Tuesday 18 March 2014

Moleskine scans part 2

Here are some more drawings from my sketchbook, in which I tried to draw more than one character to build a less anime like character and revert back to a more western influenced design, Using this process of creating characters has helped me to consider how to give traits to characters, thinking about how the life in which they are situated in would take on their appearance, are they an insomniac? if so would you portray them with dark circles under their eyes, greasy hair and elongated/drained faces from the lack of sleep.
Being in this state of mind has helped me to develop my thought process on how a character would act, their own personality, which has helped me in the Applied Animation project, in which I needed to design the main characters in detail but towards my own approach.




Character design

Character design

character design




Puppet and rhythm sketches

I enjoyed sketching these compositions in the theme of puppet on a string and rhythm as it made me focus on the main shape of the pose and not consider the detail, I thought of it as recording movement than trying to draw well in that short amount of time.
Using charcoal, pencil and marker pen were the best mediums to use as it allowed me to record the movement and add a tone to the piece, for instance if the model was looking down I would be able to smudge the charcoal to give shading to the face, to give the illusion of the model looking down with in the sketch.




I added a diluted purple liquid acrylic to highlight some of the poses which
I thought were dynamic to show the volume of the piece. I preferred the stance
which was couched down and another which was half knelt, about to stand back up pose.
These both differed in atmosphere but worked better with the addition of the purple tint.











Long and short poses

For the long pose I had 20-30 minutes to draw the pose, which felt more relaxed than the previous quick sketches. I mainly drew in graphite using a range from B-6B for shade; I used graphite as I felt that I would still be able to maintain a level of detail rather than using charcoal or pastels to draw in.


For this pose I focused more on the curves and contours of the
body and began to shade to give volume to the figure. I
felt that this was my favourite composition through both the pose
of the model and the proportion that I had used.
For this pose I just could not get her legs right, the perspective was hard to
sketch as her right leg was at an angle which when drawing the leg made
it hard to gain the right length and attach this to the main body. However
I do like the torso and head of the drawing as the perspective works well
and the addition of detail is semi-realistic. It was interesting to draw her hands
as they were both at different angles, and I felt I drew them well, considering
I normally run away from drawing hands.
For this piece, I felt that I got the perspective right however
I made the head too big and which effected the legs, making them look
short. I added depth to the image by tinting the image with a purple
liquid acrylic which worked well as the colour didn't take away
from the piece but highlighted and emphasised the figures pose.
I didn't really like this piece through the proportion of her head to her body,
again I made her head bigger than her body. I do however feel that the figures
proportion and perspective works well.
  
For the next set of images, I had to draw with in the time limit of 5-10 minutes of poses that involved a push or pull force. Having this time limit made me capture the main shapes of the figure more than I did for the long pose, having this time limit made me draw faster maintaining a figure that worked well with the model in mind. I believe if I had forced myself to draw the main body of the long poses with in 5-10 minutes of the time limit I would have produced a better perspective.

This composition works well as I was able to maintain perspective
however I felt that I drew the figure too small, which is partly due to how
far away I was from the model, If I had drawn closer I could have added more
detail, but I still believe that the piece works well as the figure still obtains
contours with in the pose.
I added a blue pastel to this pose as to capture the main structure of the pose,
the arch of the models back and to give depth/volume to the figure.
I prefer this design to the rest of the push and pull compositions
as the blue shade emphasises the curves and volume of the body.
I added pastel to this pose as I wanted to show the direction of the light; I used pastel
as I felt that it was the best medium to use that was soft and would work with the main flow of the
contours of the body. I liked this composition as I had kept the proportion however I had to draw the left
foot after the 5 minute time limit, which meant that I had to guess the placement of the foot.
This piece works well through the slight shading and use of shape that
shows the contours of the body well.
 




Sound Development

To gain an understanding of the sound recordings, I chose ten of these sounds, and quickly sketched shapes and lines that I felt represented the track, as I listened to them on Loop. I found it useful to draw sketches of each sound in small and in one medium as it allowed me to create different marks, shapes and lines of the sound rather than pondering what media to do as well as; I wanted the main structure before I developed it with media.
Summary of the design pages:
  • Frying egg - the bubbly and greasy appeal to the audio reminded me of bubbles, circular and semi-circular shapes with various thickness of line depending on how deep the frying sound of the egg was. I began to experiment by merging contoured and sketchy lines alongside the circular formations, however I felt that it did not work well with the original circular images as the lines did not fit with the audio track, however I made the contoured lines more curvier and smaller which worked well when surrounded with the circle shapes.
  • Tip toe - this was a hard sound to define, originally I first thought of just filling the page with small dots from the fineliner as the tip toe sound was quite loud whereas I would have thought that the tip toe sound would have been purposefully quiet through the act of tip toeing is to be as silent as you can. I eventually managed to record the sound through the use of continuous lines, as the sound was continuous itself. 
  • Electronic oscillator - this sound was hard to represent in any other way than portraying the fade of the audio with a spike downwards, it felt like it matched the audio well, it was depicting the beginning of the audio which was hard to determine. I felt that a continuous loop entwined with the spike that lead downwards worked the best as the audio seemed to take back on itself as I listened to it on loop. 
  • Fireworks - I could only visualise another loop like line that faded out to a straight line as the audio came to a stop. However I found that a variation in thickness of line worked well with the differing warble in the audio. 
  • Moan metal 1 - I first thought that a more geometric structure to the line was needed through the angular depiction of the audio but as I continued to listen to the sound I found that quick sketchy shade of line captured the track better than the geometric structure as it could record the duration and gaps with in the audio more evenly.
  • Refrigerator - the refrigerator was hard to depict as there was more than one underlying sound captured with it, so I first began to to create continuing lines that would signify the main loud hum of the audio, I developed it more using a fineliner that had nearly ran out of ink to resemble the other sound with it, as it was quieter and softer compared to the main sound. I felt that this worked well as it was held a distressed appeal which worked with the disruptions in the track.
  • Ambient Swish - these compositions were easier to portray than the other nine sounds, as the sound was immediately categorised into a quick contoured line that worked well with the nature of the track.
    I felt that a thicker use of line was needed to match with the depth of the audio and it needed to almost revert back on its self as the swish sound comes to a halt.
  • Arch hum build - my initial thoughts for this sound was a circular depiction and waved lines that involved elongated structures to match with the sound duration, however as I listened to the track more, I automatically created angular structures to the waved lines which reminded me of a Tim Burton like design on his Nightmare Before Christmas stop motion animation.
  • Beam Scan - I initially designed jagged yet contoured line structured that worked well with the audio however as I kept drawing the design began to change much like the refrigerator designs, using a continuous line, looking distressed. I preferred the previous designs as when thinking of an animating point of view, there was more to work with and develop in terms of movement and additional lines.
  • Speed drilling - these designs reminded me of the jagged lines you would see on a heart monitor, as it was hard to depict the sound with out using jagged or a series of differing length of line. I developed the image to a series of slightly curved lines that matched the speed and depth of the drill.



Frying egg - ten sounds development

Tip toe - ten sounds development

Electronic oscillator - ten sounds development

Fireworks - ten sounds development

Moan metal 1 - ten sounds development

Refrigerator - ten sounds development

Ambient swish - ten sounds development

Arch hum build - ten sounds development

Beam scan - ten sounds development

Speed drilling - ten sounds development

I then chose five of my development sketches, frying egg, speed drilling, ambient swish, arch hum build and beam scan to experiment with each design in media and shape. I found that some sounds were easier to design as I had a clear visual of what that sound would look like and what colour it would take, however the beam scan and frying egg were harder to design as it took me awhile to consider and determine whether or not the composition would fit with the original audio track.





For the frying egg track, I imagined flowing marks with a solid fill which I first
designed in marker pen, but as I continued to redraw the composition in different variations,
I decided to use watercolour and ink as I could easily create a
sweeping stroke with a vibrant fill.



Preferred this page of design through the colour and
the compositional structure of the designs, and carried
this design on to be animated.



Preferred working in ink as it was a stronger vibrancy to fade approach
which worked with the audio track, the last design on the page,
I rotated which I felt worked better in appearance and visualising the
animation, the landscape version seemed to work better with in the
frame.



The last design held more of an appeal to me, through the incorporation
of the scratchy lines and the soft colours of the marker pen which resembled the
background track that accompanied the loud electronic hum.









I preferred this design as it held more than one line which resembled
the accompanying audio with the main loud sound. I took this design
to be animated as I could visualise the each of the lines moving to
create the finalised composition.






I chose this design as the boarder and darker strokes of the hue resembled the
loud audio of the drill and the softer fill being the backing audio. I chose this colour as
the audio track was cringe-worthy and reminded me of flesh, this tonal value of the hue
was more desaturated and became more of a past thought of the drill, like remembering
a past thought in this case you went to the dentist and you had a filling
which involved the use of the drill.

Using the developed media designs of five of the selected sounds, I created animations using Photoshop, frame by frame process. The animations needed to be 1-4 seconds long, with the audio track added with it, I added the audio track and edited the animation in Premiere as it was easier to ensure that the track matched the movements of the animation than using After Effects.

I was pleased with my finished animations as I found the development process of the sound hard to achieve through trying not to fall in the stereotypical imagery which appears when you listen to each sound, so when I began animating, it took me awhile to consider which shot and angle the composition would need to be in to match the audio. For example, I purposely made the ambient swish hard to determine what shape it was as the swish sound was fast and I could imagine not being able to fully focus on the shape, I didn't want to begin to motion blur the shape so I made the shape bigger so that the audience could still follow the movement of the design. I found that my favourite animation was the arch hum piece, which involved more colour than the other animations, and it represented the static and jagged sound of the hum, and I also like the movement of the lines as it broke into a spark before it came to a halt. I found it difficult to animate the frying egg animation as I came across multiple problems, one of which was as I moved composition, it would alter the previous frame, which became time consuming when trying to create inbetweens to make the animation less jagged in movement. I solved this problem by placing the main image into the document again and separating the image into each individual shape which seemed to stop affecting the previous frame as I moved the composition again.