A-Woop-Woop!!

Last term, i pitched to a client (student services) for a competition brief... it was about the piggy bank remember?
i did it on flash and never managed to get it on here :(
but anyway, it's an interactive animation to big up student services and what they have to offer students in money woes...
it really was the slippiest, most dangerous, frustrating and mind numbing learning curve i've ever had the pleasure of being dragged down.. but i managed to make it out alive- if anything, a little scraped and bruised (this is because i've never used flash before like ever)..

so yes, naturally i was chuffed when i managed to win 1st place in the competition :)
so this means you'll be able to see the animation on the student services website soon!

WICKED MATE!
im so happy all that effort didn't go unnoticed since it really wasn't the time of my life.

Cool shizz

I found some quite inspiring images from which i got some ideas for various ways of animating things or interesting concepts... however, i'm not sure if i can actually use any of these for the given briefs but at least i can put them down for possible future use...

"Friends Forever" by S-S-J

I thought this image was sooo cute!! so simple yet effective. It carries the idea of finger puppets and the fact that if you think about your fingers as individuals, they are always together, just like best friends. This then gave me the idea of a kind of finger-puppet animation, mixed with pixilation, digital animation and some very cute costume designs :)

"The Junction" by jonnygoodboy

This image has used the fish-eye lens so cleverly, paths we wouldn't usually see with our normal vision, can be seen when the image is curved (duh!).. anyway, this kind of made me think that if i was a clock, this might be what i'd see (in reference to the clockmakers brief)... so like clock-eye view, right?? :P... so i thought this maybe an interesting theme to flow throughout a clock related animation.

"I want you with me" by Alephunky

I've kept this image for a while, just because it's very sweet and innocent... although it's just an image, it did give me the idea for animating in a live space using paper... i know it's not the most original idea but i do admire when people go back to organic simple methods :) it just made me smile.

I'm sure everyone's familiar with hearing about the IT Crowd on TV... well i saw the DVD in HMV the other day, and although i've never watched an episode, i fell in love with the cover of it and the little people on the front ^_^... they reminded me a lot of the people on Habbo Hotel which i admit, i played copious amounts of when i was younger.. shame on me.

Mr. Internet's been kind today :)

I found a bunch of new stuff that i liked recently!! I can't wait to blog about all of them but it might take me years so i think i'll just have to be selective... Booo :(

Also, we've started our new module at uni "Business of Animation" in which we're focusing on participating in live briefs for clients and companies which is rather exciting- so rather than blogging about all the crazy shizz that i have been, i think i'll try to picky about the ones i write about, as some have actually brought me some inspiration that i could use in the briefs i might choose...

There isn't a limit to the amount of briefs we can look at... although we were suggested 5.. i can't choose between 3 of them!

These are my understandings of the suggested briefs:

• BBC- creating a sort of interactive environment in which you can cleverly display their wide range of info in an ever-expanding archive.
• Fairtrade- creating a short contemporary film which inspires the public to take action and be a part of creating a better world in terms of giving underpaid farmers etc the deserved money to survive etc.. So basically encouraging the idea of Fairtrade and to give an incentive to the viewers to care more. (that sounded horrible but that's not what i meant)
• SEGA- Sonic will be celebrating his 20th anniversary this year. Create a piece of communication to celebrate this or something that is inspired by this.
• Worshipful Company of Clockmakers- Submit a piece of work which explores the concept of time. (a very open and err.. well the brief was lacking in any sort of explanation but this is pretty much what i gathered).
• Disney- I didn't actually get to see this brief but i understand that you're required to design a character and bring it to life with emotion in an animation.

I still haven't fully decided as i can't pick between Sega, Clockmakers and Disney.. Sega and Disney pretty much illustrates my entire childhood (and probably everyone elses- but shh... i was pretty much the only kid that had a crush on Sonic the Hedgehog) So, it's very hard to not want to give back to the companies that contributed so much to my past laziness on the sofa, irrational hunger for gold hoops, or an unrealistic insight into how falling in love will be... Still waiting for Rhys to trot along on a pearly stallion... PAhahahaha... See what i mean??

However, i think i'll probably lean more towards the Clockmakers brief. The reason being that it is a VERY open brief and i like to experiment a lot, i've never really liked to use one medium to create a piece of work. To me, it seems quite flat, there's no body or (dare i insult for my own opinion?) love put into the work. The more media there is in a piece of work, to me, that has already shown me how much the artist cared or dived into the idea. So! i think this brief allows me this kind of freedom... the only thing im worried about is the deadline... i'd have been much happier if i had like a year to do it.. but the industry never waits does it?

I've actually babbled on so much about the new briefs that i haven't actually put up any of the original stuff i was going to talk about... let me have a shower first and i'll think about it :P

Am I Late??

Phew! i was definately scared that i'd forgotten my resolution, but yes, thank god i've remembered to blog something that i like.

Today i've decided to rant, muse and fawn over this exciting image:

"Wallflower" by shadesofeleven [pencil, ink, ps]

This is one of the many deviantart images i've favourited. Not only is it really striking in the position and expression of the model, but i love how this contrasts against the soft neutral tones used- it really gives it a sort of delicate elegance to a very strong a bold subject.

I love how the hair kind of fizzles away into the corner, giving it an abstract balance to the image, but the way it blushes out almost gives the illusion of ink dropping into water- you know? the way it curls and reaches to the bottom? that's what the hair made me think of anyway.

I only wish i could make art like this!!

However, although i understand the long swan-like neck of hers carries on that elegant theme, i don't like where it ends. It's quite abrupt for the end of the model, i probably would have preferred some more suggestion of collar or collarbones, even just a wash of it just to continue the dream-like quality, but i guess this may have added a bit too much reality and stableness, since she does kind of look like a drop of ink.

Whenever i see this, it always inspires me to try some watercolour or ink type sketches- but i always seem to be too impatient or heavy-handed. I guess, amongst all the other things i wish to be good at, i think this should give me enough incentive to learn and train myself to use liquid media- because i do love all those life drawing images when you can captivate the movement by just the weight and curve of brush strokes. Beautiful.

Now, where have my brushes and ink gone??...

If blog's could be dusty...

I feel bad that i haven't been touching my blog- especially for the first term.
And i'm sad to have realised this near to the end of the xmas holiday- hopefully i'll be able to rectify this in the future <:D Anyway, i don't know why:

• But i ALWAYS find myself browsing on DeviantArt
• I find beautiful, inspiring imagery which i looooove
• favourite it.
• and then forget about it.

WELL NO MORE.

I will start blogging i think, even stuff that's not relevant to my project's in hand; simply because it's good for the heart.

So, today i found this on Popular Recent Deviations (i usually check on here the most, as well as checking in with my favourite artists on there):

"Hands Reference I" by Ninjatic

When it comes to life drawing, i have a massive problem with drawing the hands, especially when drawing the entire model. They always look like the "sausage fingered" things that have a big red cross through on the image.

When i saw this reference sheet, i could stare at this for hours. Literally. Why?... Because i know i'm nowhere near that level of skill. (Boys only like girls with skills. FACT.)

But it did inspire me to keep something in mind, next time im caught up in a hand-drawing frenzy: to always ALWAYS be aware that humans have wrists. I noticed on all the pictures that the tiny wrist makes a huge difference, it sounds simple, but im telling you, in my mind it's so easy to forget.

The simple shading aswell, SO SIMPLE! but why did i never think of it?! Just a little suggestion of shading gives it that POW! IM IN 3-D!!... Another thing i often forget.

And one last thing, the shape of a hand's palm has always baffled me. But that rounded edged, slanted square shape (lol awful description) i think, is enough to get the point across that yep, it's a palm in the middle of a huge picture of a naked man.

I know all the points that i've noted are tiny, and the fact i forget things like simple shading and the anatomy of wrists probably makes me sound like a crap artist (ha!)- but hey, at least i notice when im going wrong, right? :)

This has actually been a lot of fun annotating something that's inspired me today- maybe i should make it a new year's resolution, to try and blog something that's inspired me everyday :)... well, at least once a week ;P

-Chrissi x

P.S:

Just as i finished this post, i found something else that i may find useful for the forthcoming portrait exercises in life drawing:

"Eye Tutorial" by riefra

I wouldn't say this has inspired me AS much but... (don't worry i will keep this short and sweet) it has given me an insight into how some experienced artists build up the realistic element when drawing eyes, particularly in the shading, the light glare, and texture.

Not forgetting, the attention to detail when drawing the direction of hair growth on the eyebrows, something i find terribly difficult to pick up on. So maybe i should find a tutorial on drawing hair :P

So far, thanks to this blog post, i can draw a hand with eyes :)

I'm sorry Blog.

I've been pretty absent lately, mainly because i was stupid and i thought my Digital Animation client deadline was Nov 9th, not Dec 9th -_-' Fail.
So yes, i had locked myself in my room for many days and once i was told, i grew regrettably complacent, and now im feeling the burn again.
crap.

So once i figure out how, i will be trying to upload some screenshots of my work so far (but blogger hates me and wouldnt let me upload pictures last time so yeah, hopefully i can get round this).

BESIDES THIS, i went to uni yesterday (hooray!!) to do lots of work (boo...) and we had a nice task to do, studying the structure of stories and the way the 3 Act Structure.

Notes:

We did a class exercise on learning these new principles by applying them to a 10 minute film we watched called Joyride:

Considering this video was for a small class task we had to do, I quite enjoyed it since no 1. i usually get so confused in films and i actually understood this, and no. 2 well it was just quite fun to watch.

It's about an engineer that gets captured on his late shift by some scots on a joyride. He's attacked with what looks like a miniture fire axe, is tied up and bundled into the trunk of his car while the attackers get in and drive around. The crafty engineer, while in the boot of the car, hacks out the wire for one of the tail-lights of the car with his foot, police catch on and make the guys pull over to question them about the faulty tail light. The police, we assume are also hacked with the miniture fire axe in a scene that very much reminds me of a scene in Kill Bill (particularly at 3:20 - 3:45)

As they drive on, more police chase after. The guy in the boot cuts himself free with a sharp object in the boot and manages not only to spill a load of petrol on himself (smooth) but also disconnect the wires to the headlights, and because the drivers can't see where they are going, crash into the woods and one of the scots goes through the windscreen. The man makes a break for it, but the last attacker restrains him and ensures his silence with a knife to his throat, as they back towards the car, a sudden touch of wires in the car meant the car alarm was sounded, allowing the police to know where they are. During the surprise, the engineer nutted the scot and ran free. He found he was back to where he was at the beginning of the story at a faulty sparking pylon he was meant to fix. The pylon sparks up again, and a sound of combustion is heard...

Can anyone say "IRONYYYY?!!!"

Adobe Flash Course

I went on an Adobe Flash Course for 2 days and i learnt a heck of a lot of stuff that i definately couldn't have taught myself... It was very thorough and quite intense but luckily i managed to come out the other end with a shiny new certificate and a complementary Flash "Classroom In A Book" err book.

Below is some evidence i actually went :)... Also, there are some pictures of the work i did, unfortunately the don't move or anything since i stupidly forgot to copy the base files over.. and i'm not a tech pro so i have no idea how to get flash imagery on my blog. SO i hope these still images will suffice. 2 exercises are missing as the files didn't copy properly :(

The Flash Manual and evidence of note-taking :P

My certificate

The very first exercise. Intro to layers, and how to use the timeline.

Learning how to use drawing tools, modifying colours and shapes, using stamps, creating and editing text.

Learning how to use motion paths and animating layers.

Creating a moving bone structures, adding spring and constrictions.

Creating a motion movie poster. Learning about alpha transparencies, blurring, movie clips, motion tweens, 3D rotation and using motion editor with the timeline.

More bone structure and learning about authortime or runtime.

Creating websites, buttons with up, down, over and hit imagery, text editing and action scripting.

Adding video to websites and converting files using Adobe Media Convertor.