Congratulations! I’m pleased to inform you that your Mid Summer Fair Scene has been selected to be featured in the "County Fair Challenge" for the Summer 2017 Issue of Art Doll Quarterly, which releases to the newsstands on May 1, 2017.
MY DOLLS ARE GOING TO BE IN PRINT!
I ALSO GET A FREE COPY OF THE MAGAZINE!
The inspiration behind the dolls:
I come from a small, rural town in Yorkshire where Summer fairs are about celebrating the few (and far between) sunny days in England.
I wanted to make a scene that captures the nostalgic joy of the fair, of the liveliness and childlike euphoria of Bank Holidays and Days Out with all the family.
The dolls featured are inspired by the many characters you'll find at the fair:
1. Uncle Rupert and his goldfish in a bag. Although you're not allowed to give goldfish in bags as prizes anymore, this is an old classic prize of the fair that I had to feature in my little county fair scene. Uncle Rupert is also the kind of chap who likes to tell stories about life when he was 'a little nipper' and last year he won first prize in the 'Big Veggie Contest' for his home-grown giant Pumpkin.
2. The lady in red and gold is named Lou. Lou is a country house baker and brings her freshly baked goods to sell at the fair every year. Lou has been baking since she was 7 years old and is known for her Summer Fruit Cheesecake.
3. Gorging herself with candyfloss is Lou's daughter Nancy who always comes along for the trip out, and always enjoys more than her fair share of sweet treats. Nancy loves to play games at the fair, especially hook-a-duck, it's a piece of cake!
These dolls are 5inches tall, and the scene I constructed is 20x10x20 inches.
To make these dolls, begin with a wire armature. I make mine with florist wire bent into the form of a body. Next, attach to a polystyrene sphere for the head (these can be bought in different sizes, I use 25mm spheres for these sized dolls. The flesh of the dolls is paper mache (then painted), the hair is wool roving and the clothes are odds and ends of scrap fabric.
After the last mega crit, I realised something...
That I titled Poe's house as 'North Amity Road' when really it's 'Amity Street'.
And there's nothing I can do because it's already been printed. There are no more print bookings.
I could go and get it printed at a business printers in Leeds but that would cost a lot and it would just cause me more stress to re-print.
I've been debating for the last two weeks whether to admit to this mistake or just to brush it under the carpet. Everyone I've spoken to about it has told me to forget about it and pretend I didn't notice, that no one else will notice and that it doesn't matter, but that's not how my lovely little anxiety worryhead works. No, no, no. I KNOW ABOUT IT, so it matters. It's been niggling away at me.
So I have to do something about it.
OR - it could make sense in that I altered the truth. It's not an accurate representation of Poe's house, or Poe, etc. It's an interpretation of his world and his home, I even set it in a woodland scene rather than the city of Baltimore so it's not geographically correct anyway. It's based on truth... the characters, the house and the furniture all are but they're not precise or designed to be so. They're made to be my version, my printed pictures in response to Edgar's haunting works. Perhaps Amity Road is almost a parody of Amity Street - an alternative universe... a parallel reality in which things are similar but not quite as they should be(a science fiction plot even Poe himself would devour).
BUT AM I JUST MAKING EXCUSES FOR MYSELF HERE? I didn't choose to title it 'Amity Road' instead of 'Amity Street' on purpose. It was a mistake.
Solution:
I've digitally amended the document anyway. SB2 was about PRINTED PICTURES, and that is where my attention was poured. I printed pictures, this is a tiny error in the text that doesn't really matter, but if it was to be sold in the gift shop at the Poe Museum, it could then be reprinted from this document to make geographical sense.
The translation from printed pictures into moving pictures. How am I going to make these still images move? My printed pictures will form the scene, since I have been focusing on Edgar Allan Poe's world and gothic settings.
Looking for examples of similarly spooky settings/atmospheres, thinking about how I can animate it to make it even more creepy-crawly.
I spent all day working on this, just trying to get the basic elements in place and moving the way I want them to. Even working with my storyboard so I knew where each asset should be in each frame, it took a very long time and I'm not even finished.
So glad I did make a storyboard because I dread to think how long it would have taken without this kind of planning.
Youtube tutorials are so nerdy but brilliant, thank you for solving my many idiotJaymoments.
Majorly happy with the soundtrack, it's just like a film and I think it's appropriate for the tone of my author.
Not sure how well the printed textures transfer to on-screen. They just look a bit messy and random since they're all different directions, overwhelming with them moving too! Feel a bit motion sick.
The crow looks so rough and basically like a flying fish. He needs sorting out but at least it's a placeholder for now so I know where it will be and how it will move.
I'm proud because this is the first proper animation I've made but I just feel that it could be 1000x more immersive, unique and spooky with a 3-Dimensional set and puppets. (forever pining for puppets)
I've just finished reading Roald Dah's 'The Minpins'. I was interested in this particular story because it's one I haven't heard of or read before. This was the last of Dahl's stories and was published after his death. It was illustrated by Patrick Benson, not the usual Quentin Blake!
As always, a very charming story filled with fantastical creatures like the Minpins themselves, who are tiny little people of the forest who live in the hollows of trees.
I instantly imagined these as tiny models in a smaller scale to the size I usually make. I think it would be important to get some photos that really show the scale of these - perhaps next to a REAL child?
But this book was also quite scary, mentioning terrifying beasts that live in the forest, such as the Terrible Bloodsucking Toothplucking Stonechuckling Spittler. I would like to do ALL THREE scenes for the brief about this book but I don't know how I would visualise the beasts in the book since they are never described physically as anything more than 'smoke' - A VERY CHALLENGING THING TO SCULPT.
Doesn't feel real yet. Not immersive, alive or deep. Needs more layers and movement. The crow will add a lot of this when it flies through the trees, but it's still just a flat image at the moment. It needs to be a world, not a picture.
Having some issues with stretching! In order to export to H.264 format (Vimeo required format) using After Effects 2016 I had to export using Media Encoder, which keeps stretching and adding a black border to the video.
These are storyboards in action, used by Selick, Burton and their team in the production of The Corpse Bride. I found it quite surprising to see how closely the animators followed the storyboard.
I thought I knew how and why storyboards are used in the industry and I expected it to be more of a plan, how a script dictates the lines but the actors will add their own accents and pronunciation... but this example shows just how strictly the animators have followed the storyboard, including composition, framing and expressions.
Story boarding is much stricter in stop-motion animation than other forms of moving pictures because unlike computer generated animations, assets can't be moved or edited much afterwards. The movement is all done painstakingly by hand. Once a shot is taken and the crew move on, the frame can't easily be done-over so it needs to be done right the first time.
Storyboards would be especially important on such a big scale, large budget production because there are so many hands on board and so much at stake. It takes a really long time to make a stop-motion film like this, so there's no time to be wasted. Storyboards are used to keep to schedule, working from each frame and paying attention to each individual detail.
All of the animators need to know where each puppet should be for each frame. Rigs need to be set up in position and moved whenever a puppet moves.
The quality and finesse of The Corpse Bride could not have been achieved without such a story boarding system in place. Alongside all the talent that goes into a film like this, there's also logistics in thinking about WHAT, WHERE, HOW and WHEN each asset moves.
The storyboard is the backbone of the movie and a vital part of the stop-motion process.
I'm trying to pitch my printed pictures as a product. My outcome might not be a conventional print, with a border, or a signature, or be framed. It's also not a bound book with a front cover, pages and a blurb. It's something of its own so it needs to find its own place.
I chose to do something out of the box and not follow the brief directly, so I need to make sure that it does still answer the brief and work as a product, despite its atypical format.
Since I've been learning about the Poe House in Baltimore, I thought that my printed pictures could be the sort of product stocked in their gift shop, so I'm pitching it with that as my goal.
I think it looks professional. It's packaged, titled, printed and displayed for this crit.
Would Have/ Could Have/ Should Have
I would much prefer the dolls if they were more tangible and tactile. Using print has shown me how easy and quick it is to create textures and how these can add a lot more information/tone to flat images. Worked especially well in continuing my eerie atmosphere, but I would have liked to try and apply these textures to 3D puppets, e.g. printing onto fabric that could be worn by the puppets as costumes. I restricted myself from doing this because it wouldn't be beneficial to my submission and would distract me from the actual process of printing pictures, so this is something I can revisit in my own personal practice.
My strengths are in character design and narrative, but I didn't do that... I had a story all planned out and yet I changed my mind and did something different. I'm almost regretting it because I know that the book would have been a safer option, an easier option and probably better showcase of my skills.
BUT I WENT WITH MY GUT, I was brave (or stupid/cocky) and went out there.
Feedback
People were drawn to my desk because it's different - a novelty idea, unique response to the brief. I reckon this is something people admire/enjoy(/probably get annoyed with) about my work; I often manage to do something unusual and unexpected. This is about my ideas and concept, the way I respond to briefs.
Someone asked me whether I'd written my own brief and why I was allowed to do this/why weren't they...I wasn't allowed. I took risks last year and that's when my most exciting work happened, so I am taking risks again. I'm just praying that I'm not also putting my grades at risk too.
Although not working with my preferred medium, I have made some work I'm happy with and my peers praised the use of print - 'textures add even more character', 'textures enhance the theme', so this is encouragement for me to use it again/continue on this route in my animation. On the right track.
ASKING QUESTIONS
Asked if it was boring, after Fin said so... people said no but they are NOT MY TARGET AUDIENCE. Or are they? Who will visit the Poe museum? Look at stats?
Does it matter if they're not my original intended audience if they are my ACTUAL audience (would have it on their shelf)
Ask more people Fin's age?
Finding it really helpful to have this space to ask questions in feedback sessions and to give myself time to think of q's to ask beforehand. WANT RESPONSES? ASK FOR THEM. Point at the issues, the wobbles and get another opinion.
LOOKING AROUND THE ROOM
Well-crafted prints - signed, borders, professional
Test prints/mock-ups, few people have finished all their prints. Most are waiting to do them during/after Christmas... Different ways of working. I would not be able to cope with the balancing of attention between sting and printed pictures. I wanted to get PP completed before I tackled MP, but other people work differently and can manage their time that way.
SPEAKING TO FIRST YEARS
First year is when I worked out what I was doing/how it fits into illustration and not necessarily drawings. They're doing the Tell An Untold Story brief; this time last year I was busy wandering up hills - a lot of research but I also took a risk in MAKING the scene in felt THAT WAS A BIG RISK and I had a lot of fun, got some great responses but also moved away from what the brief was asking me to do TELL A STORY not just make a scene... so this time I'm trying to reflect on the brief constantly. Asking myself questions. Checking up on where I am/where I am going.
BUT BRING BACK SOME OF THAT HOW HILL FUN!
I was having lots of fun when I started researching Poe, but it seems to have faded a little with the pressure of printing. BRING IT BACK FOR THE ANIMATION.
THIS IS WHERE THE FUN HAPPENS. LET'S MAKE THINGS MOVE.
A very speedy reply from Stampington about the ADQ Submission: Hello Jay,
Thank you so much for your wonderful submissions! Your art dolls are wonderful and I will go ahead and forward these to our lovely editor, Jana.
If she needs any other additional information, she will reach out to you!
All the best, A HUGE CONFIDENCE BOOST. It doesn't mean much just yet since it's only a confirmation of their reception of my submission but it is the beginning of the conversation and my dolls are getting out there...
I'm ready to submit! They didn't specify how many photos to submit, maybe this is something I should ask about before submitting in the future.
They gave specifications on size so that the photos will print and fit in the magazine, which I have adhered to. I think this is good practise for real-world submissions and work, since I know the context in which my photos will be going into.
Pinching myself to remember that THIS IS REAL A REAL-WORLD SUBMISSION. This could be PUBLISHED... Scary and overwhelming. I'd love to see my dolls in print but I won't be disheartened if I'm not successful this time. I can still post the photos to my social media pages and people will see them.
I can always try again.
Plus, this is only my first submission to ADQ. Surely the more I submit, the more familiar and close the tenor between us will be. A working relationship. It's a conversation and we might not hit it off this time but I am the Queen of persistence.
I'm really happy with these photos. I wish I'd had longer to work on them because there's so much more I want to add. I want to make more food, create more dolls and make the scene BIGGER. Just do MORE of what I did.
I think it's successful in my aim to communicate the fun of the fair. It's vibrant and exciting, though maybe not busy enough. The abundance of food and colour makes the images seem fragrant, visually stimulating the senses.
The photographs could be much sharper, brighter and well composed. I need to practise and learn how to light little dioramas like this better...
Brief: What epitomizes summer more than the county fair? The scent of funnel cakes mixing with the aroma of farm animals, crazy food booths offering fried pickles, chocolate covered pork rinds, and caviar-topped Twinkies, standing in line for the Ferris wheel, or screaming at the top of your lungs on a wild roller coaster ride, carnival games, and more — there’s magic at the fair! County fairs are still popular, but they often remind us of simpler times or going as a youth with a group of friends. What kind of doll comes to mind when you think of a country fair? A girl in pigtails? A crazy carnival character? Aunt Ida with her prized peach pie? Translate your vision into an art doll and get it to us by mid-December. We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Results will be published in our Summer 2017 Issue. Ideas: Country Fairs in Yorkshire are probably very different to the ones in USA (where ADQ are based), but a lot of these things are familiar;the smells, the food and the games! I think of goldfish in bags, tombolas, giant veggie competitions, crafts and families.
I want to try and capture 'the fun of the fair' as a scene played out by my art dolls. Maybe games in play/exchanging tickets/eating food. I need enough dolls to make it seem BUSY, VIBRANT, BUSTLING.
NOTHING SAYS SWEET SUMMER LIKE HOMEMADE LEMONADE! Attention to detail: need to think about tablecloths/how the pattern of that might clash with the patterned bunting.
The Drawing Board:
Some initial drawings from my sketchbook... mostly character designs and scene planning.
The Set:
Using an old Stabilo display from work (wooden fence aesthetic - just a red floor, suggests it's maybe indoors but heyho). I'd love to take the photos outside and get some real grass/nature in there, but since it's WINTER and muddy that's not going to happen. I have artificial grass but it just looks fake and plasticy.
BUNTING.
PROPS - CANDYFLOSS, FOOD, SIGNS, TABLES,
I really want to make some tiny FIMO polymer clay food like this! I used to have loads and would spend ages whipping different consistencies for sauces etc. Probably not enough time but gosh this makes me think of proper country house baking/summer.
I love making dinky little things! Some of the food props I used are tiny miniatures I made using FIMO when I was 13. I had a lot of fun constructing and curating this tiny world and I don't want to take it down. This is just the kind of competition I was looking for. It's given me a REASON to do this, a BRIEF which asks me to PLAY but it's also preparing me for doing this on a larger scale, on a professional scale. Doing this for a bigger purpose, not just to play with in my home, but to exist in an editorial context, to be showcased and seen. Art dolls and miniatures can be high art.
The balance between magical and spooky. It has to be fast enough for the pace of a bird to fly, but a lot of the minor key gothic soundtracks are too slow. Anything at the right pace is too happy/upbeat!
A struggle to find that mid-ground. After listening to Danny Elfman soundtracks all week I'm also expecting a full orchestral piece and ambient choir and sifting through thousands of same-y electrical-sounding clips on FMA searching for the RIGHT one.
How can I use sound effects to create atmosphere? Think about MUSIC as well as just sound effects... an instrumental/ambient track?
Ended up mixing a few different tracks together and overlaying forest sound effects. Needs more bird effects, e.g. flapping of wings and cawing. Curating a soundscape from the sounds I'm collecting.
My soundtrack will work to add another sense to my storyboard. The soundtrack will be the audio of the scene I have built and will pan right through the 30 seconds. The two will work together to form Poe's world in sound and vision.
Not my proposed idea, but practising moving the images with a consideration to the sound and music tracks.
Above is my final storyboard proposal fitted with the soundtracks I've found.
Bronte and I went to visit the Bronte House in Haworth today - not quite Poe's house but a similar conservation project. Celebrating the life and works of the authors in a museum but allowing the public to go inside and look around the house in which they lived.
Incredible to see the actual clothes the girls wore, the real things! Creepy to see little locks of their hair. Since I'm not going to get to Poe's house for this project, this was a great day out and helped me to imagine what the Baltimore house is like, why people go there and how it is run.
The Bronte House had a gift shop too, selling novelty erasers, pencils and keyrings but also books and post cards. The best gift in there was a box of tea bags labelled BRON-TEA. Puns!
People shopping for gifts there are looking for something that says 'The Bronte Parsonage', or 'Haworth'. Either to keep as a souvenir or to give to friends on their return. Do I need to make 'BALTIMORE' a bigger selling point on my book pack?
If only the 'Greetings From' brief hadn't put me off post cards so much, this would be a good form of print for Poe. A little postcard of the house as a memento of the museum!
On second thoughts, I don't think this suits Poe's attitude, it's making him commercial, whereas my book allows for creativity and interaction. More than a print. Also, a postcard be too small for the size format required.
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum v.s. Poe's House Baltimore Museum
COMPETING AGAINST THE RICHMOND MUSUEM. The houses that Poe lived in in Richmond were all destroyed, so the Richmond museum is just a commemorative site. It lacks the authenticity of the Poe house, the same eerie idea that you are stepping over the floorboards he lived on - just like the Bronte House has. Yet the Richmond museum is perhaps more well-know, bigger, and has a larger gift shop.
The Richmond museum also has a gift shop, so could fit in there too but my book specifically comments on the Baltimore HOUSE and his life THERE.
I've rushed to get things finished for the mega crit.
Other people are still printing and this is making me think that maybe I haven't done ENOUGH? I should still be making things, not being complacent and settling with this...
But it's a relief to have it all ready. There's no(t much) stress, it's all prepared.
I showed it to my little brother (aged 7, spooky lad, big Goosebumps fan) and he said it was boring. Ugh. He wanted corpses and blood and guts... Have I gone too tame? Have I censored it too much?
I stripped it down to just assets and got rid of any narrative, so it's up to the reader to make it scary.
But I guess it might not just be my book, but that Fin might find Edgar Allan Poe boring? Flowery language and old-fashioned jargon. Slow pace and romance. It's a different kind of scary - something modern kids are out of touch with since they're overloaded with sensational media.
My challenge now is to make it appealing and show him that it can be whatever you make it...
A demonstration perhaps? Or my sting might serve to show the spookiness coming to life in this pictures. Kids don't want flat pictures, they want moving ones.
Made a little envelope to pop everything in so that it looks all neat and together! If I was doing prints I could have a clean cellophane envelope to keep them individually sealed, or a book would be bound together - but since mine is this weird print-book-hybrid, I've decided to make decorated packaging.
Re-used old feather monoprints I had scanned in, might revisit this since I didn't rough it at all, it was just a quick solution. I could do better if I spent a bit more time on it.
I'm wondering if I should cut some of these out for the mega crit? To demonstrate what they do/what my intentions were. Have them laid out for people to pick up/play with. This might help with the responses I get from the mega crit, since I will be able to get feedback on the product, not just the images.
Does it function?
What stories can you imagine?
Who are these characters?
Are any of these items significant?
What happened in this house?
Perhaps I need more written promps in the pack to explain about Poe. But he was a mystery after all!
Since the card it's printed on is so thick, it has splintered when I folded it! Jagged rips where the card has been bent. I'm worried that this doesn't look professional.
On one hand, this does suit the worn, gothic appearance I was aiming for with the visual language of this product, but it just looks shoddy and badly crafted.
The digital print room is booked up, will I get a chance to reprint it? Should I go elsewhere to get that done?
1. Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride
Tim Burton's soundtracks are always eerie and atmospheric. This film has a similar gothic subject and dark, romantic tone of voice to my intended moving pictures animation.
The Corpse Bride is an animated musical, but even when there are no songs being sung by the characters in action, there is still music behind the visuals. The music builds a sense of atmosphere, one that can not only be seen through the cool colours, windswept hair and dark shadows, but an atmosphere that the audience can also hear. This makes the scene more believable and rich, the consumer being immersed in the world of the story through their senses.
carries the tone of the production.
The films uses voice acting. Famous actors read the lines that would be dubbed over the animation. I have access to voice recording equipment but I do worry that without hiring professional voice actors and without having authentic American accents (being set in Baltimore), this might make my sting less authentic. I also intend on constructing a very lonely, desolate feeling in the scene so I don't want to use dialogue.
Crow sound effects - Not just the crow cawing, but also the flap of its wings and scratching of its feet. With the animation form being stop-motion 3-dimensional figures, this 3-dimensional, realistic soundscape is effective. On a more simple animation (2D drawings), such great attention to little details might be overwhelming and out of place.
In 3D animation, does it border on sensory overload, bombarding the audience with all of this auditory information? This could be a deliberate attempt to make an uncanny and hyper-detailed world (i.e. wonderland/otherworldly).
The film score is orchestral and classical, which suits the context of the story (e.g. since Poe wrote in the 19th century, modern-sounding instruments and music would not be appropriate).
There's an ambient vocal choir singing the 'oohs' and 'aahs', a dreamlike and angelic sound.
The inclusion of bells and chimes add to this magical sensation.
Danny Elfman is the genius responsible for the composing of the film score for Corpse Bride, as well as many other fantastical films from Tim Burton. I've included the Official Soundtrack for Edward Scissorhands which, although not an animated film, features a really atmospheric and sensory soundtrack.
I wish I knew more about music and instruments so I could deconstruct this properly. I don't know my celestas from my harps. I know that Elfman's tone is exactly what I want to recreate. He has a voice in all of these soundtracks, a distinct and supernatural air, which can range from nightmarish to heavenly.
2. Mona the Vampire (Spirit of the Woods)
Mona has a similar target audience to that which I am aiming for, so I am investigating how they use auditory elements to compliment the visual animation.
1.05 - 1.10 minutes: Sound effects of animals, trees and the wind are built up to create the noise of the woods, alongside the animated pictures of characters moving through the scene.
Sounds overlap to communicate how the assets interact with each other, e.g. the sound of a bus engine begins at 1.10 minutes and gets louder in volume as it moves into the frame and scares off the animals that were there before.
Music is used in Mona the Vampire to convey a change of tone - when the scene should be funny it's in a major key, which makes the scene seem bright and cheerful, or when the scene becomes tense it drops to a minor, more serious and dark.
Upbeat music with excitement of the children. A piano sets the pace of the story, with the tempo rising as the characters run or with the tempo slowing as the characters move slowly.
When there's a joke they use a conventional kids' comic trumpet, setting it firmly within the kid's entertainment genre.
JUST AS FRED WAS SAYING ABOUT WALKING CYCLES, when the characters walk, a mid-shot is used instead and the head bobs up and down across the scene - rather than animating the legs walking for a whole cycle which is tricky - but the noise of footsteps is also added which makes it even more obvious that the character is walking.
As Mona's world skips from reality to her imagination, a 'cl-cl-cl-cl' whirling noise suggests that the audience are taken through this vortex. We are not only visually transported through the psychedelic distortion of the image, but the audio dictates that something unusual is happening with this unnatural, whirling sound.
3. Think about the inclusion of sound or sound production in your sting
I've used the Free Music Archive before for projects such as my Dark Crystal short film (Vis Com). Soundtracks can be used to set the scene. Sounds can give vital information about atmosphere, weather and mood. Since I am not a musician myself, I think I'll leave that to the experts... there's so much stuff on the free music archive that I can use without breaching copyright, but also a lot of stuff to sift through that wouldn't be appropriate for my tone of voice/subject.
The music I choose could completely alter the tone of my moving image so I need to make sure that I keep true to Poe on this one.
I'm using a low-key palette so I think a low-key soundtrack would complement this nicely. A low pitch, quite slow, minor key.
Sound Effects: I'd like to create a moody and tense atmosphere. Rain and wind or thunder are conventional features of Poe's fiction and of the Gothic genre.
Crow cawing.
Cat screech.
Windows rattling.
^ This is the perfect album! Spooky instrumental music using classical instruments and sound effects, but also has the potential to be layered underneath other sound effects I can find.
Carmelite is a children's illustration competition, a specific area of the industry that I would like to work within. It's quite a substantial brief, illustrating several pages from a story, so I'm not certain that I am going to do it just yet but I've added the deadline to my timetable so that I can see when it would be due and whether I find time later on.
Feeling very ill and unwell this morning but I really wanted to get some feedback on my responsive work. I wanted to see how much my peers had done for their briefs so far (am I behind?) and to find out whether people think I've made a good start/what I can do to push the projects forward.
Not had a chance to discuss Responsive properly yet (the last time we had a peer tutorial we were all still in the research stage), so I feel that I need some contact just to check that I'm doing all of this right.
Presenting my sketchbook (containing ideas and roughs for Illustration Friday, Art Doll Quarterly and the Roald Dahl brief), printed briefs (excluding Free Range Freddy and Adrian Mole because I'm not positive that I'm going to do those yet - I need to make a decision and be selective) and two completed briefs: NEST magazine submission and Illustration Friday TAPE.
What other people had to show: lots of people have started doing I.F. and
Digital work
Adrian Mole book jackets - I thought this was going to take me a while, so considered ditching the Penguin brief, but other people have already made and printed covers! I can probably do this as a smaller brief over Christmas. Use InDesign and make some type.
I'd agree that most of what I have done so far in my sketchbook is character design.
People seem to like my character design and I'm glad because I like them too!
The Art Doll Quarterly and Roald Dahl briefs are character-based, which is partially why I chose to do these ones, I wanted to make characters. But character design is not answering briefs, it's only the beginning of it... I have not yet been considering frame/composition, but rather the characters that go inside it.
I need to get a move on in that sense. More sketchbook work needed.
Consistent character and visual signature - this is true, I think I've created a 'look' about my work that is always there, whether its in a drawing or in a 3D model, they are obviously mine. I think I've defined myself and made these squiggles my own. Not sure if this is a good thing for responsive... do I need to be more versatile? More dynamic in my style in order to suit the context.
A valid point about Roald Dahl in that his stories are not cute, so I could make the response a little darker and more honest. This is where my drawing style might need to adapt to the stories.
A lot of physical crafting goes into my doll making, so I think my outcomes can be considered as well-crafted. Although I'm not the best sewer and there might be some imperfections, there is a great deal of craft that is put in to all elements of the making process, from construction to photographing.
I didn't spend long on this brief so I didn't put much thought into the concept. I knew I wanted to avoid drawing a roll of tape - I wanted to do something a bit more out of the box.
I came up with the subject of video tapes and watching VHS movies, but I don't think the idea is well executed. The video tape in the girl's hand is too sketchy, not immediately communicating that it is a video. The television is the most recognisable object and I'm relying on this to communicate the rest of the image.
Tone of Voice
Trying to fit in with the humorous, comical illustrations I've seen working so well online like Gemma Correll and Sophie Corrigan.
Roughing/final version
prefer the orignal sketches! This finished one lacks the quick
Digital
Colour
completely random choice. Needs more planning and testing.
The more I look at it the more I dislike it, but it's submitted now so I can forget about it.
I found storyboarding a useful tool for devising, planning and scripting moving image.
It is used in the animation industry so is something that I want to get familiar with.
I tried to use a variety of Points of View and camera angles, which made the (often quite dull) sequences more dynamic and interesting.
I'll use storyboarding to structure my moving pictures sting before I take it to After Effects because this will save me a lot of time and effort on the screen.
Fred's storyboarding session today built on these techniques. He demonstrated with Kyle's storyboards that you can create an illusion of depth on a flat screen by layering assets (e.g. background/foreground).
We were challenged to think beyond the frame and consider how things move INTO/OFF the frame.
We also discussed pace and tension.
Feeling anxious tonight. Does my work answer the brief? It's neither a book or a set of prints!
It's not PRINTED - it will be digitally printed. I know we were given the option to do this, but it seems like I've cut corners and cheated by doing this.
Did I take the easy road? Was it a trick to see if I was dedicated enough to do a traditional print? Have I failed?
I've seen some really brilliant work hanging around in the studio and mine is so different. It's not up to that standard and I don't think that mine is something you'd see in Colours May Vary (for example)? I guess my target audience is different and my purpose/context is different too. It might be found in a gift shop for the Baltimore House, but not in a print shop.
I've gone in a different direction which I am normally raring to do... I seek innovative/unexpected/unusual/atypical work, but I am questioning whether I have wasted all of my time making something that isn't right for this brief.
I need some sleep. Things always look better with fresh eyes! Goodnight.
My desk has been covered in trimmings, glue and cutting tools for the past two weeks and I am so tired. I just hope that what I've made will be good enough. I've been straining to get this ready to print, but I'm not sure if it's the best it could be.
I've so much admiration for Edgar that I want this book/print/house to live up to his legend. I really want it to be atmospheric, authentic and from the same world as Poe's mysteries.
At the time when Edgar was living on Amity Road, he was quite poor and living in a very cramped house with Elizabeth (his grandmother), Maria (his Aunt) and Virginia (his 10 year old cousin, whom he married when she was aged 13). I have concerns that these interiors are too posh for such a household and may not be accurate, but I don't think that impacts too much on the overall 'feel' of the spooky house, especially since the reader decides what goes into the house and where they fit.
The reader's interpretation is vital because their response builds the inside of the house and builds the story.
Accidental eerie ghost trees! Really love this page. This will be lots of fun to animate since it has depth and layers to it. I can have crows flying through the trees, characters walking deep into the woods etc.
I've been working hard on this brief. I do feel like I have neglected other modules because of the impending print slot but I do intend to make up that time. I haven't blogged as much as I would have liked to. I haven't been reflecting enough to look at what I've done each day and really SEE IT ALL together. So it's quite strange to see it all now, at the very near end of printing pictures (the submission is a while away, but I want time to dig my teeth into moving pictures). It's all coming together.
It works! It opens and folds and it's a house! I'm so relieved because I was about to give up on it. I should have just stuck to a pamphlet fold book because this has caused so much trouble with printing/trimming/fitting to paper, but it's actually functioning now and I can finally get on with making the rest of the pages.
There's so much to do so much to do so much to do.
PLOUGHED ON TODAY.
What I achieved today:
+ Doll roughs (every character mapped out, from hair to undergarments)
*insert 1830s references here*
Thank the lord for long bus journeys, I can sometimes do a lot of work on the way in at 6.55am.
I would have liked to have spent longer developing these characters. They've been in my sketchbooks, mind and ideas for a while but I would like to get under their skin a little more and do further research into the Poe family. Perhaps this is something I can revisit when making the moving models for moving pictures. I want to get back into my sketchbook and play with facial expressions/para-linguistic features to go alongside my storyboards BUT FOR NOW these are sweet little people of the Poe variety, so they'll do!
+ Doll Collages (all four characters constructed with monoprint textures)
I would like to have had more time to make monoprint transfers of lace/material textures to use on the garments.
GOOD VIBES ABOUT AFTER EFFECTS/ANIMATION:
I LOVE AFTER EFFECTS and I know I want to use it AGAIN! Had a quick chat with Ben about it and he told me about his friend that works at Mackinnon & Saunders (wowee!). The more I learn about/watch/experience animation, the more I want to get into that field.
I can still study illustration. I can still make illustrations. I can still be an illustrator. But I can also develop animation skills, work with animators and make my illustrations move.
This morning, Fred said 'at some point, technology will let you down.'
Thanks for that curse Fred! It's happened...
I tried to print my house double-sided and even though the two pages were perfectly lined up in the Photoshop document, the printer knocked it majorly out of place because of the large border on the short edge for duplex handling.
MIKE FLOWER SAVED MY LIFE
well, my house at least. He took a look at my document and suggested that InDesign or Illustrator would be better suited for the paper handling. I went away and fiddled with it, Mike came back to check that it was working and we printed it and IT WORKED. Solved!
I'm running out of time there is SO MUCH TO DO
and the storyboarding briefing was brilliant, I want to get going with that but I need to finish my printed pictures work for wednesday to be digitally printed downstairs!
THIS IS THE BRIEF I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR
I'm so interested in Animation at the moment. My work is often created with the intention of MOVING at some point (articulated dolls/puppets, scenes), so it is really exciting to finally get the chance to MAKE IT MOVE. I want my illustrations to have LIFE and now here is a brief in which I get to create that life and motion.
Moving characters
Do I have to make it all in After Effects? I'm impressed with the things that can be done using After Effects and enjoyed making crazy pans and applying properties to the objects, but can I make the characters/puppets/scenes SEPARATELY and use After Effects simply to bring it all together in layers?
Can I use stop motion and PHYSICAL puppets?
Extend your Printed Pictures aesthetic into moving pictures!
A short sting/advert for a documentary about your author
Could I do it as an advertisement for the Poe House in Baltimore? I've been learning about and making work about Poe's location, his house in Baltimore, which is now a museum. I think it would be appropriate for my sting to reference the house as the animated short is likely to be conceptualised around the work I have done about THE HOUSE and SPOOKY SCENES.
I intend to recreate Poe's mysterious MOOD AND IMPACT in my moving pictures.
Carson Ellis
The Wildwood Chronicles Book Trailer - Carson Ellis. This was one of the examples shown in the briefing and I found it utterly enchanting.
Colin Meloy's fantastical folklore storytelling is illustrated by Carson Ellis's intricate paper worlds. A marriage of nature and whimsy creating a 2 dimensional land of wonder.
Ellis's rich scenes are translated to moving image through the use of After Effects, using layers to build up the depth of a dense forest with foreground through to background. Each of the assets are separate layers, able to move independently from the background.
Panning is used to move the audience through the woods - we are moved through the trees as the frame scans further left. We move deeper into the woods through zooming closer. The under layers become foreground as we zoom towards them.
There is so much going on in this animation, which could easily make it overwhelming, but since the movements are all subtle and natural, it means that the overall motion is immersive and inviting.
The viewer is transported into Wildwood and left with a taste for the stories, just as a teaser should. Not giving everything away, but flirting with a promise of what is to come.
Directed by Aaron Sorenson.
Although this credits sequence doesn't have the depth and physicality to it that I love about The Boxtrolls films, it does use digital animation very cleverly to illustrate the ideas of the film.
Rotation and position communicates falling down - action packed and adventure.
Type overlays the animation, using the dark spaces and forms in the images as to add to the scene rather than take over.
Definitely not all After Effects but such a spooky tone and mood!
Similar in atmosphere/tone to my intentions
Made to LOOK OLD - grain, camera wobble, flickering light, black and white filter. Jittery camera, distortion.
Uses layers to create depth. Lots of houses on different layers moving at different speeds.
Bird movement - I am considering using a raven/crow in mine so I need to study how this artist has made the bird come to life. It moves very quickly and the wings move in a 'V' formation - up and down.
Still scenes with only a few things moving, creates a sombre and melancholy tone. E.g. curtains moving in the wind.
Same beginning and end - circular, narrative, emotional.
