Initial brainstorming - Greetings from...

I must admit I have been a bit phased by this brief. I think it is quite hard to capture and communicate the identity of a city, without actually using any iconic/cliché imagery - such as key monuments, because this is what people recognise... I had an idea though of maybe using the colour palette of the countries flags as a way of identifying these places. Whether I do this or not I am not sure at this point. In initial reaction I have just brainstormed a couple of themes off the top of my head that I think would be interesting to explore. These are the ones that I found the least generic  - some have more potential than others and I think how they develop as ideas will just depend on my research.

• Transport
• Traffic signs (Berlin has funny traffic men)

• Art
• Art collectives/societies
• the origins of famous art movements
• famous pieces of art/sculptures
• Markets
• specific exports/historical trade?
• market squares
• Sporting events
• marathons
• tennis championships - Melbourne, Paris, London, NY
• Festivals 
• flower festivals
• light festivals 
• traditional festivals e.g. 'La tomatina' in Spain

• Popular films set/filmed in cities e.g. Trainspotting in Edinburgh
• Invasion/occupation during war e.g. Paris - Stolen art - the different ways in which cities were affected?
• 'Urban animals' - conflict between nature and urban cities. e.g. foxes in London, baboons in Cape town. 

Tequila Sunrise

I found this exercise of distilling information hard but very valuable. It made me think of the key elements needed within an image in order to communicate an idea or concept - in this case a tequila sunrise cocktail. In this I think capturing the gradient of the cocktail, as well as the shape of the glass was the most important in order for these images to be effective. Some of them work reasonably well, however others seem to be too obvious and descriptive. I found it hard to differentiate between making them too overcomplicated and then too simple - I think the line can sometimes be very thin, and crossing it can become blurred... sometimes I think you begin to misunderstand how others may interpret information and become lost in making things so sleek and simple it doesn't mean anything anymore. 

Composition: Depth

What do we mean by depth in an image? How can this be achieved?

Depth is 'the illusion of distance or a 3rd dimension'. This can be achieved through scaling objects relative to their distance away from the viewer (smaller the further away), arranging objects - so some are further away and others closer up, using props - e.g. the shape of a table to show distance of someone sitting at the end of it - and cropping. 

What do we mean by viewpoint? What can it provide you with? 

Viewpoint is the angle at which the artist has arranged the composition of the image. A different viewpoint can make for more interesting and engaging compositions. The most interesting ones often highlight a way in which we would not naturally look or see something in daily life - not eye level. 

Are depth and viewpoint only relevant to image makers who want to make 'realistic' artwork? 

No, consideration of depth and viewpoint are important in all forms of image making because they help us to create well balanced and engaging compositions that are pleasing to the eye!

What is line of sight?

'The direction our eye moves as we look into a picture'.

What does line of sight do for your composition?

'Leads the eye unconsciously to the centre of attention/interest' in the image. 

How does movement relate to line of sight?

By making different lines of sight you can create a sense of movement in the image or cause someones eye to move across the image in particular directions. The movement you create could reflect the tone of the image - a more rhythmic and smooth line of sight could reflect a more calm, sombre image whether an abrupt/jagged and clashing line of slight could reflect an image of conflict. 

How does the hand out recommend that you use line of sight to its full advantage? 

To strengthen and clarify the composition of your images. 

As part of the session we went through a number of images by a range of different illustrators and evaluated/identified the use of line of sight, viewpoint, overlapping and creating a foreground and background in each image. We made sketches and jotted down things we had identified for each one - as shown above. I found this exercise really useful as it helped me to consolidate what we had learnt and also see how professional illustrators themselves had put these tools in practice within their work. Here a couple of examples that I thought were particularly interesting - 

This image shows a good use of scale to create depth - the front sculpture being bigger puts it as a focal point of the image and contrasts with the smaller sculptures which places them further away. 

The lines of the overhead lockers create a line of sight leading to a vanishing point - being the back of the plane. This image shows that the line of sight does not always have to lead to the focal point of the image but can be used to create a sense of depth - as it leads the eye of the viewer further in. 

Composition pt2. - frame and arrangement

How can we place importance on certain information within the frame?
- Size and location
- Making the most important object/figure bigger and placing it in the foreground

What are the benefits of overlapping objects in your composition and how is this best achieved?
- Making a 'unified arrangement'
- 'Can help us to express our picture idea more directly'
- Make important objects more prominent
- Best achieved - not just touching, but not too much overlapping. Make it look natural and not too planned, whilst also carefully considering where you place objects.

What role does the frame play in composing visual information within your image?
- use the whole frame
- balance information - not too top or bottom heavy?
- Cropping

Can you be critical of the handout?
- sexist - always mentions person as a 'he'
- bit too simplistic and obvious at times - seems a bit patronising
- It can be wrong, sometimes making a completely balanced  logical composition is boring!

What I have done well:

• The scaling of the objects, and cropping of the person looking at the elephants gives a sense of depth to the image. 
• Human gaze through the binoculars and the diagonal placement of the butterflies produces 2 lines of sight focusing the viewer on the elephants - the focal point of the image. 
• The chosen frame suits the composition of the image. 

What I could have done better:

• I think the way the person is looking into the binoculars is a kind of awkward angle - the elephants would have been better placed slightly more central to the image, and then in turn the person looking at a slightly more turned in angle. I think this would have produced a more balanced composition. 
• The second hill in the image makes the left hand side too heavy and unbalances the composition. I would get rid of this if I did it again.

End of Brief Crit and thinking...

Positives:

• Overall I think that in the crit - when Matt showed all the gifs on the board - they generally got a positive reaction. I am quite proud of what I achieved really, considering that I had never done any animation before whatsoever.
• I think in this brief I really wrestled with the concept of what a gif could be and what I wanted to achieve. A huge part of this I think was using my blog more to write informal rants or ideas.
• In this brief I can also see that I am now pushing myself - because when I already made gifs I still made myself make more in order to improve and create something better. Creating some gifs in the early stages allowed me to do this, so...in future I think I should try and make my final work before a deadline so I have time to review/improve/recreate it. 
• Using a timetable - alike to the picture book brief - also helped me hugely to plan and organise my time more effectively.
• I feel like I have really learnt some valuable lessons from this brief about how to make an effective gif - simple is better, to focus the composition and movement and the importance of crafting. 

Negatives:

• I wish I had spent more time experimenting with different mediums for the handmade gif and the 3D gif. 
• In the handmade gif I felt like the coloured pencil was appropriate, but I did not achieve the kind of flowing natural look that other people made in their hand-drawn work, maybe this was just down to bad crafting?
• The 3D gif I found really fun and simply wish I had started it earlier so I could have experimented with making lots of different characters in a variation of materials. 

Sleeping fox final

What I like:

• I think that using felt to create the fox and its surroundings was effective in creating this atmosphere of comfort and warmth.
• Compositionally the gif works well, the fox being in the centre puts it as focal point of the image, also filming from above gives an interesting viewpoint.
• I think that the gif demonstrates consideration for the frame provided by a camera lens, as the gif fills the whole frames and uses it to full effect. 
• The colour and movement of the leaves adds this autumnal feel to the gif, which I like. 

What I do not like:

• I think that just having the leaves moving makes the gif very jolty and distracts from the sleepy/calm tone that I wanted for the gif. I would have to liked to have something else move - like the fox shuffling around, or him opening or closing his eyes but because I made him out of felt and at a very small scale this was not really possible without looking very clumsy. 
• I do not like how you can see the thread on the fox - I should have got a colour to match the orange felt.
• The fox itself is a bit disproportionate - but maybe this adds character?

Let sleeping foxes lie

The idea for this gif came from the fox characters I began drawing in the first week. All my gifs so far have followed this sleepy atmosphere, so I thought having this fox sleeping would be a good way to tie all three of them together. In this one however I want to create this sense of being surrounded by warmth and comfort when sleeping, so I thought of the fox being snuggled into some leaves. 

I tried the fox in paper but I didn't think that this gave me the kind of warm, snuggly feeling that I wanted for the gif. Also for a 3D gif it was not three dimensional enough...

So to get some ideas for what I could use to create 3D characters I went to this art shop in town - Fred Aldous. There I really fell in love with the idea of using felt as I thought that it could work really well to create this sense of warmth and comfort. After making the fox above I think that it has provided me with exactly what I wanted - this sense of being really comfortable and snuggled in when sleeping. I also really like the autumnal effect of the leaves - like the fox is hibernating or something.

Sleeping Bear final

What I like: 

• I think that this is my favourite gif that I have made so far! 
• I think that the textures are really visually interesting and eye-catching, they work well to mimic the bears fur and almost creating this earthy/natural aesthetic to the gif? 
• The monotone also suits the calm/sleepy tone of the gif. 
• Im glad I decided to do grass and leaves rather than a log to rest the bears head on - I think this puts focus on the bear whether before there were too many textures and the head and the log were merging into one...
• I think compositionally the gif works really well, its really simply yet still takes up all of the frame. Unlike the cactus gif I don'ts think that the viewer gets distracted, the focus is most definitely on the bear. 
• I think that the timings work really well to create this sleepy atmosphere to the gif. I also think that adding in the bear opening his eye and looking at the bear - draws attention to this little interaction and adds to the sleepiness of his character. 

Problems:

• Currently I feel the need to constantly be pushing myself and trying new things. I feel like with this gif I have resorted back to old habits of using textures and assembling them on photoshop. I like it but...its what I did for the whole of the last brief so I feel like I should be trying something new. 
• I wish that the bee did not have so far to go after resting on the bears nose, maybe I should have cropped this further - but I think that this may have been too zoomed in and there would have been too much going on within one space? 

Sleeping Bear

After the cactus gif and the problems I found with the final composition, I have decided to change the composition for my bear gif. Originally in my storyboards I had the full figure of the bear on a log or in some grass. The focus of the animation is a fly resting on the bears nose and waking him up - therefore it makes more sense to zoom in and only have the bears face. I think that this is a much better composition and will bring focus to the overall tone/mood of the gif.  

In my sketchbook I had  started to look at using ink textures to describe the bear's coat ect. I think that this worked really well so I have done some more testing with a variation of textures. I really like this as an aesthetic, and I think that the monotone adds to the calming, sombre and sleepy tone I want to the gif. 

Similarly to the 'raven' book I made in visual narratives I made the textures and then cut them into separate shapes to scan in and assemble on photoshop. This process works really well for me, and I think for this digital animation is also really effective as it means I can easily move and animate these separate pieces of the image. 

Cactus poking another cactus final

What I like:

• Generally I have got quite a positive reaction from this gif. I think that the interaction between the two characters is quite amusing and tells a little narrative about friends annoying each other or being grumpy when woken up from a deep sleep. - So it achieves want I wanted in terms of 'saying something' or evoking a feeling. 

Problems:

• But, I think that there a couple problems with the gif visually. The focal point of the animation is 'the poke' but this only takes up a tiny amount of the frame. I think creating a context to surround these characters has worked well, better than the egg and bread gif, however the composition distracts from this small moment and when combined with the movement of the coloured pencil becomes a bit overwhelming. 
• In my next couple gifs I think I need to either isolate the movement - so this draws focus - or crop my frame so the key area is more prevalent. 

Cactus poking another Cactus testing

After the egg and bread gif I wanted to start afresh and create something improving on my previous mistakes. With this gif I decided to not have the characters simply standing alone but put in a background so that they do not seem out of place. I also drew double the amount of frames for this - 20 instead of 10 - which I think has made a huge amount of difference. 

I found that with having much more frames I was able to adjust the timings on photoshop more without the animation looking really slow and jolty. I decided that within the gif the small cactus poking the other one was the key moment and so started slowing down the wind up to this to create tension. I think that this has worked well and brings emphasis to this small little moment. 

I have been debating what media to use now to colour these frames in and create the final result. I went back to ink and coloured pencil because they were two mediums that I used in initially creating these characters, and that I thought at that time worked really well. In trying both, I think I would prefer to use coloured pencil. I think that ink is more suited to fluid movement and big shapes whether using coloured pencils will give me the detail I need in the facial expressions. I also really like how this worked in my egg and bread gif, and think that this childish and playful aesthetic - as well as the subtle movement - will similarly work well with these characters. 

Egg and Bread

After more storyboarding the egg and the bread as two characters, who were friends, is something that I began to really like as a narrative for my gifs. From this I choose to make this gif showing a small exchange between the two of them, when the bread's upset and the egg hold his hand.

What I like:

• For this whole brief Ive been talking about trying to 'say something' through my work and I think that this really achieves a small little moment that talks about the comfort of friendship. In this sense I am very happy with the final outcome. 
• I like the aesthetic of the coloured pencil and the movement this creates, I also think it suits the childish and innocent nature of the interaction between the two characters. 

Problems:

• On the other hand visually I do think that the gif is very glitchy and needs more work. The lack of a pencil background I think creates this horrible contrast between the handmade aesthetic of the characters and the sharp photoshop fill of the background. 
• I also think that the exchange is too quick and the animation itself could do with double the amount of frames. 

Animating hats

This is really not relevant to the project at all - I just did it as a tester and also a little bit just for fun because I like leopard print and funky clothes. This gif also really hurts my eyes if I look at it too long.  Although making this did help me better understand how to overlay and create different layers, and switch between these in order to create an animation. 

I've got mixed responses from this gif, some people really like it and others not so much. I'm not sure how I really feel about it, but I do know that I don't really want it to be one of my final outcomes. It just seems too lo-fi and simple, it also doesn't really express any feeling or emotion - its just a bit strange. 

This gif I feel like is a lot more of an accomplished outcome and also expresses more personality/character. I made the tongue and eyes with felt and took photos of them moving - then arranged these in photoshop. I think as a process this has been really effective in creating something that looks 3D without having to consider creating a whole frame and composition. 

I decided to put the bowler hat in context because it looked a bit bare and plain on its own. I decided to use this photo of an 'aristocratic man'. I like the contrast between the seriousness of the man, and his setting, with the silly and playful animation of the hat. If I was to develop this further I think I would make the eyes and tongue appear, so it would come more as a surprise - which would add extra comedy?

Planning and more storyboarding

I needed to go back to storyboarding in order to think of new ways to animate my characters. Thinking about what Jamie said,  I tried to identity common themes or feelings across my characters so that my 3 gifs could work as a series. The ideas that seemed to have the most potential was following this idea of being grumpy, or tired - this seemed to work well across the bear, fox and cactus. The problem, though, its that I'm still getting distracted by a load of different characters or processes that I want to do, but realistically I will not have time to do them all. I think I just need to start making - focus on making 1 gif to start with - and then develop from there...

I decided to also revisit the idea of doing something with the hat characters I made in the first week of the brief. Matt's suggestions for animating the other day being simple - such as making something bigger then smaller, rotating, constructing and deconstructing - gave me a couple ideas as to what they could be doing. I also like the idea of making something similar to Luca Mainini's work. I feel like in terms of creating a gif these would maybe be a good place to start. 

Play!

I have been having a debate in my mind about this brief. On one hand I feel like I need to make 3 polished and developed gifs, to get the marks and also to have something I am fully happy with to present on Monday. On the other hand I just really want to play and have fun. I feel like I am just brimming with weird ideas, and different processes by which to make these gifs and I want to try them all (or at least as many as I can fit in). I have been saying that I need to make something with meaning, which I do still agree with theres no point of making a gif just because...but then investing so much on the idea/meaning behind these gifs is stopping me from being experimental and producing the work. I think that with gifs, they can just be silly or funny or playful and that this kind of tone is really appropriate to them as a medium. Also coming near to the end of first year I want to experiment and be stupid whilst I still can and the marks don't count (not meaning that I don't want to get good marks, but just that I can take the risk).

Monoprint and Lino workshop

Having done my foundation in Leeds, I had already learnt how to lino and monoprint in the same workshop. Despite this, though, I found today surprisingly useful. It gave me some ideas of how to make my gifs, some in a very process driven way and it also made me feel that this brief was maybe more about experimenting than creating some final polished gif (I want to have fun).

Lino 

As shown in this picture, in lino you can print the same things over and over whilst changing the 'background colour'. I suppose you can do this digitally as well, but I just thought that this could maybe be an interesting way to make a gif - to have the same image but just with different flashing colours. I have also considered lino as a good way to create some nice textures for my gifs - especially for the bear, fox and cactus characters. 

Monotype

I had never tried monotype before, because when I had seen other people do it the prints just looked messy and frankly a bit crap. But we were taught a new technique of putting baby powder on the ink before drawing - which meant that only the areas that you press down hard on picked it up. This made the final prints a lot cleaner and clearer. I experimented with drawing a couple of my characters, and building up a number of different layers of colour. I really like this process now and think that it could be really effective in making a gif. Also with these two particular characters I think the texture of drawing with a pencil to create these marks has worked really well. 

A chat with Jamie

I had a very useful chat with Jamie just generally about my work and the project. I think I kinda of knew what I wanted to make and how to do it, but it was useful just to clarify a couple things. One of them was whether the gifs had to work as a series, it doesn't specify in the brief but as Jamie said...it would be quite nice if they did. An obvious way of doing this is just to make the same character(s) work across the three different process', perhaps doing a different action in each of them. Personally, instead of this, I would rather choose a theme to run across all three - a feeling or idea. I think this will help to make sure that my gifs actually SAY SOMETHING as apposed to just being cute or funny - something I became v. conscious of after the crit. So I have started to think about and identify some themes that run across the characters I have already created -

1. tiredness
2. movement (dancing, swimming...) - the joy of this?
3. comfort - a comforting friend, physical comfort
4. friendship?

I'm not sure about what I am going to go with yet, but I like this approach to the brief. I think I just need to story board some more, and think more about the characters that I like and what they could be doing...

Reflections from Crit

Good Comments

• Good use of testing characters out in different media
• Good amount of work 
• Lack of understanding of storyboards - need to make them more clear, and sequential. 

Characters of note...and feedback

• Egg - doesn't fit with eggshell as a story, maybe hugging a bit of toast, being fried? 
• Bear - consider the textures together, is it too much?
• cactus - need to get back the look of the pricks being the beard, hair ect. (lost this in paper?)
• synchronised swimming (nicer when you can not see the body, but just the legs)

General Reflections

• I have made lots of different little roughs of ideas and thoughts...but I need to spend more time on developing the character themselves - give them a more definite personality.
• Need to do some more storyboarding, what could all of these different characters be doing?
• I have been a little too ambitious with some of my storyboards. Be subtle and more simple in the movements your character could be doing - deconstruct and construct, facial expression ect.
• Create these characters and storyboards with intent. What do you want to say? What story do you want to tell? Is just being cute enough? BUT at the same time I am tired of making 'serious' work, I want to be playful and silly for once, and make an audience laugh!

Making a practice gif

In response to the gif workshop I decided to go away and make a little tester to get what we had learnt into my head. So I just drew this simple girl character on photoshop and, then using shift whilst duplicating frames, I made it look like she was rolling her eyes. This is really simple and has a couple of glitches, overall its not really that great...and does not resemble what I want my final gifs to look like at all. BUT making it did help me better understand how to make gifs and how long this can take. Also it showed me just how moving one component of an image can communicate a feeling or mood of a character reasonably effectively. Its made me think that I shouldn't overcomplicate the animation in my gifs...and that simple can actually work really well. 

3D process gifs

Creating a 3D animated gif is probably the most daunting prospect for me within this brief, as working in 3D is not something I am necessarily used to, therefore looking at other work I think will play a large part in giving me ideas as to how I could technically create and animate characters. 

Amelia Giller

This gif stood out to me simply just because of the silly and playful animation of this character. The movement created here would obviously be laborious and difficult to achieve but it does pay of well. As well as this the simplicity of the background I think is also something to consider - as it means the focus remains on the character's movement across the screen.  

Phillipa Rice

These gifs present a lot of different ways of creating 3D animations - using existing objects, creating characters out of paper, and then full on model making with plasticine and felt. In terms of the technical creation of the character I think I would value the hedgehog more as it obviously has undergone the most complicated process. This is not to say that the other two gifs have less value to them, its just that I think because this brief is focusing on character, the actual crafting of these, as apposed to the extent of what is being animated, is maybe more important? Something prevalent in all these gifs (similarly to the top one) is also the consideration of composition and colour within the frame, I need to remind myself that alike to any other still or moving image this is very important. 

Saying something/telling a story - Thoka Maer

Thoka Maer's gifs stood out to me because I think that they are really effective in communicating an idea or feeling - something I would like to achieve in my own work. 

These two seem to be communicating something about the struggles in the relationship of a married couple. I feel like the bottom one is especially poignant- commenting on the isolation/lack of social interaction that can be caused by digital technology. I think that the subtle movements and actions of this gif are really effective in creating this sense of tension and disconnection between the couple.

These two gifs I think are really beautiful and resonant with me. They just capture a real sense of peace and quiet - of people just being still and appreciating a small moment. Although the bottom one I feel also has this sense of loneliness and sadness. Similarly to the top, I think that the subtle and small movements in these gifs really work well to create a sense of atmosphere. Thoka Maer has clearly been selective in choosing what is to move within these gifs, helping to bring focus to certain areas of the images and therefore the ideas that they are trying to communicate. This is now something I will consider for my own work. What also works well in combination with this is how the media Maer is using creates a sense of movement in the gifs without they're actually being any action committed by the characters. I think this stops the gifs from seeming static, but also draws attention to the stillness of the characters and their lack of animated movement. 

Collage - Luca Mainin

Collage is something I have become increasingly interested in as a process and aesthetic following recent visual language tasks, and so I was really interested in Luca Mainini's work when I found it on giphy. By the looks of it he uses collected ephemera from primarily fashion based sources and digitally arranges these to create moving gifs. I really like his use of pattern and simple shape within his images - as well as bold colour. They're just really funky and playful, and sort of have this surreal and chaotic tone to them. Collage is not something that I would have considered for this brief, but now I think that it could make for a really interesting process - especially for the digital one. Maybe I could use a combination of my own photos of characters, such as the hat characters, and found pictures, as well as drawing digitally on photoshop to create something similar...?