling-beautiful-2d-animated-short-film
http://webneel.com/2d-animation-best

Independant Project Brief

"Students are asked to choose one of the quotes as a starting point, or to do an independent project totally of their own choice, and formulate a brief, indicating possible avenues they may wish to explore.

This is registered with the Course Leader and constitutes ‘Part One – Proposal’ form (300+ words + reading list), which must include a reading list submitted by you.

‘Part Two – Project Review’ (500 words) is submitted by the students at the end of the module. This review document is self-evaluative in nature and is intended as a tool for you to review the final projects’ intentions and conclusions, alongside all research work and the final project execution.

Both forms are included in the assessment criteria for this module."

From the beginning quotes, I have chosen:
“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.” 
Susan Sontag

Final Poster

This is my final poster, which has taken on the criticisms I received from crit.

Online Exhibition Piece

The piece I have done for the online exhibition is pretty much the same as my poster, however I have proposed some interactive elements for it. I have also changed it from portrait to landscape and made it more like a timeline, so it would fit better on a web browser. The interactive parts would be to click on each artist to bring up a window which gives more information.

History of XL Poster, in more of a timeline form than my poster.

When clicking on an artist, it brings up an info screen about the XL event, as well as a profile of the artist.

Crit Feedback

 

This was the first version of my poster, which I showed at crit. The style I used for this poster was similar to that of Ralph Steadman and Jim Shaw, using a sketchy style making it look like it was drawn on paper. 

The feedback I got was mostly positive, praising my drawing style used n the picture, and like the was the poster was laid out. Main criticisms of this poster was that the lines are not clear enough, it is a family tree or a time line? More details in general should be added to the poster, such as making the artists stand out of the poster more. There should also be more artists added to the poster, showing the whole history of XL recordings. The XL Recordings text is also unnecessary, and a suggestions given would be putting the XL logo in the bottom-right of the poster.

Photoshop Drawing Techniques

For all of my drawings I used the same technique, which involved using a sketchy, blod outlined style like that of artists I looked at.

I would start by drawing the outline, whilst looking at the reference picture. I would shade parts of the outline to add more depth to the outline and the picture overall. The brush used for the outlines it a thin, pen brush at around 50% opacity.

My shading was done with a completely different brush, and the shading style I have gone for is a light sketchy style to make it look like it was shaded with a pencil. The brush is one of Photoshop's default, which is like a paintbrush-like, but gives a sketch-like effect when set at a low opacity.

The background is done in the same style as the colouring of the main image. I used this colour as it was the background colour of the album which the original image was from.

Illustrators - Ronald Searle

Ronal Searle is another cartoonist, similar to Jim Shaw. Again, this is another artist that uses a lot of bold, black lines in their artwork, and this work in particular show it to good effect. As seen by these pictures, his art is very cartoonish, which is not the style I am using for my pictures, but the colouring style itself is like the one I want to use in my own pictures, whilst adding a bit of colour to my pieces.

Illustrators - Jim Shaw

Jim Shaw's art is mostly a black/white style like Ralph Steadman, but his art style differs as it is more realistic than cartoon-like. Much of his art is done on different surfaces than just paper, for example he has done many art pieces on walls.

Illustrators - Ralph Steadman

Ralph Steadman is a cartoonist, whose art can be described as "distorted, splattered, and gritty". The main thing I like about his art style is the used of black and white, where he uses a lot of the black outlining as shading, whilst adding some colours. These pictures in particular have a papery background, adding to the gritty nature of his drawings. When drawing my picture, I shall try using bold outlines and a gritty, sketch-like style.

Photos I Used as References

For drawing my picture for my poster, I have used various photos of the artists as references to draw from, in order to capture their likeness.

http://rockisagirlsbestfriend.com/2010/01/25/radiohead-for-haiti-at-the-henry-fonda/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Stripes

http://esensja.stopklatka.pl/esensjopedia/obiekt.html?rodzaj_obiektu=11&idobiektu=33936

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/events/Drake/drake-performing-at-manchester-evening-news-arena-07.html

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1158521/xls-richard-russell-on-adele-six-grammy-noms-whats-next-bobby-womack

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1139386/You-wont-Mothercare-British-rapper-MIA-performs-Grammys-sheer-dress-babys-date.html

http://allabouttherock.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/prodigy_106_1146.jpg

http://www.pinterest.com/saucykipper1/the-devine-comedy-and-neil-h/

http://www.cable-london.com/broadcast/single/dizzee-rascal-boy-in-da-corner-10-years-on

http://randb.about.com/od/photogalleries/ig/2012-Grammys-Photo-Gallery/AdeleWins.htm