Thursday, December 13, 2012

D4M Welcome Erasure ● Week 5 ● Final

Alright, so I finally finished it!!  It's not four in the morning, no.  Anyways, here it is.


It has been looped three times, otherwise it is roughly fifteen seconds long.

I'm just going to reiterate that the idea behind this video was to be an opening to a website or the likes (that's why it says welcome).

Monday, December 3, 2012

D4M Welcome Erasure ● Week 4

This is almost the last post of the project.  Whoa.  I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

This week I have been working on the hand.  I know it doesn't look like much.  It's because I'm not done yet, of course.  You'll get the finished goods next week.  Anyways, here it is.


And here's a GIF of it



I was originally trying to get it done in one go, but it took forever to shade in the hands the scratch way, so I began just showing the outlines.  It has not been ghosted yet.  Again, it's not finished.  This is only a sneak peek.

Until next time.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

D4M Welcome Erasure ● Week 3

Alright, so I have been working on my little wisp creature this week.  I finished fleshing out all of the boards. I have yet to ghost them.  I'm not sure if my timing is up to snuff though.  I also would like to add a little more fluff when the wisp hits the wall.  Make it hold longer.


I'm trying to look at other videos for references to it.  Here's one that I have found:


I have a very rough video clip of what my hand erasing will look like.  But I think I'm going to retake it the next time I get a hold of a camera because it seems too shaky for me.


I'll be having an eraser in my hand when I draw it out.  I'm not a steady left-hand-camera-holder.  The tripod it'll be.

Until next time.

Monday, November 19, 2012

D4M Welcome Erasure ● Week 2

So this is the rough game plan for how I plan this erasure to go.

I will have a little wisp dance around.  It will then hit a wall.  I'm not sure whether powder of a liquid will drip down when it smacks into the wall, but it will zoom out and you'll see welcome spelled out.  Then my hand will erase it and the process will start again.

I wanted the wisp to look more like those in Avatar; however, because it's leading you to the welcome image, it's going to be similar to the ones in Brave as well.

Concept ideas for the wisp


Now, I've also done a little test animated piece of what the wisp will do.  The path you seen drawn out in the course of the wisp that I intend for it to take.






I have also been fiddling around with how I want the "Welcome" to look.  I have created my design based off of three other fonts.  I'm not positive if I want to keep it roughed out like it was drawn, or to give it a finished look like the fonts that I used in example.



Monday, November 12, 2012

D4M: Student Choice Project Proposal

This has been such a difficult concept for me to create.  There's so much out there; however, there isn't a whole lot of time.  So in consideration of all that, this is what I have in mind:

My goal is to create an animation, albeit it may be a rough one, that'll work as a welcome or introduction piece about me.  This would be something you may see at the beginning of a website, or maybe an opening to a biography.

However, I want to do a specific type of animation.  Erasures.  Now, I have dabbled with these before; you can see some of my examples below.

as well as


The first video was the first erasure animation I've ever done.  It's very simplistic, but I want to incorporate its ability to loop in my final project.  The second animation is a bit more stylized, which I want to be the main component in the animation.

Here is an animation that I found that use erasures in the typical charcoal medium.  I plan on using a more computer and graphic approach to the animation.

William Kentridge's "Automatic Writing"

I intend to work along this timeline:


I can't wait to see how this turns out. 

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

D4M: Project Lost Files Check-In [LAST]


So I spent last Tuesday doing a bit of touch ups in the end credits as per Director's orders.  She wanted me to add and remove a few people from the credits.  If you want to see them, you must come to our screening (see below).

This Thursday we'll be seeing our animation up on the big screen in case anyone wants to join.

In the meanwhile, I have been looking to see if we could submit our animation to anything.  This is what I have found so far:


These places were selected under the impression that an animation could be considered as a film.

I hope you will attend our screening.  If you want more information about the time and location, please click here.

Friday, November 2, 2012

D4M: Project Lost Files Check-In 5

This week I finally finished the credits!  Yay!  It only took me 10+ tries to get it right.  But no matter.


We were a bit worried with getting rights to the music we wanted, but we asked the maker and they gave us permission, which is really exciting, because then we don't have to find some other music last minute.

Anyway, I have also worked on colouring scene 14 from our animation.  This is a scene has Lacie (the girl) and the good idea.

The screening for our animation will be taking place next Thursday at the Gateway Film Center.
For more information click here.

Monday, October 29, 2012

D4M: Project Lost Files Check-In 4

Hi!

I have still been working on the credits for the animation piece.  I've put a lot more in from previously.  I sped it up.  But after careful consideration, I really have not liked that it's sped up.  So I'll be slowing it back down.  Also, since we don't know exactly what music we'll be using, I've left that slot blank.   The credits are still uncompleted.  I need to readjust the roles that the crew members are contributing.




Since I have spent much of last Tuesday defining everyone's roles, I have come to the understanding that all is not as it seems....  Pretty much, we're not exactly following the the assignments we had signed up for.  That's not a bad thing.

Here's an example of the work that I did to identify what everyone should be doing.


If you want to see the more of the list, please click here.
I have also done the weekly Thursday recap, as always.

So, please, stay tuned.

Monday, October 22, 2012

D4M: Project Lost Files Check-In 3

I've been working for the most part this past week on the credits.  I've compiled the list of the people that have helped in the creation of this project and I've been adjusting and editing some of their roughs as parts of the credits.  It still isn't completed.  I am not sure how much I can do without the progress of other members in the project and having access to some of their animations or images.

These are the credits so far:
You should note that there are no more images/animations after 11 seconds.

I plan, when I have more images, to intersperse them between animations, so they're not clumped in patches throughout the credits.

I have also done the weekly Thursday recap.

Nothing new has been created, but we've been working on what we have and uploading our pieces bit by bit onto our dropbox account.

-Christine

Monday, October 15, 2012

D4M: Project Lost Files Check-In 2

So, now I'm recapping.  I've been the eavesdropper in the group by being the scribe and I know everything that's going on:

  • Animators are beginning to play around with the characters and they produced a little demo reel.
  • I, along with the head of editorial, created a website.  It wasn't that bad, but when we were editing the design of the website, we ran into a lot of technical difficulties to the point where when we finally succeeded creating the website we envisioned, we were quite ecstatic.
  • You should also note that there's been a rough animatic created for the animation.
  • Also, a Facebook page has been made, YouTube account, and the best of all, a logo.


All of these links are provided on our blog.  However, if you want to go now, they're down below.

Website
YouTube Account
Facebook Page

Thursday, October 4, 2012

D4M: Project Lost Files Check-In

So now that all the voting has settled, I've teamed up with Project Emma!  Ha ha, but I have actually joined Emma's pipeline.  We'll be working to create a 2D animation.  If you'd like to see the original proposal, click here.

My role(s) in the team are as 
  • scribe/pipeline (aka the secretary) - as of now, I organize and keep track of what is going on during the meetings.
  • animator - self-explanatory
  • publication - possible make a book once the process is done, like a "the art of...." kind of book.  Who knows?
Anyway... if you want to see the progress that I've contributed to the team so far, please check out our blog!  I have submitted the notes for everyone to see, published the director's goals and where she wants us to be by the next meeting, as well as set up a crew list with Renee.

I have also dabbled a bit into the festival aspect, if we were to submit and I have found this one festival that's deadline is shortly after our project is finished.  However, it is in Spain.  So if we get accepted, maybe a flight?  I'm not sure.  Anyway, this is the one: Libelula Animation Festival.

I am excited for this project.  I can't wait to see how it turns out.  I hope you're interested as well.

-Christine

Sunday, September 30, 2012

D4M: Project 2 Proposal

Next on the Agenda, each person must create a proposal for a production.  There may be three winners and therefore three productions created in the class.

My idea consists of short, 2D animated film about small tree people.

The tree people are small, dark men that are born with masks on their face.  In the short, you'll see them performing a ritual dance until a comet falls from the sky and lands in their bonfire.  Smoke and ash rise up in clouds, and when dispersed, you see another tree person crouched where the bonfire used to be.  This is how they are born.  We continue to follow the tree people with their dance until the sun goes up and they morph into trees and rest.

Here are my initial concept sketches:

What a tree person looks like
Example of tree people masks
They circle around the campfire dancing
Example of a dance motion
Comet falling from the night sky towards bonfire
A new tree person is born from the comet and bonfire

Also, this is my organizational flowchart, as well as my timeline, for the said production:

Note that no positions other than Direct, myself, have been chosen.
Organizational Chart

Timeline

I would love to get some feedback.





Tuesday, September 25, 2012

New Blog

Alright guys!  I just want to let you know that I've created a whole separate blog which will be as a portfolio piece where I'll display all my finished works.  This blog will still be running as a process blog.

My new blog address is ChristinePearArt.blogspot.com

You can also reach it through the menu above and hitting "Art."

Thank you for your support and I would love to get some feedback!

Christine

Monday, September 24, 2012

D4M: Menagerie ● Week 4

Alright, so this is it.  I'm done.  And here it is:


I was attempting to blend the animals and their backgrounds all together while maintaining the colour scheme.

So what I did was I first drew the animals in their separate images with the hands and then added them into this rather long landscape and finally touched up with the background and altering the colour tone of the hands.  You can see below here.





Also, here are my last two characters in their final form before they were added to the menagerie composition.





And now I am done.  I hope that you enjoyed this process menagerie.

I wonder what I'll get to do next.

Monday, September 17, 2012

D4M: Menagerie ● Week 3

Alright people, so by this week I have narrowed down my ideas to one.  This was actually quite hard for me because while I really liked one idea more than the other, I loved the palette that I had for the rejected concept.  But I couldn't simply just combine the palettes because they would be such an astronomical contrast between the subject matter and the colour palette.  So now you may be asking (Will she ever get to the point?) which idea I chose.

Well, you'll see below that I chose the idea of the hands creating puppet shadows and those shadows come to life.  I'm still not exactly sure how I am going to set this up.  Should I have it so each puppet shadow is an individual image?  Should I have it so that they are all combined and portrayed in one single composition?  I see these choices as my two main options.  I'm just not exactly which way I want it to go.  However, below you may see what it might look like if they were all put together.


I kind of put in a rough colour scheme for the background.  I figured woods for the wolf, grass and greenery for the rabbit and the dark purple as a night sky for the bat.  I may need to re-shoot the wolf hand if I am to collage the images together into one rather long set (seen above) because the lighting seems really off since it's much brighter than the rabbit hand and that's supposedly closer to the light source.  Maybe I can edit it in Photoshop?  Anyway...

I've been working on the bat recently, so I'll give you a little visual of that.  I've been really trying hard to stick to the colour scheme.  But this is still, most definitely, not finished.  I've been working on the bat really close up, and now that I am seeing it smaller up there in the corner, it's really made me consider the lighting.  I'll definitely have to create some sort of depth because right now it seems really flat, which if you consider the wolf, has not been my intention.


I really haven't started much with the rabbit, just the basic positioning of the hand.  I've been mostly taking this one animal at a time.

If you have any feedback for me, I'd love to hear it.


Tuesday, September 11, 2012

D4M: Menagerie ● Week 2 Continued

I've been reworking my colour concepts after I finished that last post and I thought that I'd update my visual intentions.

So after a bit of critique today, I came to the understanding that rather than developing a colour scheme from  my artist I should create a palette inspired by the artist.  Not only that, but that the palette should apply continuously through to all of the characters.  It's tough for me to narrow a colour scheme to something that needs to incorporate a lot of things, but still be called a palette, rather than a rainbow.  Anyways...

This will be the palette inspire by Thomas Thesen's work that will be applied to the bird menagerie of characters:


While this next one will be used for my shadow hand puppet illustrations after considering Tom Whalen's scheme from the images of my last post:



After developing the above palette, I wanted to put it to the test immediately.  Since I wasn't very fond of my last scheme that I made for the wolf, I had to shade it greatly from the colour palette that I originally gave it, so I reworked it.  I think it works much better.  I also believe the way I illustrated the wolf conveys better in this piece than the previous one.


I'm not finished yet.  These are all works in progress.  Mistakes are just part of that process.


Monday, September 10, 2012

D4M: Menagerie ● Week 2

I'm back with colour and more colour!

Remember those two artists I talked about earlier?  Thomas Thesen and Tom Whalen.  Yes, them.  Well, after several good looks at their works I made some colour schemes for them.  Mind you,  I made it for some different photos than the ones that have previously been posted here.  Oh, well.

Thomas Thesen's work is shown here.  For the most part I got this collection from his blog.  Anyways, his work is "A Top View from the Mushroom Forest," "Second Page of Paul Quickaboonip," and "Captain Alistair Quickaboonip."


Using a colour scheme from the three above, I applied it to a bird.  It's a Victoria Crowned Pigeon.  And I know what you're thinking.  It's a pigeon.  Yea, well. it's a pigeon with a feathered mohawk.  So I wasn't really sure what I was going for.  So I tried to do it layers like demonstrated from the last post with the insects from Thalen.  Then I moved onto attempting it with colour.  The final one is to the far right.  I tried to employ the colour scheme chosen from Thalen's image to the best of my ability.  I'm not very good at sticking to a palette.



Next, from Tom Whalen I employed these works: "Spotify Jukebox," "Cobra 10 Cover," and "Certification Training."  They're, for the most parts, illustrations he has done.


Which I adapted to create my own rough image.


I was really really having a hard time with the colour scheme here.  Because all of the colours were just too bright.  So I had to dim the wolf.  It just would not make sense for him to be brighter than the rest of the image (minus the hands).  I was also thinking that instead of having a gradation in the background, but rather morph the trees that a wolf naturally inhabits into nothingness.  Because when people do hand shadows, they're on walls, rather blank walls to enhance the shadow lines.

I was not positive about how I wanted the wolf to look at, so I made many very rough sketches, as a test run.


Anyway, this is what I've been working on lately.  I'll keep you posted.

Until next time.

Monday, September 3, 2012

D4M: Menagerie Kick Off ● Week 1


Artist Hiroshi Hayakawa has inspired to creators of my Design for Media class into a project based off of two of his signature styles of work: Figure as Landscape or Menagerie.  I have chosen the menagerie style.

A menagerie is an anthology of figures or objects related to one another through colour, theme, and design.  However, when I looked it up in the dictionary it specifically related it to animals.  So I took it.  And naturally, I had just gone to the zoo today, and were inspired by all the different birds I saw.  I especially loved the flamingos because of their necks; they were twisted in all sorts of ways.  It was also quite humorous when they would dance by rocking their legs back and forth.  But to get back to the point...


I thought maybe I could make a menagerie with these feathered creatures.  Give them character through drawing techniques or maybe I would make them patterned.  I'm not quite sure how I would do that.  Maybe importing fabrics or paper designs and colour-by-number them?

But let me tell you the two artists that I'm inspired by.

Tom Whalen is an illustrator who has made posters for many companies including Disney, Warner Bros., and DC Comics.  This is an illustration of a book cover he has made for Herring on the Nile:

I chose Whalen for his excellent use of simplicity to magnify an image, as well as his colour palette.  Everything is very well done and there aren't a lot of distractions to take away from a piece like this.
However, I chose my next artist because I love his characterizations.  They're very animated and, yes I must say it, adorable.  It amazes me how he's able to create such personality with very seemingly simple strokes.

Thomas Thesen does illustration, character designs and visual developments.  He has worked for Pixar and Dreamworks animation, as well as freelancing with Netflix and Lionhead.  Below are some of his insect sketches.



I loved how his character designs were really animated and quirky.  Something that I have never quite been able to do but it's something that I have always aspired to.

Which brings me to my second idea.  I wanted to do a sort of hand study in which I would focus on different poses that the hand creates: constrained, twisted, fist-clenched, gestured, or even shadow puppets.


Anyway, that's my thought process so far.  Let's just cross my fingers to see if things manage to work out how I envision them they will.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Welcome

Hi, welcome to my site.  It's fairly sparse currently, but artwork will come in due time. Enjoy yourself.