Minor Project: More Animal Thumbs 03

Here are several more animal thumbnails, this will be the last set for now before I start heading into making the animatic. I'll post up the chosen animals in a later post, at the moment from this lot, I'm liking numbers 1,2 and 6.

Minor Project: More Animal Thumbs 02

More thumbnails drawn up, I've noticed that not a lot of aqautic species are listed extinct during the 17th to the 19th century. Therefore most of the animals I've drawn here are mostly birds or land based. I'm liking numbers 2, 4 and 5. :D

Minor Project: First animal thumbs 01

Using my influence maps from my previous post, below I have experimented the style onto some extinct animals within the time period, even though they closely resemble to the animals that we currently see alive. Numbers 1 and 2 have the same animal, the dodo only 1 was the original character drawn until it looked a bit too much like a chicken or some bird. At the moment, I like numbers 2,4,5,8 and 9.

Minor Project: Influence maps

For my characters to look child-like and simple, I've looked at mainly Eric Carle and Charley Harper for artistic style, using various materials, brushes and simple shapes to make the characters unique. I've also looked at cartoons that are slightly similar to their works on tv like Elmer the patchwork elephant, Yoko, Jakamoto Toto and other tv shows.

Minor Project: Project development- Tutorial 01

After having a tutorial with Alan, it was decided to think about what characters would be needed in the animation. I wasn't sure whether to go with one from each category like: land, sea and air, or if it should be from a specific time period. For this, I felt that extinct animals between the 17th century to the 19th century would be a good time to look, in particular the 19th century as more animals had become extinct due to wars and hunting. Thumbnails to come!! :D

Minor Project: Ideas

After having a discussion with TutorPhil, I've thought about creating a short animation based on extinct wildlife animals and make awareness of this. I've been looking at some charity campaign animations to help develop some ideas. Here's some of the ideas that I've came up with:

• A  food chain where one animal gets eaten by another larger animal, which then gets eaten by another larger animal and gets eaten again by another,which until then visualizes from its eyes that humans take advantage of that animal's nature (ie, elephant gets taken advantage because of its ivory tusks)
• The animals are stylized as origami models which the paper "folds" itself to become the specific animal.
• Animals are represented by a material that would become the cause of their deaths. 
• Animals that forms a tree which then gets cut by humans and is left with a footprint/ tree stump.
• A story of 2 animals who together tries to overcome the harsh life of survival.

More ideas to follow!

The videos below are something I found interesting, showing connection between animals and humans.

The MIDWAY trailer is something I've happen to stumble across which documents what could be found inside animals mainly birds that could be the reason for the cause of their deaths.


 
I've also looked at "Walking with Beasts" for some species that were completely wiped out many years ago.

Minor Project: New Start!

Summer's gone and now its time for another new project: Minor project. This project is about using what we've learnt over the years and apply this into something that we've want to make out of as a final outcome. I'm too excited to start this project!! ^_^

I'll draw up some ideas in a later post-watch this space!! :D

Chinese brush painting

With the Mid-Autumn Festival about to start in a few days, I had a chance to participate in a Chinese brush painting workshop. I've haven't done brush painting before so all of this is pretty much new to me. We started the lesson with some history from our tutor, Lisa and knowing our brushes and Chinese inks. We started off with some try outs in painting bamboo and flowers. The red signature mark means my tutor approves. :)

  

The image below is the final composition using all the techniques we learnt. 

BA Visuals Work Experience: Media Festival

Following up from the last project that I had during my BA visuals work experience, another project was around the corner. This time the project was for a media festival and the clients were more specific on styles and direction along with phrases for the layouts. The theme was mainly summer based whilst looking at Mat Maitland as an artist reference for the wild collages. The development stage was a long process, with many drafts and experiments on the 2D and 3D side of things. 

Initial thumbs:

1

2

3

4

Revised drafts (Drafts 5 and 7 were put forward)

5

6

7

8

9

10

Neon layouts (modelled on Maya):

11

12

13

I've enjoyed working as part of a visuals team during my work placement, especially with this project creating 2D and 3D neon signs, creating collages and animating them. I've learned a lot and have gained more confidence in both Maya and After Effects, which hopefully I can use the things I've learned towards my third year projects. :D

Animations: