Month: November 2017

Originally when I was planning on building my backgrounds for my characters to interact with, I Wass going to paint them in photoshop using my own personal Wacom touch tablet. Though, I felt the quality wasn’t great and I found the testing grounds helped me find better alternatives for my project.

I figured as I am already using Illustrator for my characters, then surely I could use it for my project. I decided to look up some tutorials to establish workflow and some techniques into landscapes and building backgrounds. Below is one of the tutorials I took a look at to help me.

This helped me grasp an idea of how to use simple shapes to build more complex shapes and bring the background to life.

I feel the difference between creating vector backgrounds rather than painted will help improve the quality of my work and gives a much nicer, modern finish to my work. Here is the difference between my original mockup and my finalised panel after using illustrator instead.

I have decided to begin mocking up my panel images for my final product.

For this I have trialled sample images in photoshop, they aren’t of very good quality but they are there to give me guidance and help me understand my platform personally.

Here I was experimenting different styles with the photoshop backgrounds, I tried pixellating it to give a stylish effect but I feel this made it look more bad quality rather than a stylistic choice. However I think the panels work well in conjunction with each other. I’m beginning to have a good vision into what the final outcome of my object will look like.

I have mapped out what I want my overall story to look like, I felt I needed to visualise the concept with the square borders so I can clearly see which section of the piece fits in with others.

This post is directly following my previous post in regards to character turnarounds.

From seeing how this can help my character development, especially for my final piece, I have decided to create my own turnarounds for my characters to see how this could benefit further drawing.

Below is my drawing process (1 1/2 hour footage sped up x3000)

After I drew the original outlines, I then traced, and digitalised them in Illustrator. Here are the final results, I decided not to shade and refine details as I wanted to keep the illustrations rough and see how easily I could replicate the style using this technique.

The result wasn’t what I expected, though I tried to guide myself by using the other angles as a reference point and guide in order to achieve uniform results. This isn’t what I got, though they look similar, they aren’t similar enough to be coherent with each other. I personally feel that the technique of using all proportions in conjunction with each other did not help me achieve the symmetry I desired.

I think I work better looking at the details separately and matching from hand and not putting the guides in place, by putting the guides in place I felt trapped and couldn’t work around the proportions comfortably. Though I will practice and see if I can improve on this aspect.

Character turnarounds are a way for an artist/ animator to gain a feel for the character that they are designing by sketching out different positions and views of the body. This is to create a point of reference during production to know they right body shapes and looks when drawing a character in different poses/ angles.

Here is an in depth tutorial on how to go about drawing a turnaround and explaining how they are useful.

For my project turnarounds will be very useful, especially when it comes to drawing my final images, I will need to use different character angles and poses. I will create turnarounds for the main protagonists in my story, though I will include more characters, I will produce more turnarounds if and when I need them.

In this blog, there are more examples of turnarounds and they also give recommendations to size and how to proportion characters. http://sonjebasa.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/how-to-draw-turn-around.html

Model Sheets

Model sheets are very similar to turnarounds and have the same structure. Model sheets are more used for character motion rather than size and proportions. These allow artists to communicate the way that characters move and how the body would flow if the character would perform a certain action. Below is a Simpsons model sheet for Homer. Homer’s circular shaped sternum is the main basis for the angles and directions that the body conforms to. This is an example of how basic shapes can construct a characters features.

This blog describes in detail the main difference between turnarounds and model sheets. http://www.remindblog.com/2010/02/11/definition-modelsheet-character-turnaround/

I’ve decided to look into the Instagram platform a bit more by physically researching and looking into the feature of the app personally. In the below video, I demonstrate my experience with the apps interface, uses and limitations. I also describe how it can be effective for my project.

More information on galleries in Instagram. (Multiple-photo posts).

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/instagram-galleries/

This week, a new feature on Facebook has been added where you can use Live Photos to display video behind an interactive photo for others to use. In the below video I demonstrate this.

(Video cuts out at end) –  “I’ll probably bringing more traffic towards my portfolio by using this for promotion”

For iPhone users Live Photos have enabled more control over the pictures that people take, offering a way to watch back and pick the perfect frame.

More information on live photos here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT207310

There is a blog tutorial describing the Facebook live photos, and how to do them. Looking into it further, the technique may have already been available with the live photo support but recent innovations cold have taken it further and more interactive with people.

Here is the blog: https://www.themoderntog.com/how-to-make-press-and-hold-facebook-posts-using-custom-live-photos/