My 32 Drawings

Here is my collection of 32 drawings that represent frogs to me. i wanted to think outside the box with these, i didn't want to draw 32 different frogs, although there are some in there, but i wanted to explore what the word frog actually meant, wether it be going into the myth that if you lick a frog it makes you high, or the fact frogs legs are a delicacy in france, these are all things i wanted to consider, also the use of media and how it could help get the message across. if there was something i would change or do differently is to do them on separate pieces of paper, because i like Organisation and how neat things are. the pastels and pencil rubbed off onto other panels which annoyed me so i would use separate paper for each one.

my environmental studies

I am not sure what to think...

as we have discovered earlier i am quite fussy when it comes to drawings and drawing observasionaly, so this was quite a learning experience for me. 

i wanted to learn how to let my drawings 'breathe' as we had a presentation of some drawings and some examples were drawn right to the edge of the page but i wanted to let mine breathe to make it more aesthetically appealing! here they are:

As you can see there is quite a mixture of media involved in my drawings as i wanted to broaden my skills in different media and also i might find the right technique for different things. but i think if there was something i would improve/ change is the quality of line, some of these are quite abstract so if someone wanted to know what something looked like, my drawings probably aren't the best to represent that.

i didn't enjoy this task, because i get really conscious about my drawing when it has to have a certain level of accuracy, so maybe thats something to improve, my attention to detail and accuracy.

SEQUENCIAL DRAWINGS!

i was really not in my comfort zone with these, i felt they all looked childish and felt like i was back in year 3 with the quality of drawings i produced, and after my tutor stepped in and told me to refrain from resorting the the scratchy style that i so dearly use, i started to gradually slide outside of the box that i trapped myself in!

Flow 

As you can see i was being very abstract after being told to not focus on drawing the figure but the motion, it took me several attempts to break free from my evil scratchy clutches

Squash and Stretch

Here is the one i am most happy with, i finally got the message of movement across while focusing on a single main line of the human body that it creates. and the charcoal really helped because it made me stop trying to be really detailed or scratchy.

this has taught me several lessons: not all the time does the full figure need to be drawn to get a certain message across.

and the body has one main line that it follows, and that is a good starting point to use, i will use these lessons in future with every aspect of drawing, because often i am stuck as to where to start with drawing life models.

my life drawings

Here are my 4 life drawings, each pose about 20 minutes, i apologise about the poor quality of these images but it gives you an idea.

i need to practice drawing legs!! all the legs are too small!! maybe its the angle that i was drawing them at but never the less it is something to work on!

I should have really experimented with more media for these studies instead of using only pencil, but i really wanted to just focus on the actual form and proportion of the models, because that is the one thing that frustrates me because its my weak point!

Sequence!

Ive done something quite controversial...

i didnt expent this to happen either, but my word for this brief was frog, so my 32 images are me trying to record what i think represents frogs ... i drew a bottle of poison that represents the poison values of frogs, and then my sequence is even further away from frogs! although the bottle of poison is still involved.

the story is: a man has rats in his house, goes to the shop for poison, puts it under the sink, baby crawls along, poison falls out, baby thinks its milk ...

Set, Series, Sequence

Drawing from different angles can really help the drawer to know the object thoroughly and do describe this object in any way. it is a good practice to keep, here is my Drawing from different angles for the Set, Series and Sequence study task!

My clean sketchbook

I like to keep a 'clean' sketchbook that i keep for drawings that i want to spend time on, and finalise certain ideas, and to use different media in the process, here are few examples:

this is my favourite, at first it looks like a floating mountain kind of mass of land, but unintentionally it looks like a character holding his/her face with the hands!

I wanted to add to the previous drawing but didn't want to lose the 'illusion' so i just did a new one in the same style, without trying to replicate the same face. it turned out i preferred the tone and colour in this one.

I bought a watercolour sketchbook which is my 'clean' one so i could experiment with water colour because i love the style when you combine it with fine liner! i am happy with these drawings but i do need to use this method in observational drawing instead of what drips out of my imagination like an over flowing jar of metaphorical honey of the brain.

sketchbook

Here is A few pages i have pulled out of my sketchbook that give you a brief insight to what is inside my head while using my sketchbook

My shopping list on a budget!! 

Through my time in this module i think i have written about 200 to do lists!! every time i assess my progress i have to write a checklist to make sure i can visually see how much i have to do! .... i will have a whole sketchbook dedicated to to do lists one day.

through my life if i find something interesting i always jot it down in the style of a sketch or notes, this proves to be a very good 'bank' of ideas and things that i can dip into whenever i need inspiration or anything!!

pushing and pulling in animation

examining pushing and pulling in animation

to get an idea of how to portray the act of strain when a character is pushing and pulling i wanted to investigate how it is used in animation. there is alot of exaggeration with the limbs stretching whilst pulling and squashing while pushing. this gives me a better understanding of how to represent the body. this will help me to see where points of strain are and where to focus the weight of the character in the animation.

my sound animations

all 5 complete sound animations

here are my complete sound animations, i am fairly happy with them, but there are certain things i would change. initially in the 'groan' sound i wanted to make more extravagant, i wanted various squares moving down the frame leaving a trail, but it worked out too complicated, so i wanted to just express the stress of the sound by making the quality of line change.

also syncing the sound with the animation was also quite a challenge but i got there eventually!

What i have learnt

i want to try i different style of line in my future animations as they seem to have the same scratchy look.

also to work out the problems you face as much as you can instead of deciding to do a different idea rather than your initial plan.

Viking Character Turnaround

Here is a high quality turn around done digitally, as you can see its very smooth due to the ease of use when it comes to animating on the computer. i cant wait to start using digital software next year but its going to be a challenge!

my turn around

here is my turnaround, after seeing an example previously explored in my blog i wanted to make it as smooth as possible, but the torso of the model i was drawing was at an angle so it was quite hard to get across as it kind of flinches, this is what i will work on next time. but i do like the foreshortening i have experimented in. i never really understood it but this project has really opened my eyes.

examples of a turn around

After receiving the brief to create a turn around animation i wanted to explore what is out there at the moment. after scouring the web for similar prospects but the results weren't as varied as id hoped. but i did find a turn around of a drum kit but the frames are too few to get a fluid animation. i will be using 12 frames to get a smoother conclusion.

Hand Drawn Character Animation

here is a quirky short animation done as a class project, it relates to the project due to the precision of the drawing, and how you can tell that the animator worked hard on trying to focus on the quality of line and animation as the character moves seamlessly with fore shortening and good rotation. i wish to use the same focus on my turn around animation

    

examples

Here are a few examples of how life drawing encompasses the flow of the human body, I went through Google images and picked out the most appropriate. they are static drawings but if you look, you could imagine the drawings being a sequence of the human body squashing and stretching, pushing and pulling, which I need to relate to in my practice.

here is a pretty obscure example due to the style: it focuses on a single line that the body creates, which I need to take influence from because I like to work in a sketchy style which doesn't really fit to the brief.

Life drawing in animation

An animation we are all very fond of that relates to our practice very well, the representation of flow of the body in animation can be described in this animation. at 25 frames per second there was thousands of images that had to be created for this piece, but keeping a simplistic form the animator could keep to the principles of flow and form to much precision.

I am having troubles keeping my studies simple so that it does the human form justice, I will reference this animation if I get too stressed.

physical representations of sound

More inspiration!

these are a few examples of sound drawings, where the artists have listened to a soundtrack and documented what they interpret. this method is more interesting to me due to the trap that is set when doing a 3d/ animated response, that it only looks like its reacting to the sound like the old school windows media visualization.

I like the responses I have discovered due to the fact you cant see a definitive object or figure, and it is clearly how the artist saw the sound

also the use of colour, its very minimal, and it just gives the slight hint of dynamics, but also avoiding the trap of going too far with any element.

after my tutor gave a presentation about animating sound I came across this example, it is quite different to the previous clip but if you really look into it, it is no different in terms of 'reacting' to sound rather than showing a dynamic representation of the sound, another realisation is that sound representations are more effective as 2D drawings/ static representations, I will explore in my next post.

sounds!!

Here is a sound visualization that is the stereotype of what people think animating sound is like, it has a very appealing feel to it but it doesn't really DESCRIBE the sound, its more REACTING to the sound in a very simple way.

I want to find something unique that will help me understand the dynamics of animating sound.

Cicada Princess

Cicada Princess

one of my favourite animations, mainly due to the narrating by Stephen fry, and the overall dark atmosphere with a heart-warming story behind it. this video inspires me, if I was to create anything if money and skill weren't a factor, it would be similar to this style

But i want to focus on the compilation, from the parallax scrolling of the hills to the added effects and camera angles. it has been fantastically composited.

I will use this animation as a motivationally inspiring piece to increase my compositing skills 

Delishhhhh!

Here is a very charming animation which I have chosen to explore the use of tone, texture, form and composition. all of which are very appealing, the fact that instead of spending time on the actual characters they are portrayed as silhouettes and in turn the animation seems to have had more time devoted to it. the whole composition is great.

I will definitely use a similar process as I seem to always over complicate my drawings/ animations. 

Air again

I am revisiting an earlier blog post that displayed a short animation called air:

Why?

I wanted to re-visit this animation due to the relevance it has to this brief, the use of lighting and line making works very well, as you can see the shades invert but still give the illusion of shadow and lighting, this was very impressive to to the simplicity, while still holding a very effective dynamic

this animation, although not realistic, still displays a very unique lighting effect which I will consider in future animations, you don't need to draw photo-realistic animations to show lighting.