Visual Communication - 'I See Faces' pt4

Further tweaking was needed for my 1st gif character. Based on a real person 'Squeaks', and her real cat Tiffin, and his favourite pink foot/storage cube - based on real events  in Brighton,where her flat flooded last year. Needed to shorten Tiffins body so it fitted inside a square frame, plus it looked a bit long & weird anyways.

"TIFF-TIFF & SQUEAKS"

Character development sketches 

Finalised line work

Finalised Backdrop line work

Re-drawn & separated body parts and background
elements ready for scanning & animating

Rather than draw lots of the same image but in slightly re-positioned poses i opted to separately draw only the parts that would be moving, so the body wouldn't be shuffling about due to the linework not perfectly matching up. It would also give the gif a 'cut-out', story-book feel to it. I'd planned to make lots of little,subtle movements (leg wiggles,tail waggles etc) within the image, rather than one 'main' feature move.

TEST VERSION

After roughly cutting around the shapes,painting them in Photoshop and composing them on top of each other, duplicating and repositioning where necessary i set about creating the transitions in their little water world. I used the PS guide lines to mark where id moved various objects to ensure the motions would appear to fast or 'jolty'. I got so into it i forgot that this was only a test, and spent a fair bit of time ironing out any problems and thinking of new things to add, so this couldve been my final Gif more-or-less. I do like a rehearsal!

I was torn between leaving the art work scruffy and crudely cut-out and polishing it up, doing full colour more like a cartoon. The test version matched the tone of the story, but i couldn't help wonder what it'd look like if i cleaned it up an repainted it all.So i did it anyway - re-drew all the elements, added a new cats eyes, and pier bit of texture and repeated the methods from the practice run. 

Guideline markers

DELUXE VERSION

At the time, i thought the 1st draft gif was better, but after completing the makeover I'm glad i made the deluxe version. I'm happier with the movement of all the elements, and with look of it in general. Don't get me wrong, its mushy as hell i know! Didn't know i had it in me!?

"PAPA WRONG"

Face building in Illustrator

I stuck to using just the shape and pathfinder tools (to slice the shapes in pieces with clean edges)to construct the pizza shapes rather than using the pen tool. This gave everything a 

symmetry and equal thickness with no wobbly edges or corners.

As i'd done a lot of development sketches for this guy i pretty knew how i wanted him to look without referring to them, so i created him 'on the fly' in illustrator, adding new details and features as i went along, gradually making him more detailed that i originally intended, but he looks better for it i feel. Adding a big ol' body was quite a late decision as he'd started to take more human form as aposed to being just a floating slice of pizza.

Currently everything had been made soley in 

illustrator, but i thought it was looking a bit flat...

I felt it needed a bit of depth and texture so i added the 'inferno' 

backdrop, that i d made whilst experimenting with Brusho paints

My homagé to the Ren & Stimpy backdrops,finally!

"CUMULO-NIMBARSE"

WIth the final gif i wanted to keep the look of it quite sketchy, and concentrate on the movement side of things. Also time was a factor and i was running out of it!

It certainly had the most emotion out of the 3 i'd say. It took a fair bit longer than anticipated as i kept thinking of new little expressions or wiggles his his eyes arm or indeed his ballbag could do to make it more amusing and added them to it which meant constant rejigging. I'm particularly happy with the stop-and-scowl and he returns to the underground.

The brief in whole has been a good experience. I probably should maybe have tried a different way of animating my characters, perhaps using a walk cycle - but i know with that technique i would get shaky or wobbly results which i something i was trying to avoid.Its a good lesson in photoshop layer management and good for your patience testing.

Visual Communication - 'I See Faces' pt3

I'm still not decided on the final 3 themes for my 3 gifs, so I'm considering 4 or 5 still and seeing how much life i can get out of them, and how practical its going to be to animate them, as I'm getting carried away with what visions i have in my mind compared to what i can actually produce in real life. Also have to consider weather I'm going to produce a detailed drawing with minimal animation or simple bold graphics with lots of time spent on the animation and bringing it to life. Though having said that, ill probably end up doing detailed drawings and complicated animation..!

Something involving Pizza is definitely going to make the final 3,in anyway i can! I love every aspect of pizza, and also looking at other peoples versions of illustrated pizza. It's one of the simpler things to draw, but it fun to bring your own voice to how it looks. Well, i have fun looking at them anyway- and eating them. I've done a lot of 'research' this past few weeks.

Simple blob drip test, just to see if i was doing it right 

and if it looked like it was dripping smoothly. 

I have a new found respect to the olden-times animators, the Disney Snow White guys! 

This thing took a fair amount of time, and it's looong repetitive tracing work, for fairly minimal results. Being new to this, I'm realising that going down the route of drawing 20/25 separate,slightly different drawings is going to result in wobbly/shakey final images, as its near on impossible to produce identical linework. Which can work to your advantages in some cases, depending on the tone of your subject/imagery.But for the amount of movement i'd ideally like to produce i think I'm going to have to go a different way about it. 

The sketchy shakey look makes me think of a cartoon section of late90's comedy series Big Train, The 43rd World Stare-Out Championship…combined with the commentary, makes it a winner!

Another character I'm fairly sure will be part of my final submission is my little 'Squeaker'.

Based on a real-life,tiny Chinese friend of mine. She has a lot of child-like characteristics and mannerisms that make her a perfect subject for a cutsie cartoon. 

Another great love of my mine are the level worlds and scenery of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros 3 (and later Super Mario World and on a higher level Mario 3D on Wii) Sunny circle and box trees and hills! So i wanted to have a gif set in a weird quirky, 8-bit style land, as a nod to the N.E.S times. Always takes me to a happy place.

Bobby Charlton Comb-over character, carried on from 

my random paint experiments earlier on in the project.

(Above) 80's hero/idol the WWFs Ultimate Warrior,sadly no longer with us. Was thinking of a detailed but simply animated gif design for him, but am having second thoughts as he is/was already a real person, and not a character designed by myself. Will still consider 'characterising the character' further though.

Visual Communication - 'I See Faces' pt2

Having made a list of things that Amuse, Frustrate & Interest me i set about making a whole bunch of quick sketches of those items, but somehow involving a character. I kept to the list initially, but found that they looked a bit regimented and weren't really generating many 'characters' as such, so i went on to make random shapes and create characters and little people out of the accidental shapes and brush strokes that i'd slapped down.

Stoopid Haircuts

Lists of subject matters

Pizza

Farts

Dead Wrestlers

The 'Burgerman Approach'

I tried out the paint blob techniques above after watching some Jon Burgerman interviews in which he suggested that rather than taking ages thinking up lots of characters - paint/pen random shapes and make characters out of what you've got. I found it encouraged me to be a bit more spontaneous and fearless when making weird, child-like little people and creatures. weather i'll take any of them through to further develop them for my gif remains to be seen?

After a class crit, involving illustrator Jon Boame (who'd been with us all day sharing career experiences and examples of his work) i'd had some positive feedback regarding the paint blob experiments,when i wasn't feeling particularly upbeat about my current ideas in general.

I'll pick 4 or 5 concepts from the initial sketches to develop further and get some storyboards and possible movements mapped out and also do some animation tests.

Visual Communication - 'I see faces'

Whenever i think about an animation and what i imagine typically goes into making one, this always pops into my head…always!

 Now after being briefed for first project in the vis comms module, which works towards creating a final animated gif, I'm already coming up with final outcomes in my head that i know will be totally above my animation skill level, which is zero, as I've never done any before. So straight off-the-bat i know i'd like to achieve A: a simple shape based gif, with plenty of movement and things going on, &/or B: a fairly detailed image but with subtle movements and little details, like blinking or hair blowing,breathing..?

But as I've no idea how much work is involved to accomplish this, I feel massively out of my depth, and know i probably not going to create anything quite as goo as i have in my brainbox,but i'm excited. Not excited about drawing hundreds & hundreds of slightly different characters and body parts and having to move them "just a tiny amount".

For some inspiration i had a gif hunt for some illustrated, animated gifs that fall into the two categories of animation id like to achieve, mentioned above.

The two below immediately make me think back to the Lucas Arts 'Point & Click' PC adventure games of early 90's (Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle that i grew up playing, a that still give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside when i play them or see screen grabs of the level landscapes and backdrops. These worlds with thier garish colours, simple shapes and huge amours of atmosphere are what I've always wished our world looked like, and weirdly, i still feel that way and is the main reason i love a bright sunny day, with immaculately kept grass & hills,streams and quiet (yet ominous) country paths.

Sam & max : hit the road

Day of the Tentacle

Sam & Max: Hit the road - game intro