I SEE FACES
>Own voice
>Context
>Brief driven
>Self determined
>Product
>Ambitious
ANSWER THE BRIEF
BLOW MINDS
Drawing characters from list -
>My heart sank a little when I found out this is both a character and digital brief - my two nemeses. I've always been terrible as character because I think too literally instead of being experimental and just having fun. And always being a hands approach worker, the thought of producing my work digitally was just a terrifying.
>My heart sank a little when I found out this is both a character and digital brief - my two nemeses. I've always been terrible as character because I think too literally instead of being experimental and just having fun. And always being a hands approach worker, the thought of producing my work digitally was just a terrifying.
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| List |
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| dance moves |
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| iPhone battery life |
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| everyones obsession with cheese |
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| everyones obsession with cheese |
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| camels |
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| tigers |
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| tigers |
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| cutting onions - makes you cry |
Im very pleased and pleasantly surprised with the result I got from my drawings. I thought that instead of sulking that I couldn't draw realistic images I thought that experiment with materials and shape to see what works best. CRITICAL INCIDENT I think I've finally lost my mind and started to not spend time on each drawing and just draw the first thing that came into my head which worked so well to create characters! How have I not done this before!
I saw that collage and simple shaped characters work best, as the focus is on the type of character rather than the way in which it is made - which is more important (CONTEXT). I also think that the watercolour and pen characters worked well too, as it is a quick and easy way to produce work. Because of this, I am planning on using these techniques later on in my production of characters.
The themes that I think worked the best was the cutting onions, cheese obsession and tigers. This is because I found it easy to produce lots of characters out of one subject, I felt like I could carry on these themes further without running out of ideas quickly. I particularly enjoyed the cheese obsession theme, as I found myself coming carried away in the character development as there's so many shapes and colours that I could explore.
From my feedback, it's made me think a lot about the importance of character and what I'm trying to show with it. I need to try and show some emotion or personality within the drawing instead of it just looking nice - mainly the tigers. Because of this I am going to choose the cheese and onion, especially as they already look like characters in my rough ideas so I just need to give them some development in terms of media and shape. This feedback has really improved my confidence for the project and can't wait to see the result!
JON BOAM WORKSHOP
Considering that I've never enjoyed character making or drawing quickly to generate lots of images, I really enjoyed the Jon Boam character workshop. I liked how there was no right or wrong way of drawing the object and verb but just to create the first thing that comes into your heads, not thinking about it too much. It made me realise that this is actually the best way to come up with characters, as overthinking just makes it too complicated which characters really don't need to be. I also enjoyed the exercise which you had to create a character out of random shapes. I think this is a great way to generate unique ideas, as the outcomes are never anything that you can just come up with on the top of your head. I would like to try this method later in my own work, as I feel that I can come up with generic ideas.
CREATING THE GIF
......'how am I actually going to put this together?'
>a little more character experimentation - pencil texture collage
>thinking about the movement of the GIF to make it look professional and making sure that it actually works as a loop
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| How do eyes, arms and legs move? |
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| Storyboarding |
>I thought that this may be the best approach as I have never done this before so thought it be wiser to do a simple thing well then a complicated thing badly. Sometimes I think the simple ones work best!
>again I tried to stick to simple storyboards. But thought I should attempt to do a slightly more complicated one with the onion cutting the human, as the idea just popped into my weird brain and thought it shows the message behind it well with humour which I enjoy putting into my work. I'm quite excited to look into how I'm going to make it loop and make it work as GIF as I think if it's done properly will look great!
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| Onion character development - pencil and pen |
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| Storyboarding |
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| Storyboarding |
>These are two GIF ideas that I definitely want to create. I think giving my characters props and an unusual verb (as I realised in the Jon Boam workshop) gives the character more of a personality or point instead of just standing or walking along. It also adds to the hilarity of it, I don't think many people have seen a large piece of cheddar blowing a party blower..
>Now I just need to refine these ideas further, how will they loop and how adjusting things like proportion and viewpoint affects the composition.
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| texture making experiments |
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| 'what works best?' |
>another reason why I chose this, is because this approach was favoured in my feedback from others. I think it's very important to take in what others think as you can get so caught up in your own work to notice mistakes. Especially after watching the apprentice and understanding the importance of market research, which the candidates still seem to fail to grasp.
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| texture making experiments |
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| texture making experiments |
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| texture making experiments |
INTERM CRIT FEEDBACK
>the group feedback session made me realise I need to do three things which I didn't realise myself
1. Make sure the cheese looks like cheese
>instead of just having a yellow rectangle, give it some holes or blue cheese texture to make it really obvious what it is, instead of confusing the viewer "why is there a yellow square blowing a party blower??"
2. The onion cutting human GIF has to loop!!!
>not too sure how I've managed to bypass the fact it has to loop but must be addressed immediately!
>puts the board to one side then grabs another?????
3. The angle of the cheese
>doing the cheese from the front view will make it harder to draw a party blower accurately and without confusion.
>doing it from the SIDE! - problem solved
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| problem solving and story boards |
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| storyboards |
still need GIF three!
>simple yet effective...
...crying onion?
>doesn't need much to show what I'm trying to say
(onions making you cry)
GIF ONE
GIF ONE
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| crying onion GIF |
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| body parts for GIF |
>I struggled a lot with moving the arms, because I wasn't aware that if you rotate the layer in one frame that it moves all of the frames which was quite frustrating.. but I quickly learnt that you just need to create more layers! Which wasn't confusing at all...
>note to self for next time - give layers names
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| RESULT 1 |
>I also like the use of textured backgrounds and shape, it gives the GIF more elements to look at and also makes it less flat.
>although I feel like something is missing...
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| FINAL RESULT |
>I really enjoyed the monoprint workshop and thought that I must try and include some of my prints in my GIFs. I chose this print as the colours were very similar and the face in the background is like an abstract copy of the onion's face which I think adds to the bizarreness of the aesthetic.
>I also increased the size of the teardrop. Seeing as the fact that he is crying is the whole point behind the GIF, I thought that I need to make this element massively highlighted.
>But, I think that this GIF is maybe too simple, so I am planning on increasing the complexity in my next GIFs.
>Because I had already done eyes very similar to this, most of making this GIF was (luckily) very easy. The cheese is also quite static, so not much of him had to be moving. Although I struggled with the party blower as I found it hard to actually make it look like a party blower and not some strange lizard tongue. I also needed to make sure I had the same amount of frames of the eyes closing and party blower blowing so they were in sync with each other to make it properly look like he is blowing it.
>the elements I like the most from this GIF is the eye and party blower. I like how the eye is huge and looks like it's curved, it adds a strange human quality to the cheese which I quite enjoy. I think that the party blower is very obviously a party blower, so I'm glad that is very clear.
>twitching arm? PROBLEM SOLVED
GIF TWO
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| cheese party GIF |
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| RESULT 1 |
>I also like how the background very subtly changes in opacity, it adds another element to the GIF which you probably won't even really register unless someone points it out, which I like because it's just a background, obviously not the main focus.
>but I think the twitching arm needs to be static, not too sure what happened there...
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| FINAL GIF |
>also got rid of the weird line that was in the background
>I am happy with this GIF, as like before it says what I wanted it to say - everyone seems to celebrate and love cheese but I have no idea why everyone is so obsessed by it (the blank expression on the cheese's face mimicking mine)
>Although I still think that it's too safe, I really need to create something more complex in my next GIF - be more ambitious!!!
>Although I still think that it's too safe, I really need to create something more complex in my next GIF - be more ambitious!!!
GIF THREE
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| INSPIRATION FOR GIF 3 |
>It also has a humour element to it, as I flipped the idea of onions making people cry to onions crying when they cut humans. It also gives the GIF a purpose/meaning, which I usually struggle with a lot with my work as I focus too much on the craft of the work instead of the context.
>I was inspired by this GIF for my final one. I wanted to do something that looks like he's endlessly doing something tedious. It will also make it the most complex of the three, as it has a lot more moving elements. I'm hoping that if done well it will look great!
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| cutting humans make onions cry GIF |
>By doing the previous two GIFs it certainly is becoming easier and faster to create the GIFs, especially the simple parts like making the onion blink.
> PROBLEM SOLVING - I was worried how I would make the onion push the chopping board away and grabbing a new one from the side within the limit of 25 slides. But when I was working on him pushing the board away, I accidentally left on one of the layers and it looked like he just had a new board underneath like an endless pile of chopping boards CRITICAL INCIDENT! This created a much easier way for me to loop my GIF within the frame limit.
>Although I struggled a lot with the arms, making them look like they're actually moving without being to static.
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| RESULT 1 |
>I'm quite pleased with my first result, because it looks like he's cutting it and works well as a loop. I also like the combination of textures and message behind the GIF.
>BUT I really need to sort the arm that's pushing away the board because it looks like his arm is just coming out of the socket
>Also his knife wouldn't be clean if he was cutting loads of humans
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| FINAL GIF |
>I sorted out the arm by using the lightbox and redrew the arm extending and the top of the arm staying in the same place - very much improved! looks a lot more realistic than his arm coming out of his socket and across his body...
>I also added some blood on his knife which I think makes the GIF look more twisted and kind of scary, but I quite like how it does that! Makes it look weirder which is always fun
>Because I really enjoyed the monoprint workshop I had to add another print to my GIF by putting it in the background. Same as the first onion GIF I like having the abstract version of the onion face in the background, again making it look slightly more surreal.
FINAL EVALUATION
Overall I am happy with how my GIFs turned out, especially as I have never worked with animation before. What I learnt out of this brief is to be experimental with materials and trying and testing to see what ones work best to the environment. This is something I'll definitely take with me in future briefs, as my choice of media here I think is the most successful element of the GIFs so shows that it is a very important factor to consider. But the most important thing that I found is to not overthink and just draw! Play is such an important part of character making, which before I naively never really thought about. This has actually BLOWN MY MIND and is evident in my visual language module, as character work has crept it's way in there. It's effecting the way I work for the best and making me really enjoy creating work!! This is a massive turning point for me in my creative practice and has changed the way I think about work.
Although, I think that I could have been more experimental with the animation of the GIFs, especially in the first two. I think I played it far too safe and although they work as a GIF, they don't stand out in your mind and not very technically advanced. But they do communicate the idea that onions make you cry and everyone loves and glorifies cheese, which I suppose is one of the most important things as that is what the brief was required. It's also the whole point of what illustration is, as it communicates and idea/point to the viewer.
I really enjoyed making these GIFs, which surprised me as I usually hate doing any kind of computer work. But I'm very glad to have found a new way of producing work and I will definitely make more GIFs in the future.
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