Winter- Ice Cream Painting

For my winter painting, i very much wanted to focus on the fact that it is Winter, so wanted to create something full of ‘ice’ and ‘snow’. I drew out the idea below having in mind that the ‘snow’ would be made from ice cream and the castle would be made from ice cream cones.

I began by painting the sky, a pretty natural blue with a sunsetting deep orange hue. 

I then added in the sun, i wanted it to be ‘piercingly’ bright, the way you see in documentaries based in the arctic.

I then painted the large piece of ice/ice cream, my idea was for it to look like the image is looking out from a cave,so naturally there is much less light, meaning the cave is much darker. I wanted the ice cream to be strawberry, so thought it would be a much deeper ‘purple’ hue when taking into account the darkness of a cave. 

I finally added the snow/ice cream of the foreground in a light pink shade, as i stated i wanted it to be strawberry ice cream, but the more i look at it, it could be candy floss. I had wanted to paint in a few more ice cream cones or candy canes or even sprinkles, but with running out of time i thought it would be best to leave it as is and say that it is open to interpretation.

New improved Storyboards/Animatics

After our first animatic, we began working on story and cinematography to try and create a better film, here is another one of our storyboards which Niamh did late one night whilst we were all working…

Nearer the deadline, when the set and characters were modelled i created an animatic that was in colour, including the textures and styles we wished to achieve in the completed film…

Get a Horse!

This is a Disney short that i suppose is a little old now, but when i first saw it in the cinema before Frozen played, i was so impressed, It took an old animated short from the late 1920’s and added on extra story, it had 2d animation, black and white, colour and of course CG animation all in one 6  minute film.

It even broke the 4th wall of film and had characters rip open the cinema screen and walk right out onto the stage as if they were in the room with us, simply astounding.

The Set

One of the thing’s that i wasn’t primarily in charge of was the set. Niamh was mainly in charge of this with a little help from the rest of the group.

I helped her create mountains on the terrain so that it wasn’t a flat set and together we worked and got frustrated with the sky dome. We needed the sky dome to be blue like the sky also have floating clouds. We had lots of trouble getting our heads around this but finally we achieved this.

Shelley created the fire and camping tent, i created the tree’s and Niamh created the fence. We worked on this whilst Scott was fighting with rigging the characters.

Here is out set at various angles.

Here is the shot we will see most, the birds on their tree branch.

 

here is a long shot, the camera will fly in from here at the start of the film. 

Here is  a shot that needs fixed, as you can see the clouds are in one small part of the scene.

And here again, i really like the colours of our set

Here is our old title in the set, it is now called Verdi Cooked Chicken, and is still in the process of being made.

Arnold

Last week the university got their Arnold licenses for Maya and we have been getting taught the basics using it. Here is a little image i created using Arnold. I tried to make one object look like metal, the other like plastic and the final one like rubber. I’m not sure if this comes across but for a first attempt i’m pretty pleased.

Creating the Tree

Creating this tree…oh, where do i start. I had a love hate relationship with this damn tree. Hate, mainly because im still a beginner with maya and had no idea as to what i was doing and now have about 8 different tree’s, only one of which is actually usable in the film.

The first tree, i began using a tutorial i found on youtube wich was created using CV Curves, the problem with it was you had to duplicate the truck and resize it and then attach it multiple times for branches, however this wasn’t my problem, the problem was in this tutorial to add on leaves they wanted me to find an image on google and then cut it out to appear like leaves in photoshop and then bring it into maya, number one, this wouldn’t have been 3d and number 2, it would be a tedious task which would give me no rewards, it would look realistic and not like the clay style film we want.

Here is how it looked before i decided to call it quits with tree number one..

I created the next tree by placing a cube, rounding it by selecting 3 and then extrude upwards to create the trunk. I then used the ledge loop to make more edges so that i can bend, rotate, scale the faces to make a bent trunk, and then extrude out branches using the same, tedious process.

Here is how this looked

The next process i began, was yet again a huge mistake, i decided to create a sphere and flatten it, then create many small ones and child them to the large sphere. I would then duplicate this and attach many to the tree to create the look of leaves, however very quickly i was using thousands of polygons, maya was slowing to a halt and problems and crashes were occurring. I realised to work with this and render it would take time we don’t have and so gave up on this tree too.

Here is how it looked. It would have been lovely to use, but sadly it wasn’t possible.

 

For the tree that i and the rest of the group are actually happy with i did something similar to this, I reused the trunk and branches, and for the leaves i made a sphere and then parented small flattened spheres all around it, i then stuck them on in a very cartoony and circular manner, the render time is much shorter, maya works well with the tree and it matches the effect we hope our film to capture. 

The next step was duplicating the tree as we will need a few in the background, we will also want different colour variations, such as autumn tree’s like this one, green tree’s, pink (cherry blossom) tree’s and even dead tree’s. Here is what i came up with…

Shelley, from the group decided to use my trees to create a basic scene using fire as the light source, which i think looks great so far 🙂

Bringing Colour Theory into Charlie’s Childhood Drawing’s

We decided to use a lot of ‘danger’ colour’s in Charlies childhood drawings such as red,black and yellow. We wanted to express a troubled childhood.Even in happier drawings we included yet or black to express the forever present mental problems.

We also used a lot of blues as blue can be used to express sadness and melancholy. It can also be used as a calming and peaceful colour.

Here are some examples

Even in his adult years, all letters from his father were in blue ink but Charlie still uses black, in his very last letter from Charlie when he has found peace and happiness we used blue ink, as a small detail to express feeling safe and secure at last.

Here are some examples

 

 

Downloading Brushes

We want to create a digital version of a scrap book made by a kid, and so we decided we need to find ways of making it look realistic, i downloaded some new brushes to try and create a crayon effect. Here are some that i have downloaded and may use.

Choosing 6 Micro and 6 Macro photos

My top 6 Macros

My top 6 Micros

 

 

 

 

 

 

Researching Comics

I myself, am a huge fan of super hero comics, particular the world of DC Comics, infact here are a small amount of my comics

 

I love the stories, but what has always grabbed me about these is the artwork itself, there is nothing more captivating than graphic novels, in my opinion.

As much a love the great heroes such as Batman, Superman and Green Lantern, i do love seeing a woman kick some ass. I have loved Wonder Woman since childhood, probably partly because when i was very ill in hospital and began to recover nurses had a habit of calling me their ‘little wonder woman’. Which as a curious child made me want to find out what was so wonderful about this wonder woman and so my comic adoration began.

What i need to research more of is comic book layout and use of colour and how emotions can be portrayed with a page of images.

A website that has helped me is http://www.creativecomicart.com/ and here is some of the information from it that i found useful when thinking about creating a comic.

Comic Panels and Comic Layout

When interested in drawing comic art, usually people go for comics in panels. Now, the comic panels is considered to be a single frame in a multiple-panel sequence you find in stories in comic books or comic strips, or if the single panel contains the whole thing like in newspapers, then the panel is the story (or usually joke) itself, and is called a “single panel comic”. When talking about panels in comic strips, these comic panels are distributed within the pages of the book, and will be the house for your drawing and storyline. People who are just beginning to make comic strips usually overlook the basic considerations that every comic book artist should be able to make. Fact is it’s not all about the drawing. You should also consider comic paneling,comic  layout, and the storyline of course. The art of good comic paneling is one of the fundamental skills every comic book artist cannot live without.

First up, panel sizes depend on the importance of the scene you are trying to create. For example, the dramatic scene after a drastic action scene is given a big frame, while small scenes with a one-man thinking dialogue can get a smaller frame. Margins are also important when making comic panels, for one should be able to distinguish one frame from the other, and not look at it as one big frame, which would be confusing. Single lines are okay when you want to try to connect the two panels in some way, but you have to make sure that it is clear that those are two separate pieces. Usually, spaces are put in between panels to signify that they are different, but in sequence. Some people also are used to shading the next panel of the story so one can clearly distinguish that the panel is not one with the last, but is continuous. Comic layout is just as important as the storyline. It assures the smooth transition of panels without mixing up the readers mind. There are a few guidelines to these as well to ensure that the reader will definitely be reading on until the last page.

Bubble Placing

When doing layout for comics, speech bubble placing is very important. First, you have to consider its size, and how much information or conversation you are willing to cram into that bubble. Big speech bubbles are unavoidable, but you have to make sure that they do not fill most of the panel wherein you are drawing, for even if the story line is important, you wouldn’t want your comic to seem like a book. Don’t make too large bubbles because it might get in the way of your drawing. A good idea would be to break up the bubbles into two separate panels, that way they wouldn’t take too much space, and your characters (and readers) can breathe. People break up bubbles for a lot of reasons. Aside from breaking up really long conversation pieces, they also do it to signify a break, or a pause, in the character’s “voice”. For comics have no audio involved, the reader should feel that the characters can speak, and this involves them taking a breath. Therefore, people sometimes put bubbles in another part of the panel, to signify that the thought was said after the first. Be careful with this placing that it will not confuse the reader of the sequence of the conversation.

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That brings us to another thing to address when it comes to comic book layout. I’m talking about the compositional flow and dialogue sequencing, which is placing the right bubbles at the right measure of space to indicate the flow of the conversation. Different kinds of comics require different sequencing, for example, I understand that anime comics are read differently from other kinds of comics, so it’s a basic need to know what kind of comic you are making, and how readers actually read that comic. If you are an English reader, it is just natural to read from top left to bottom right, so it is essential to place the speech bubbles in a way that the reader gets the flow of the conversation easily, which would be top left to bottom right. Once they have established that, you should now be consistent all throughout the story, to avoid confusion and mix-ups. This is to ensure that the reader gets the gist of the comic even without dialogue, because the eyes are already drawn to the direction of the story flow.

By googling some images i have found some nice layouts/templates that i may take into action when designing our groups comic.

As the most important image should be the largest, i think this could be a nice way to go with one large box and two thin horizontal panels.

this page is done in black and white with strong casting shadows and shapes this could effective in a climatic scene.

Using thin vertical panels could work to our advantage if doing shots like this below

I really like this layout, it has thin horizontal panels but also has characters breaking the continuity with their heads popping in from sides of the page, i also like the eye at the bottom, not in a box at all and breaking into another panel.

this page for Batman is beautiful, the bat mobile is almost in solid black with white only were lights or high reflection is necessary. The background is made of thin lines showing motion and speed of the vehicle in a beautiful way, the rest of the story is then told in small panels beneath.

This is the most basic of all the layouts i have looked at, but it still fine and tells the story simply and effectively. Although this would be easiest, i would really like to experiment with different and unusual panelling and layouts.

When you open a comic the first thing you see isn’t the story, or the design, or even the characters, its the colour, and colour and painting is something i want to work on. I don’t want this to look like a kid coloured in between the lines, i want it to look like a work of art, like real graphic novels and comics do.

When watching youtube videos on the subject, they all work in generally the same way/process. You begin your image with you solid clean black outlines and then paint in your flat colour, its better to paint a face or something main is a deeper more desaturated colour than you want so that when you bring in your highlights the colour will have tone and depth.  To control airbrush movement more a lot of artists use the magnetic lasso tool to select the area they want to have colour so that the air brush wont blend or bleed to wear you don’t want it to go.

I am looking forward to trying these techniques with Raymond and Charlie.