Sunday 15 May 2016

EVALUATION/SWOT - AIR MAX

EVALUATION - AIR MAX

This module was for the Air Max Day 2016; which required making a poster of 3D models and typefaces explaining or showing air max day; the software we used to create this was Cinema 4D. To start off, we were shown a list of posters that Nike released showing designs of trainers, using them as research and reference and choose 3 designs which appealed to me the most and then using each pair of trainers as a guide I created multiple ideas that were based around the 3 posters. Then developing the idea by picking font from DaFont and fracing over them altering them in my own way/style After a process of elimination I decided to use my strongest idea to take forward, creating my design based off the 'Brazil' poster, a green digital camouflage with a handful of bright colours to represent the amazon rainforest. Using Cinema 4D to create my 3D typeface, using the extrude to create the 3D elements and simple adding the created camouflage that was created using Photoshop and by applying a material it was very simple to add colour to the typeface.I then experimented with layout and the composition multiple times, altering the elements each time and getting a tutor to assess or comment on the work so that was a major help getting constant feedback  as it significantly improved my design. My final design included a plugin that I was showed by my tutor, it was great learning about plugins and how they work and I think it improved my design significantly. Once the typeface was complete I then experimented with the camera and what angle should the camera be looking at, trying to make use of the 3D space as much as possible. My final designs consisted of 2 pieces, the second was the first design I created during a class tutorial at the start of the project, both design consist and show different methods that were used to create 3D text in Cinema 4D. 
 I was very excited and confident with this project even though my skills with Cinema 4D weren't as good, I knew I would need a bit of assistance from my tutors when I had to add certain elements in Cinema 4D or when learning new skills and techniques.. What I would improve on is probably making sure don't get too driven by one project and try my best to focus on multiple projects as that was my main issue; being behind on my WBL project due to the time and effort I put in this air max design. 
Setting myself targets throughout this project is an excellent way to keep track of my progress and make sure I am not behind my set schedule and also that I am making sure all of my work is correct. Overall I enjoyed this project thoroughly and would like to use Cinema 4D more often in future projects as I had much fun with this one. I hit several challenges along the way but with the help of tutors and classmates I successfully managed to finish this project without much problems or complications. The skills that I have learned within  this project will help a lot in the next project using Cinema 4D, as well as using the software in personal work.

REFLECTION/UPDATE 15/05/16

REFLECTION/UPDATE
15/05/16

Since the last update on my work progress I have completed my PPD task, all of my blog posts are up to date and complete. The air max project is also complete and my final pieces have been mounted on A2 foamboard. The only project that is still unfinished is my Work Based Learning project therefore all of my attention and time is going towards it. Unfortunately I believe I am unable to complete my final piece on time for Monday at 4pm, I will discuss this with my tutor and let him know the reasons why I won't be able to hand in a finished design. Therefore I will have a little ore time to complete my written work and any development that hasn't been finished, I will double check and make sure everything is annotated. I am unfortunate that I won't have a finished final design due to timing and loosing 1 week of valuable time when attending the Pictoplasma Festival. On the brightside I am looking forward to the summer project. 

Saturday 14 May 2016

EVALUATION/SWOT - WBL

WORK BASED LEARNING - EVALUATION

This module was called Work Based Learning and was a competition for the Derwent Art Prize 2016; which required an illustration to be made only with specific media, which were;anything that was pencil, including water-soluble, pastel, graphite, charcoal or colouring pencils. The brief allowed the theme or concept of the illustration to be of your choosing, usually I struggle at first when I'm allowed 100% freedom because there is nothing to initially guide me through my ideas compared to making a simple/basic theme that can be manipulated. My designs and themes change and develop over time until I found what I wanted to illustrate. 
 To start off, I created a brainstorm for the theme and came to the conclusion of having my character based around multiple ideas; samurai's, then skeletons and the anatomy, my final theme was a mixture of the anatomy and animals. After a process of elimination I decided to use my strongest idea to take forward, an illustration of a wolf's head being torn apart into two pieces, and within is a human skull that starts to show.
With this project there wasn't much research or inspiration to use compared to the previous projects, sticking to 1 or 2 artists to use their style as a reference, I didn't want to involve too many artists as the illustrations and elements within might get a little to compact by replication or using multiple styles as ideas. Each theme or concept that was thought of; I sketched out several designs before altering or changing the current theme, after some time I had my chosen theme for my final illustration. Once I created a rough idea of what my design may look like using Photoshop I then experimented with the layout, and positioning of the elements and testing out different medias. The development part of this project wasn't as much as I thought, it consisted of multiple copies of my idea all with a different style, render technique, media or textures. But all of this helped me to create my final idea which was then illustrated on paper using Prismacolor pencils.
 I was very confident with this project even though my preferred style is digital illustration, I knew I would need a bit of assistance from my tutors when thinking of a concept and that was a huge comfort when refining and developing my ideas. What I would improve on is probably making sure I stick to my chosen idea and make sure it is developed and pushed the furthest it can before starting to draw that idea.
Setting myself targets and evaluating my work constantly is a great way to help be prepared and to make sure I don’t encounter any major mistakes, my main target that I’m setting myself is to be more aware of time management and be sure each piece is finished before moving onto something else, but with being away in Berlin attending the Pictoplasma Festival I did lose a valuable week of work that would of helped greatly. Overall I enjoyed this project a lot, It was a change from producing digital illustrations and working on my traditional skills helped a lot. I am very pleased with my outcome and the work that I have produced in this project, although I wish I was able to finish the project to my standards or at least complete a little more work but with the time I had left I am happy with the work I have produced there are a lot of skills and techniques that I have learned throughout and will help me a lot in future projects that include traditional illustrations as well as the next project that will be completed during the holidays. 

WBL TASK 1 - LITTLE CHIMP SOCIETY

LITTLE CHIMP SOCIETY

When researching and finding out what for LCS offer to artists and illustrators, I was welcomes to their homepage where I saw this illustrator; Mark Reihill. Without even looking through multiple artist, I was immediately attracted to his style and work. The example of Reihill's work that I will analyse and deconstruct is his 'Civil War' illustration. What attracted my attention was all of his illustrations are based off well know shows, movies, games etc. The ones I liked the most is his rogue One, Civil War, Negan, X-Men Apocalypse and The Notorious; and what all of these have in common is that they have recently been in the news or hyped about on social media. I love how his illustrations aren't something only he knows or can relate to. Having such a wide range of themes and concepts that are frequent and popular is an excellent way to get your name across but also to sell your artwork.

I absolutely love his style, these digital paintings that consist of a mixture of custom brushes, gradients and the pen tool all collaborate to create this wonderful illustration. Outlining each element with a white border helps to separate the 3 characters as well as to illuminate them as the white constant with the colour background allowing them to essentially 'pop out'. His painting seems to be a perfect mixture of precision and rough, capturing so much detail within the images yet having brush strokes go out of line or look messy and rushed.




The second artist that has collaborated or is featured on Little Chimp Society's website is Jake Parker, after looking through his work I realised I recognised most of it, turns out I have been following him on Instagram for quite some time. What I love about this illustrator is his wide range of products he creates; from illustrations to fan art, graphic novels to book covers and logos. The example of Jake Parker's work that I will evaluate is this illustration;
There isn't a title of brief for this design, so i'm guessing this illustration was conceptual and not for commercial work. The reason I chose this is because it mostly reminded me of a game that I play a bit too much, Destiny. The illustration itself is really cool, the way the character the character is posing and his facial expression does reminds me of some graffiti style characters that I have seen. Usually I'm not a fan of cartoonish designs, sometimes I find them a bit plain but the abstract shape of the body and head change my perspective with this illustration. I think this was originally created traditionally with ink and then placed into digital software to then have the colour added, the reason for thinking this is because the tinwork is neat, there are uneven lines, some are messy which makes me believe it wouldn't have been done digitally due to the precision and how neat the lifework could be if it was created in Illustrator or Photoshop.



The last artist that is shown on The Little Chimp Society is Chris Hall; a freelance illustrator that uses both traditional and digital skills/methods within his work. I chose artists that produce different work from each theory, trying to broaden my horizon and knowledge and all these skills and methods of his to create and illustration whether its digital or traditional. Although I picked this artist to compare the the previous ones, I am not impressed as I was for the last 2, I just find that simple illustrations created digitally are more challenging to grab someones attention. Although I understand the concept and idea behind this piece; 'Get Outside And Play' I would most likely choose another illustration over this one, mainly because of the lack of detail and colour; although hat is the art style. But I personally prefer more details and line work.
This was defiantly created digitally, using only solid colour and gradients is a excellent combination, I think the house style is constant and the colour scheme is a great choice as they don't been together so it is obvious what each element is. Overall I have enjoyed learning about these artist and not only how they create their illustration but comparing them and seeing the difference between the skills and methods used within each design.

Friday 13 May 2016

PICTOPLASMA - JULIAN GLANDER

PICTOPLASMA
JULIAN GLANDER

During my visit to the Pictoplasma Festival I attended a screening where Julian Glander showed and talked about his work. Which is a selection of 3D gifs, animations and illustrations. He is one of my favourite animators simply because of his design and the ideas behind them, at the screening he talked about how he would decide to create something for the fun or it and not knowing exactly what to do with the finished product of how it came to the final design. I find this not only very interesting but inspiring to be able to randomly create a great animation or illustration by simply thinking of a theme/concept within my free time. 

He is most famous for his oddball, infinitely loopable and Claymation-inspired animated GIFs. Explaining how his designs and art style has developed over the years throughout conceptual and commercial work. Using the audience/ people of Instagram to chose the progress of a character he created was an excellent idea that allows a much deeper communication with the fans and the audience. His work has inspired me to use 3D models more often and to try and create 3D environments with simple shapes that can be multiplied, resized and misshapen.





TARGET SETTING 13/05/16

TARGET SETTING
13/05/16

With the deadline being so close, I have set myself targets for the last few days before submission;
  • To have my WBL project finished by Sunday
  • To start my final illustration tomorrow before 12
  • To have all 3 projects complete before the deadline on Monday morning
From the last set of targets I have achieved/reached them within the time limit I set myself, this makes me much more confident about completing these tasks with such minimal time.

REFLECTION/UPDATE 13/05/16

REFLECTION/UPDATE
13/05/16

Since the last update I have completed/started a significant amount of work within the short time, mainly focusing on my Air Max project; I have completed the requirements for the brief and all work is complete, the only small task left is to print my development, apart from that this project is now complete. Now I can focus my time and attention to my last two projects, the Derwent drawing project and the Work Base Learning. Slowly completing the WBL task day by day, uploading a few posts at a time I am confident I will have the required posts/topics for assessment by the deadline. That leaves the whole weekend to complete my final illustration for my drawing project, this will be my main focus as well as completing some development on the side. I am quite confident with my time management and that all work will be submitted on time. Hopefully within the next update I will have all my work complete including WBL and the development for my Derwent project, just leaving me with the final illustration to work with. I am happy with the progress I have made within the past few days.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

PPD TASKS LIST

This list consists of every post that is involved within the PPD task, this will make it easier to find the correct posts to be marked and also to make sure their isn't any posts missed or forgotten about.

PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION

SEQUENTIAL IMAGING EVALUATION/SWOT



ANIMATION PRODUCTION

PRACTICE ENRICHMENT

ANIMATION PRODUCTION EVALUATION/SWOT

DIGITAL SKILLS ACQUISITION - EVALUATION/SWOT

2 LEFT.

PROJECT PROCESS/REFLECTIONS

CURRENT UPDATE - SKETCHES/IDEAS

Current Status - Development

SPELLING ERRORS

CURRENT PROGRESS

TWICE WEEKLY REFLECTIONS - 25/4/16

TWICE WEEKLY REFLECTIONS - 10/5/16

REFLECTION/UPDATE 13/05/16

REFLECTION/UPDATE 15/05/16

SETTING TARGETS

CURRENT TARGETS


SET TARGETS

SETTING TARGETS 10/05/16

TARGET SETTING 13/05/16

PERSONAL RESEARCH - NYCHOS

PERSONAL RESEARCH - KERBY ROSANES

PERSONAL RESEARCH - PAUL JACKSON

PERSONAL RESEARCH/REFERENCE - MORTAL KOMBAT X

WBL TASK 1 - PICTURES ON WALLS

WBL TASK 1 - BIG ACTIVE

WBL TASK 1 - WRAP MAGAZINE

WBL TASK 1 - LITTLE CHIMP SOCIETY

WBL WEEK 1 - NO BROW

VECTOR ILLUSTRATION - PRINTMAKING

GRAFFITI SUPPLIES - BOMBING SCIENCE

CHANNEL 4 ANIMATION - CINEMA 4D

CINEMA 4D - KARAMBIT

PICTOPLASMA - STREET ART

PICTOPLASMA - CHARACTER WALKS

PICTOPLASMA - JUN SEO HAHM

PICTOPLASMA - JULIAN GLANDER

CINEMA 4D - KARAMBIT

CINEMA 4D
KARAMBIT

After being taught several sessions with Cinema 4D to help with the Air Max project I decided to use them methods and techniques myself in my own time except creating something entirely different. After a recent purchase I wanted to try and create what I bought using Cinema 4D. Using Illustrator I created pen drawings; outlining the shapes to them be imported to Cinema 4D, unfortunately you have to save the file as a Illustrator 8 file to make it work/compatible but once created I simply dragged and dropped the file into a new Cinema 4D document.


Repeating this process over and over until all of the individual elements are placed and arranged in the correct position I then used the extrude tool to make the path 3-dimensional, altering the width of each shape to get it as accurate as the reference. This was the very basic model done but by using skills that I was taught I managed to use a 'Boole' to create more depth. Now it was time to add texture and lighting to help emphasise the metal texture with a light and reflection. There is still work that has to be done for me to be satisfied with the model.




Overall I enjoyed using what I learned to try out in my own time to create something as it helps me with my Cinema 4D skills and also reminds me how certain things are done and the process of doing them as I sometimes tend to forgot how to do something in 4D due to the specific order or instructions that are needed to be done.

SETTING TARGETS 10/05/16

SMART TARGETS

PICTOPLASMA - JUN SEO HAHM

PICTOPLASMA
JUN SEO HAHM

One of my favourite artists that attended Pictoplasma was Jun Seo Hahm, his work caught my attention as soon as I decided to go to Pictoplasma, mainly because his characters/creatures he creates look so simple but the 3D model makes them look so realistic with the glossy, fleshy look. These biologically inspired characters and creatures were the face of this year's Pictoplasma. The artist seems to make a lot of conceptual art and not much for commercial use.

I love his creations, I think the simplicity of them is what makes them so unique, throughout his work he is constantly finding new ways to form/combine different elements/creations to create this monstrosity of a character. His style is great, using the same type of texture but with some alterations depending on the design, the skin tone glossy look is an excellent choice, it makes them look much more organic, real and cute at the same time. What I will take forward from Jun Seo Hahm's work would be the composition and how he lays out the characters, stacking them ontop of eachother or aligning them within a grid.



TWICE WEEKLY REFLECTIONS - 10/5/16


Since the last reflection I havn't done any work with both of my projects, the reason being I was attending the Pictoplasma Festival in Berlin. Now the trip is over I have planned out thoroughly what will need to be done by what day, making these lists are a great way to keep a track of time and organisation. At this moment I am working on my blog and catching up with the posts I have missed throughout this week. Once that is complete I will then finish all my development for both the Derwent and Air Max projects before finalising my design any further. The next reflection will be in 24 hours to show the progress i'm making within my given time.

PICTOPLASMA - CHARACTER WALKS

PICTOPLASMA
CHARACTER WALKS

Throughout the week I was in Berlin attending the Pictoplasma Festival there were character walks all across the area, some being a close walk and others being a train journey away. Each day I spend a few hours of my spare time finding these places that show off individual artists and their work, putting stuff on display and selling artwork as well. Each character walk was different in every way, the layout and organisation of the artist's work and their designs were unique and attracted the attention of the public. Some of them didn't appeal to me as much as the others because the art style or the techniques weren't to my liking or I work in a  different way. The ones I enjoyed and admired; I purchased prints of the artwork.












PICTOPLASMA - STREET ART

PICTOPLASMA
STREET ART

On the 3rd May I and a bunch of students went on a trip to Berlin to attend the Pictoplasma Festival, throughout the week I explored the city of Berlin and saw some amazing artwork. Their was so much diversity and meaning with the artwork as they all were different and incredible in their own way. Most of the street art I saw has made me want to experiment with different media, techniques and try to expand my preferred art style.

I tend to work with graffiti in my own time away from college projects but this trip has made me want to include some elements of graffiti and street art within my current projects and future ones. Not only has the artwork inspired me but the colours used in each photograph are so different from each other that they all stand out individually.