Line Art

Schedule - 2/22-2/26

Monday 2/22 - Line my drawings
Tuesday 2/23 - Start playing with Illustrator
Wednesday 2/24 - Scan drawings to put in Illustrator
Thursday 2/25 - Illustrator
Friday 2/26 - Illustrator

Production Checkpoint #2

Right now I am currently doing more concept art and am trying out different medias.  I've tried colored pencils, markers, and now I'm scanning my work and putting it in Illustrator to make my sketches into line art on the computer.  I'm still fiddling and figuring Illustrator out so I don't have any completed work yet.

                                                                                                        Right here are drawings of me playing with colored pencils.  I tried incorporating cross-hatching, light/darks, etc. and I also figured out the formula for a realistic skin tone (high-five!!).  As for markers... that was a disaster.  I don't have anything of high quality such as copic markers so I can't create skin without it being orange or pink--it's a challenge I'll have to figure out someday..                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Then I decided I didn't really like how it was turning out (sadly...), so I wanted to line it and color it digitally (like how the You-tubers I watch do it).  Since I ran into problems in the past with Photoshop (I DON'T UNDERSTAND XD), someone suggested I try Illustrator.  So, I scanned three drawings with the intent of lining and filling all of them in on my computer.  My progress thus far includes image tracing one drawing and I am currently going through and fixing the paths so the image will look sharper and I will be able to fill it in with no problems.  Just to note: all of these characters are products of character creation with backgrounds, a personality, the whole wad.  I'm obsessed.  Also, I intend to include these pieces in my portfolio (if I like them enough) so I want to figure out printing them in a fancy way?  I don't know.Another media I'm trying out is paint.  This is the two-person interaction investigation piece, but since I don't have a 2D class in my schedule, I don't have any time to actually work on this piece so... here's the crappily-painted background XD

In my animation class, I am also animating the character Sintel.  It's taking FOREVER.  I've run into some minor problems, but I've resolved them.  As of now, I have six (?) actions and I still need to create a background, key the root armature, add one more action (that I can't do until I do the first two), key the camera movements, sit through the entire render process, put it in Premiere Pro, BLARGH.  At least I'm still enjoying myself.Looking around, I do admit I feel kind of behind in the production stand point... I think I'm still trying to figure out what my production actually will be.  I'm messing with a whole bunch of medias and ideas--next year I'll have more of a grip on what I want to pursue, so right now I want to stick my fingers in all the pies.

Text and Image - Banksy

 

Schedule - 2/15-2/19

Monday 2/15 - No school
Tuesday 2/16 - No school
Wednesday 2/17 - Colored Character Creation
Thursday 2/18 - Banksy and Illustrator
Friday 2/19 - Illustrator (Line art)

Schedule - 2/8-2/12

Monday 2/8 - Character Creation
Tuesday 2/9 - Presentation on Image and Text
Wednesday 2/10 - Video on Banksy
Thursday 2/11 - Video on Banksy
Friday 2/12 - Video and character creation

Presentation Reflection #2

Hybridity - Kate Steciw

Schedule - 2/1-2/5

Monday 2/1 - Finished second portfolio checkpoint presentations
Tuesday 2/2 - Presentation on Hybridity
Wednesday 2/3 - Finished Hybridity presentation
Thursday 2/4 - Character Creation dabbling
Friday 2/5 - Hybridity artist research and more character creation

Star Wars: The Force Awakens and CGI

So I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens quite a while ago and all this hype about the "R2D2 replacement," BB-8, made me curious as to how the droid was created. I figured BB-8 was animated or CGI and it turns out it's neither. BB-8 was created the usual--a sketch on a page--and then animatronic designers actually made BB-8. Not a legit machine though, a puppet where only the strings and puppeteers were edited out. I was very shocked to say the least; I really want to watch it again right now to look at the droid with a new light. Anyways, then I got to wondering what else on the screen was "real" or "fake." And as it turns out, only 28 shots  (a total of 357 scenes) are CGI.

WHAT?!

This got me really intrigued. Why would they do it that way in a digital world? Turns out due to the overwhelming amount of CGI visual effects used in Star Wars prequel and fan complaining, Lucasfilm and J.J. Abrams decided on authentic, real, practical effects for this movie. As a fan and a nerd, how did I now know of this?! Besides the space scenes, flying ships, and a couple characters (entire list here), the majority of the movie is using practical effects (the actors aren't surrounded by green screens). Here I had decided on researching BB-8 because of my interest in character animation digitally, and it turns out the droid isn't animated at all. However, the same thought process still went into puppeting the droid--BB-8 still had defining characteristic actions to create personality and his movements mapped out exactly--it's just interesting to think that in a technology-driven world, this wasn't a product of digital art.