Extended Practice: Group Crit - Market Background and After Effects

For the group crit I mainly talked about my background that I had finished. I wasn't too sure on the colour scheme as I never really experimented with saturated colours or editing the colour balance to make the tone tinted towards a bright hue. I was given really positive feedback on the colour scheme, the use of the reds and purples worked well with the composition, however I personally wanted to add more shadow and highlights to the design as it felt slightly flat with the sky being so dim. Additionally I wanted to brighten and saturate the sky more to bring more light into the environment.

The purpose of this first background was for the opening of the animation, to introduce the setting. I just wanted to slightly move the camera into the environment which would most likely be 10 seconds on the screen whilst the crowd moves around the street. With feedback from the crit it was suggested to make a parallax of the scene, moving the buildings slightly to make the 'zoom in' feel more natural and interesting. I really think this would benefit my animation, as I could make the signs move as it zooms in using the 3D layers in After Effects. In order to make a parallax I would have to draw more parts to the buildings, making them longer so that the parallax would work once the a camera on After Effects moves through the scene. I wanted to add more detail to the design anyway so I didn't mind extending the elements further, however I was stuck with how much detail to add to the buildings. I personally draw most environments with distressed lines and shapes to make the building more detailed, however for this animation I didn't want too much of this as I was worried about how much it would stand out against the characters. After gaining feedback a lot of the group agreed that it needed more detail and to distress it slightly as it needs that texture to the matte walls and fabrics of the market stalls. In addition the proportions of the foreground need to be edited as the first building closest to the foreground needed to be closer and bigger so that the bottom of the building couldn't be visible; this is to work with the perspective of the composition.

I want to also change the colour scheme of the tents as it clashes with Cy (the main character), with the changes to the colour scheme. Feedback suggested making the tents striped to detract from the characters main colours, I think this will work successfully however I still want to change the colour of the stalls.

First Market Scene Background