Animation: Flash Animation Using Reference Images

 

Work in Progress animation by tracing the drawings I drew in a Life Drawing Session 2 weeks back as the key frame and drawing in the in-betweens in Flash.

Production Art: Building Layout Ideas/ Doors and Windows Thumbnails [Feedback Please]

Fig 1: Door Designs

Fig 2: Window Designs

Fig 3: Green Building Designs

Fig 4: Blue Tear Shaped Building Designs

Fig 5: White Building Designs

I made up some additional production art thumbnail pieces of my buildings as a result of the feedback from my OGR, regarding windows and doors being too generic and how they dont connect to the rest of the city. From this I went to research into old spainish buildings and experimented with basic shapes. I have the colours for the buildings relatively set already, as shown from the final concept piece, so all I wanted to do here for the moment was sort out the layout of the building structure and of the designs of the windows and doors. this was done as a way to see if I am on the right track with these before neatening them up in Illustrator. So feedback is very much welcome!

Animation: Symbols, Tweening and Adding Symbols

Turning my animation of the horse into a symbol and then applying a tween was very easy to do for me, and while I still need to improve on the horse's movement, it is amusing to see it fly by in a hurricane. To add to this, I might add additional objects that are swept up into the hurricane, and maybe animate the hurricane so that it spins.

Animation: Bouncing Ball- Bouncing Horse

Fig 1: Bouncing Ball with Secondary Action

Fig 2: Adding the Frames of the horse

Fig 3: Repeated the Frames of the horse

Fig 4: Coloured the horse in and fixed some of its anatomy for more fluidity

While it still needs a bit more work put into it, especially with the horse's legs, this is my animation of the bouncing ball to character so far. After fixing this up and making him flow better with his movements and with his pacing, I shall make a background for him, perhaps doing it in Photoshop as it has a wider range of brushes.

What if? Metropolis: OGR 2

What if? Metropolis OGR 2

What if? Metropolis: Colour Compositions

Here are some colour compositions I've done for my final concept art ideas. I wanted to keep the red sun as a fundamental part of my city, I have it heavily featured in my travelogue and it's part of the upper city of Pilar's "culture". So red highlights would feature a lot in the piece. However I might go back and try out different types of highlight, (like making the red softer or harder in tone perhaps). Some of the colours used are based on the background colours Miró himself uses, while others were experimentation with some Photoshop Adjustment Layers.

What if? Metropolis: Production Art-Concept Ideas

Here are a few draft ideas of some buildings, lamposts and flag designs for my city, Pilar. Some of them are based on Miró's paintings of women, others are based on his sculptures and some are based on some of his abstract works that focus on blue and orange, mainly because I wanted to branch out of using primarily red and green. I want my city to include these flag-like props, as many of Miró's abstract work features this element.
I plan on doing more in the future that aren't as focus on Miró's work and are more influenced on his use of shape and colour placement instead.

What if? Metropolis: Thumbnails 76-81 [Final Concept Art Drafts]

Fig 1: Thumbnails 76-77

Fig 2: Thumbnails 78-81

Fig 3: Thumbnail 81

In these Thumbnails I'm trying to figure out how to set up my final concept art. I want to have a sense of scale from the feminine buildings of the town square (based on Miró's pieces "Nude, 1926" and "Portrait of Mrs Mills in 1750 (after Constable), 1929") to the towering figure of the building dedicated to the red sun at the top of the hill, which I plan to do as part of the Matte Painting. I want to work on perspective more for this, so Thumbnails after this will be just about sorting out that as well as experimenting with building placement, whether to make it symetrical or asymetrical.

Life Drawing 6: Figures for Animation

Fig 1: 1-2 Minute Drawing

Fig 2: 5 Minute Drawing

Fig 3: 20 Minute Each Drawings

Fig 4: Close up 1

Fig 5: Close up 2

These are the drawing that will be put forward to be animated. I really need to like not focus so much on structure and more of the weight and how to give the model more life through their pose, the 1-2 minute pose exercises help with that but I need to bring that into the longer pieces.

What if! Metropolis: Thumbnails 38-75

Fig 1: Thumbnails 38-40

Fig 2: Thumbnails 41-50

Fig 3: Thumbnails 51-60

Fig 4: Thumbnails 61-70

Fig 5: Thumbnails 71-75

For these thumbnails I did them in photoshop, and focused more on the structure of my city and how I can base it on Miro's original work, looking at references of his art when I was stumped on ideas and using it as a base for some of the thumbnails.

After Effects: Paralex Test

While I'm not the best at using After Effects I did enjoy making this. Apart from some issues with trying to get the right render size for uploading on here, everything went pretty smoothly and it was relatively easy to make.

What if? Metropolis: Travelogue

Pilar starts out like any other city. It has a dock, farmland, a town square, shops and stalls, a church, a library and a cinema. As the Traveller progresses through the hill side city, from the quiet dockside , further into the towns interior, climbing up a vast number of stairs before reaching a steep cliff at a back alley of the darkest depths Pilar has to offer. Leaning against the rock face is a tall, flimsy-looking ladder , he decides to take the chance and sets of up ladder’s steps. The climb is torturously long, the Traveller’s view of the city below is blurred but he continues to progress up the torturous climb to the unknown of what awaits him above. He arrives at the peak of the hill to see the entrance to a lavish cathedral, giant hall empty apart from a spiral staircase, leading up to the buildings peak. Outside the sky is a dark otherworldly blue, a red sun towers over the dream scape of this side of Pilar that only a few outsiders have seen. A secret higher city above the peaceful classic holiday destination situated below. Kites fly from strange looking buildings in all shapes and sizes. A tall dark green pillar shaped building is stationed at the very peak of the mysterious ‘other’ city, at the top of the pillar a large red semi circle emerges with a giant circular hole cut from it. Its circular yellow face with large white painted eyes and orange beak, looks down on the bizarre dreamlike architecture like a bird of prey.

Speaking to the residents on this part of the city, Pilar Above, is useless. One type with ignore you, much more interested in going to the shrine behind the looming bird shaped tower, to pray to the mysterious Red Sun and the asterisk shaped stars that are always present no matter the time of day. The other type of city folk will be more then willing to talk to a foreigner, however, they do not share a common tongue with them, instead they speak rapidly in their own language, a strange and complex tongue of shapes and colours rather then words and sentences, untranslatable to the rest of the world including the city hundreds of thousands of metres below. Luckily there is one man, who used to be just like the traveller, who still speaks the language of the people below. Wrapped in a black cloak, plain in comparison to the highly decorated ones of the other citizens, with beige eyes and a wide mouth. He tells a tale of the motive of this city, of finding the connection between dreams and the stars and sun. Every day they look through telescopes to the sky above, looking for answers to the secrets that plague their city’s mysterious origins. “They hold the secrets of their city, of Pilar Above” he hisses, before going back to stare at a vaguely feminine shaped building, with a round bust and base, part of a series of similarly shaped buildings surrounding the square of the above city. In the center a bare tree, that can barely be called a tree because of the bare branches that never bore any leaves in all of its century long existence.

The differences between Pilar Below and Pilar Above are most intriguing, especially how culturally different the two are despite still being part of the same city. Pilar Below being a standard holiday retreat with its green and purple fields, standard angular homes, and tall, slim hotels which welcome any type of tourist and traveller in their midst. The small dock, situated at the very edge of the city’s border, is a haven for small time fisherman who arrive in the evening to deliver their catches to the market stalls and mend their nets in the rich moonlight as they await for the next day of fishing. Every year a parade takes place, celebrating past victories hundreds of years ago with the city’s famous dish of smoked mackerel, drowning it down with beer and wine.
Religion is not as commonplace as it once was in Pilar Below, It’s modern day life style not needing to depend on any God. However, even though the townspeople have stopped believing, the church is stills standing proud, open and willing to take in anyone who is wanting to pray to their forgotten ancient God.
In general, the residents live a relatively mediocre and quiet life style, some work hard on the farms, sun pounding on their backs as the sweat drips down their faces. While others work in the town as shopkeepers, bankers, tour guides and waiters and hove to deal with the demands of a time schedule and rowdy costumers from the richer locals further up the hillside.

The ladder at the very back of Pilar Below, behind a Bank and a very Expensive pizza restaurant, next to a dried up abandoned well, is the only connection between the city on the ground and the city high up on the hillside. Despite its weak appearance it is permanently stuck to the cliff face, being there for as long as the city has existed for. Upon climbing and reaching the Cathedral that beckons only a certain type of traveller inside its mysterious walls, only to reveal that it is a decoy on the inside, only containing the spiral staircase that leads to Pilar Above. Working as if it is transporting the traveller to a whole new world and not just a hours trip up to the bizarreness of the upper city. At its peak is a shrine gate with a small bell hanging from the connecting beam ringing ominously as it is passed, the sky does not have a set colour, it changes from , red to blue to green to yellow, depending on the unbeknown traveller’s aura. What always remains the same however is the Red Sun and the peculiarly shaped stars, which are visible night and day without fail, while the sun sets to reveal a pale ghostly blue moon in its wake.

Pilar Above is a very bizarre. Each building is different and unique, all of them have a interesting story of how they were built, and they come in all shapes and sizes: angular, spherical, tall, short, unusual, and ordinary. The residence have adored their houses with incomprehensible symbols that only they can deceiver. They are all related, from birds to astrology to dreams, key factors present in the local religion that every citizen is a part of exclusive to only those who live on the higher plains of Pilar. They all dedicate their lives to know what the abstract sky above them means, and what is up there. They throw themselves into researching in a cultish like fashion, meeting up on Friday evenings at the shrine behind the bird pillar to appease their ruler, the Red Sun. Their true goal is shrouded in mystery due to their language being untranslatable, the only thing known about it however is that they want to see the connection between their dreams and of the odd shaped stars and sun ruling above them and only them.
This dedication to their cause as affected their lifestyle drastically. It is hard to tell two city dwellers apart due to the black cloaks adored in blocks of primary colours, in a similar way as some of the households. They are all in almost perfect unison and in such a way that the city doesn’t feel alive in a natural sense but a mechanical sense like the cogs of toy robots and machines.
Recent studies into the city above have revealed that the city produces a strange hallucinogenic mist that might have a connection with the dream like setting and the reasons for the odd structures. The oddest thing about this phenomenon however is how it only effected the citizens of Pilar Above and of how the city seems to choose which outsider has the privilege of viewing the madness of the upper half of the city for themselves.

Life Drawing 5: Female Model

Fig 1: 20 Minute Drawing in pencil

Fig 2: 2 Minute Poses using coloured charcoal

Fig 3: figure in 20 minutes using chalk to only shade in the shadows and negative space

Fig 4: Final 20 Minute Drawing using Ink

I tried a lot of different methods in this life drawing lesson including drawing the shadows of the model and using coloured chalk and ink.

What if? Metropolis: OGR

Ogr What if Metropolis

What if? Metropolis Thumbnails 21-37 [UPDATED]

Fig 1: Thumbnails 21-23

Fig 2: Thumbnails 24-27

Fig 3: Thumbnails 28-30

Fig 4: Thumbnails 31-33

Fig 5: Thumbnails 34-37

I was experimenting with some new inks I got earlier in the week and tried to encorperate Miró's sense of colour in some of the thumbnails, I also came up with other ideas about how the city would work.

[EDIT]- I retook the photos under some better lighting, they should be less tacky and look clearer now.

Film Review: La Belle et La Bête

Fig 1: Poster for "La Belle et La Bête"

La Belle et La Bête is a 1946 black and white, rendition of the classic fairytale, Beauty and the Beast. While it is a short and rather generic film depicting the love of the Beauty by the Beast, the Beauty's siblings and Admirer are attempting to get her away from the Beast's hairy clutches. The set design of the Beast's castle and the designs of the costumes, especially the dresses that the characters wear are complex. This is due to the collaboration of the Director Jean Cocteau and the fashion designer Christian Bérard who previously worked on Vogue and Coco Chanel, which finally results in the magnificient trailing gowns, loads of diamonds and glitter and layers upon layers of fabric for the dresses that move with such grace that its like they were made of magic. The internal shots of the castle also give this sense of enchantment, completely juxtapositioning the dull, real life props of the village for lavish decor mixed in with cursed human parts, like arms holding lamps and curtains and statue busts on the walls that move their heads as they watch everything that Beauty and Beast do."Herein lies Cocteau’s core dichotomy, the idea that both monstrosity and beauty can be concealed skillfully from the naïve eye, but will eventually spill out like a cup brimming with too much water."- Glen Heath Jr. "Little White Lies"

Fig 2: Scene from the Film as Belle enters the castle for the first time

The film starts with Belle's brother, Ludovic, and Avenant shooting arrows at a target. One of the arrows misses and flies through the window nearly hitting the family dog and the two sisters, Adelaide and Felice. Belle is then introduced into the scene, treated less like a family member and more of a maid as she cleans, and cooks for the rest of the family. One day the father, a merchant by trade, goes away for the day and asks each of the daughters what they would like as a present for when he returns. The two sisters ask for a monkey and a parrot while Belle asks for a simple rose. After the meeting and finding out that if he didn't get enough money his house would be repossesed, the Merchant leaves in a rush and ends up in the woods.  As it is approaching night he stumbles upon a castle, where as he enters it he sees some truly bizarre decorations, lamps being held to the wall by hands, food prepared on the table even though the place is deserted of any living thing.  The Merchant falls asleep in a chair by the table. Just as he leaves the next morning he stumbles upon a rose garden, picking one for Belle, before suddenly the Beast appears threatening the old man, saying that because he picked his most prized possession he must face the consequences. He then asks the man how many daughters the man has, willing to spar his life in return for one of the three daughters. The merchant tells Beast about how Belle pleaded with him to get a rose as she missed the sight of them so and the Beast requests that he brings her to him. The Father agrees and apologises to Belle when he returns to the village, but Belle is willing to go as she recognises that it was her fault that her father got into this mess.
Belle goes to the castle on horse back, and wanders through the place, before coming into contact with the Beast in the bedroom. She is initially shocked at his ugly appearance but as the time with him goes on she begins to form a friendship, meeting him for dinner at 7pm everyday, answering his questions that if he wasn't ugly would she fall in love with him?. As she continues to live there she starts to explore the castle in more depth, and happens upon the Beast drinking water from a pond like a dog and having an urge to hunt for a deer when the two walk around the castle grounds.
After staying with the Beast for such a long time, Belle begins to feel homesick for her father, looking through a magic mirror in her room to see him bedridden makes her want to see him more. After pleading with the Beast he agrees to let her go but asks her to promise him that she'd come back to him, entrusting her with a key to a special building in the castle which contains the power that provides the castle with magic. He also gives her one of his gloves that has the power of teleportation. Belle, dressed in a white draping dress and a crown, lies on her bed and puts on the glove. In a flash she emerges in her father's room, where her Dad lies, sick in his bed. She starts to cry diamonds as she moves to his bed side, apologising for not being able to see him and for the state he is in. In a way of revenge Belle's siblings decide to try and kill the Beast, taking the key he entrusted to Belle. The two men head off on the horse that led Belle to the castle in the first place, on the day where she was meant to return to him. Belle, worried about the Beast from images she saw of him through the magic mirror, uses the glove to transport herself back to the castle, and runs to find him in the courtyard in a very feeble and weak state. Avenant and Ludovic find the treasure room and climb up to the roof, believing that the front door would be a trap. After breaking the glass roof, Avenant begins to climb down until he is shot with a stone arrow from a statue of Artemis. At the same time the Beast rises up from the ground in one fell swoop, his appearance changing into that of Avenant while a beast lies bleeding on the floor of the treasure room. Belle and the Beast exchange words before they fly off into the sky with the promise of marrying back at the Princes' kingdom.

Fig 3: Screenshot of Belle and the Beast

The pacing and the way the shots were filmed and how they transact to the next scene as well as how basic the plot is does let the film down slightly. With shots going on for too long and weird Windows Movie Maker-like transitions to the next scenes really do not assist with immersing the veiwer in. On the other hand, the sets for La Belle et la Bête are rather lavish, especially Belle's room in the castle. The way that the film shows the difference between the village where Belle and her family lived and the castle through making the castle both outstanding and abandoned helps give a feel of the characters and their emotions. "On planet Cocteau strange is good. Children as well as adults, may find the atmosphere dangerously addictive."- Charlotte O'Sullivan from This is LondonHowever the set design is overtaken by the extravagant costume design. The magnificent ball gowns and outlandish entire for the transformed Beast at the finale of the film really showcases the supernatural aspect of the magical influence of the castle and of its residents. Even the two sisters in the village have wonderfully designed dresses that are wild and out there to reflect the two's desire for a life of luxury with men of wealth. The film really captures the designs of Bérard's concept works for the film, and of his experience in the fashion industry."With interiors that owe much to the paintings of Doré and Vermeer, this visual feast is enhanced by the magical realism of Henri Alekan's photography, Christian Bérard's exquisite costumes and Georges Auric's audacious score." -David Parkinson "Radiotimes"

Glen Heath Jr quote: http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatrical-reviews/la-belle-et-la-bete-25666
Charlotte O'Sullivan quote: http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/film/la-belle-et-la-b-te-film-review-9034639.html
David Parkinson quote: http://www.radiotimes.com/film/nbcjr/la-belle-et-la-bte

What if? Metropolis-Artist: Joan Miró

Joan Miró was a Spanish Surrealist artist who was born on the 20th April 1893 in Barcelona. He started drawing in school back in 1900, taking private lessons wit Señor Civil. In 1907 he went on to learn at a business college as well as taking lessons at a fine arts academy in La Lonja, Picasso had visited the academy back in 1895. His teachers were Modest Urgell and Josep Pascó.
Many of his early pieces, from 1912-1920, where still lifes and landscapes influenced by his everyday environment of his parent's summer house in Montroig, while he was recovering from a typhoid fever after suffering from a nervous breakdown. During this time he also started to experiment with producing paintings while blindfolded and also with oil paints. He also met Ricart when he attended Gali's school of Arts. At this time he was painting life drawings of nude subjects using charcoals and chalks.  By 1919, Cubism was beginning to become evident in his works, such as "Nude in the Mirror" and "Self Portrait" which Picasso purchased for his collection.
He went to Paris, where he met and got influenced by loads of other artists through the help of Art Dealer, Josep Dalmau, staying in France from 1920-1929 before marrying his wife, Pilar and decided to stay in Paris for good.  Symbolism was beginning to become present in his work in 1923, such as the sun, stars, black solid circles and a bright use of colours. In 1930 he began to experiment even futher with his style, working in other media, building sculptures. His second Self Portrait from 1937 shows his change of style, as it became looser but more symbolic and immersing.
In 1938, his works became more bizarre as he began to be influenced by music and he started his constellation period. In 1949, he discovered ceramics and decorating terracottas.
In 1956 he made his final move, after moving to and through from Paris and Barcelona, to Palma de Mallorca, where the architect, Sert, built his studio house "Sons Abriñes". Two years later he finished the ceramic walls for the UNESCO building in Paris, which was a joint effort between him and his good friend, Artigas from 1955. From this, he received the Grand Award of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1959.
In 1968, a large scale exhibition of his work, named "Year of Miró" took place, where Sert designed, commissioned by the city of Barcelona, and built a musuem for the artist, featuring 40 paintings by him. From this point on he continued to go on trips to America and other places in Europe to show his works in big exhibitions. The year of his 90th birthday, 1983, was celebrated with exhibitions worldwide, however, Miró health was also declining, leading to his death on the 25th of December the same year.
He wasn't just a painter, he designed sets for ballet, painted ceramics, sculptures, engravings, ceramic panels for buildings. Throughout his career he developed many different styles from simple paintings to cubism, from surrealism to ceramics and sculptures. Many of his works were based on childhood memories, of Tarrogana, his Father's hometown, which was a rough, wild city, where it's dream-like setting helped with the production of many of his works. While some of his paintings gave off a sort of caveman like feel, through the use of symbolism and colours he was able to give any painting of his a more poetic and indepth feel, even if it was just from the title he gave it. His Father influenced him through his work and his workspace, as he cleaned his brushes and left his studio clean just like an engineer's workshop. Also, the way he used colours in his pieces, the mixture of bold colours contrasting to solid blacks makes the majority of his pieces stand out. Even in his early days, his use of colours were free flowing and bold but still had a technical reason as to why he placed that colour where he placed it.
"Miró could not paint a spot without it falling in the right place" Miró by Twentieth- Century Masters page 46

What if? Metropolis: Thumbnails 1-20 [UPDATED]

Fig 1: Thumbnails 1-2

Fig 2: Thumbnails 3-4

Fig 3: Thumbnails 5-7

Fig 4: Thumbnails 8-10

Fig 5: Thumbnails 11-13

Fig 6: Thumbnails 14-16

Fig 7: Thumbnails 17-20

In this series of thumbnails i wanted to focus on the cities structure, basing it on the area Miró was born, Catalonia which is a very mountainous area of Barcelona. I also tried to impliment common elements of Miró works regarding the red sun, the stars and the geometric shapes as buildings with the shapes of the sculptures he made being statment parts of the city, like a town hall, a museum, a clock tower or any otherkind of public building. I also had the idea of the city progressing through Miró art style as it progressed through the years, starting with his more realistic art like the pieces "Cart Tracks, 1919", "Vegtable Garden with a Donkey, 1918" and his pieces on Montroig, from the same years.
Then as you progress up into the city the buildings get more and more abstract in their design, until towards the peak of the hill it has buildings reflect his latest works and hiss sculptures like "Sun Bird, 1968", "Model for La Défense,1975" and "The Caress of a Bird, 1967". I especially like the last sculpture as its design is really memoreable and appeals to me so it features in many of the thumbnails shown.

[EDIT] I retook the images so that the focus is solely on the thumbnails.