FMP: Dream structure and Perspective

Explanation of the process leading a lucid dream from my sketch book

Consideration of the viewers perspective in sketch book

Photos are authors own

In order to get the information I had gathered through research into the psychology of dreams, video blogs by lucid dreamers and the interviews I conducted, I created a flow chart of events that proceed the state of lucid dreaming. Whilst drawing this out I began to wander what it is that I am actually communicating to the viewer. Am I creating an informative piece about the process of achieving lucidity? Am I focusing on the lucid experience? Am I showing a struggle to obtain lucidity? Do I even want to include the idea of lucidity? Maybe, that almost magical feeling of being in a situation that you can't control, yet it is stimulating enough to create excitement within you, that an unconscious dream gives you is a form of escapism. 

During one of my interviews the interviewee said that when they had a particular dream, their perspective changed. I found this to be really strange. So it caused me to think about how I want the view to be experiencing the animation. I will start to experiment more with perspective.

FMP: Observational Drawing

Observational sketches, modified to look more psychedelic

Authors own

The act of observational drawing allowed me to move away for collecting loads of information for a while and just become a little more hands on and fluid with my research. Experimenting with the visual side of my concept and creating nonsensical ideas inspired by my research into Dadaism. If I were to improve anything about the drawings I produced (something I will keep in mind for future observational drawing I will do for this project) I would have liked to included different layers, building on the psychedelic quality of the images.

You Are Here: Medium and Layout

Media experimentation

Layout development

Through doing media experimentation I successfully identified a medium that would work best for the hand drawn section of my animation. This was watercolour as it has a ghostly feel about it, much as the past does, which is where the viewer is being taken. However, one annoying thing about using watercolour is it wrinkles the pages if they are too thin. Hopefully, this does not show up on the scans.

Designing the layout of the train station was pretty straightforward. I based it on how the actual station looks presently, with a few minor changes. Mainly, I just simplified the environment, taking away things like pillars and enhancing the colours to give it a more cartoony feel. One thing I did not think about though, was the design of the train tracks. I future, I will make sure I have got every aspect of my design right before I start marking over it in pen and colouring it.

Day 3: Colour Theory

Colour theory

Rough plan of illustrations

All photos are authors own

This project was started off by creating a colour wheel and refreshing my knowledge on colour theory. I found this process a little bit tedious as I was just recapping on things I was already aware of, but it was good to verify anything I wasn't 100% clear on. Then I created three illustrations (first two are abstract and third is digital) that represent a passage in Darren Shan's Book Demon Apocalypse:

"I'm rushed towards the window. The flames peel away from me. The window gets bigger and bigger as I fall upon it. I just have time to worry about what will happen when I flash through and smash into the ground on the other side. Then I hit it and everything goes green."

"I land hard on the floor of Baranabus's cave..."

I think my use of colour in the first two illustrations worked well in abstractly conveying what was happening in the book. The first one uses a spectrum of colours between red and yellow to symbolise fire and the second used tones of green to illustrate Darren's vision. In my digital illustration I feel like the colours I used for the jacket and blanket are too bright a tone to work well with the lighting in the cave, so I would like to darken them. However, in the time I had I feel as though I produced three images that convey the text rather well.

Manifesto Project

This is a double page spread in my sketch book that contains things to do with my past/roots and a spider diagram of my hopes and aspirations, what I stand for. It was a helpful start to the making of my manifesto as it clarified to me what I could include within it.

I then looked at my blog on tumblr for some more inspiration and research into myself e.g. the things I like, my interests, views. I realised it was almost like an already made manifesto of images instead of text.

This was part of my idea generation that I started after looking at some manifestos and decided on concentrating on the concept of equality and acceptance. I found the idea generation process quite challenging because I initially went with an idea that I didn't feel as passionate about and therefore the ideas were lacking. However, was I reevaluated my direction I was able to come up with a few good ideas:

These were my four favourite ideas, which I looked into and analysed. In the end I decided that the 3rd idea was my favourite as it worked well with the 'Open your mind' slogan I had become attached to. The idea that the characters eyes are covered is symbolic of disallowing yourself to judge with your eyes and the literal translation of her open mind within the illustration works effectively I feel.

I decided to develop my final idea using illustrator in order to develop my computer skills. It was my first time using illustrator and I found it to be really easy to grasp and effective in making vivid images that aid the aesthetics of a design.

 Using illustrator, I decided to try out lots of different backgrounds to find one that worked well with my character. Some of them clashed, some took away the attention of the character and some weakened the colours that spouted out of her head. I found the space background to work the best as it related to an earlier idea I had about people being cosmic, such as the universe. Although, I did worry that the space background wasn't very innovative/over used, but it worked that best for me.
 

FINAL MANIFESTO

I feel this is an effective manifesto both in a metaphorical way and visual. However, I feel my type sizing does look a bit messy. If I were to rework anything in my manifesto it would be type size and placing. Apart from that though, it clearly depicts the ideas that are important to me and the mentality and strive to have/keep. When getting feed back most people enjoyed the manifesto, but some found the word strange staggered the flow a bit. I made the decision to keep the word strange in because it was important to me that attention was brought in some way to the idea that people/things can be strange, but they still deserve equality, acceptance and love from us all. Overall, I am happy with the resulting image and what I gain personally from this project, which was a clearly view of what I stand for, improved illustration skills and a sharper knowledge of what works/doesn't work when dealing with typography. 

Graphics: Typography

Initially, I made marks on a page in several different ways and then turned them into different letters/numbers, creating different fonts. This exercise, much like the idea generation exercise used in the 3DD project, opened my mind to more innovation. However, I did notice that some of the letters weren't very effective as they were too unconventional.

I then used existing font types and manipulated them in different ways to communicate different things. I didn't particularly like this exercise as it was quick tedious, tracing around each letter over and over again, but it did challenge me.

3DD: Spaghetti Structure

This project involved using the idea generation exercise to produce a number of designs for a structure made from 20 pieces of spaghetti and a glue gun, which could hold 3 plastic balls. The sketches seen here are my initial ideas of which the 5th one I base my final structure on. The structure managed to hold each ball, however, would not stay upright for long without blue tac. I also wish I used more spaghetti to strengthen it's aesthetic value.

Experimenting with frames: 4

This is a much busier frame, depicting more detail. It definitely has an earthier feel, coming across as more of a study than anything else.

Experimenting with frames: 1

This exercise of cutting out and framing parts of the original image was used for me to try and create different moods and narratives from the same image. Here emphasis is placed on the base of the stump.

Drawing of memory photo

This is an unfinished drawing I done of the previous image I posted. I drew this to bring my attention the details in the photo that I initially missed.