Visual Narrative - 3D Craft & Lens

After having the idea of how i want it to look in my head pretty much over the whole xmas period, classic Ian underestimates the actual production time required to achieve my vision darling! Over-planning and complicating things as ever, I'd left a lot of my essential big craft making kit up North so i had to make do, and do a lot of it on screen. Though i always wanted to have a mix of analogue and digital, found/foraged and hand crafted material, so in that case i guess this was a small success?

Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. 
Behind the scenes of some of the ridiculous characters from the show. 

In short, inspired by the artwork and character design of Noel Fielding, from his Mighty     Boosh and Luxury Comedy programmes, and also from a love of the the wild expressions   and garish backdrop artwork of John K's Ren & Stimpy i present my mutation...

IAN: 

uncontrollable rage & anger at quite minor annoyances

The most very basic scribblings from my mind, (based upon a list of things that massively get on my tits) just so i had a the vaguest of action plans.The rest i kind of created and adapted as i went along. After i got the photography foundations done (which was pretty shoddy quality, surprisingly, as i'd used a DSLR for some of it, and awfully lit, probably my fault) i was able to scan/import in into my mac and create a budget version of what was flying around my head.

An annoyance that didn't make the final cut.

An open, but upside down packet of crisps.

AN UPSIDE DOWN PACKET!

I made two massive blank card faces, for me & ME-hulk. I did this so i could later use it as a 'green screen' of sorts, as i didn't know how my expressions were going to be produced for sure at this point. However i did know i wanted to have an over-sized characterised bonce.I was also toying with the idea of using baby pictures of me aswell.

If i wasn't going to draw my facial features by hand then i had a vision of my face looking like a child had cut eyes and mouths etc out of a magazine to create my face. I took a range of grumpy grimaces in order to impose them onto the blank heads.I have quite the range, i think you'll agree?!

Here are a couple of rough test versions, trying out various face expressions. I had decided to go with the 'cut an paste' technique rather than the hand drawn option. Mainly as thought i wouldn't be able to achieve the same of emotions, and also i would've way too long drawing 5 or 6 versions of my mugshot. Even though fait bit of photoshop know-how was needed, i wanted it to look like it had been crudely done with cut up magazines.

I went and sourced the remaining images for backdrops and the 'annoying elements'. I looked for a bright, sunny, cheesy painted countryside background image to reflect the mood i start in, but is eventually a contrast to my mood come the end of the animation. Looking for suitable photos of Katie Hopkins isn't a task i recommend to any one. Then again, staring at Mrs Brown's Boys and piles of dog shit (essentially the same thing) wasn't any more fun. 

The addition of giant fists, and small details like changing the logo on my t-shirt to green, showing the guilty,squished dog todd on the path behind me & desaturating the colourful backdrop to resemble ash and rubble..oh,and of course an atomic explosion for good measure to complete the transformation. (Hulk not Shrek, HULK NOT SHREK)

I'm quite pleased with the results, even though my mutation is only revealed in the final frame! I enjoy working with a mixture of media and technology, this maybe down to my many,many years of watching weird comedies and cartoons which combine the two.For once,I had quite a clear(ish) idea of how i wanted it turn out from the off, in my head, hence the lack of development drawings i produced. 

I'm only a novice at the animated gif side of design/illustration/photography, but it's something i really enjoyed trying out and i hope i get a chance to boost my 'animation' skills somewhere along the line. Adding sound effects is something i would've loved to have been able to add to this, id even had those planned out in my head. Lots of slow-mo shouting!