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: Dream Psychology Research

Dream psychology research in my sketch book

Authors own

Of course, I had to research Freudian theory as it influenced so much art and is the most outrageous, common knowledge theory for dream analysis. Carl Gustav Jung's dramatic structure theory proved to be very helpful to my particular media of choice (animation), as it provided a rough outline of the structure of dreams and which section of the dream is most important. This could be something for me to consider when generating storyboards. Another thing that caught my attention was a quote by Sigmund Freud:

"Dreams are the Royal Road to the Unconscious."  

This quote generated strong imagery for me and it could be a potential component to my final storyboard. The "Royal Road" could be an effective symbolic device that insinuates an entrance or exit of the unconscious.  

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: Storyboarding

Storyboarding my ideas

Photo is authors own

1) Objects in the underground that are attached to the walls come alive and are calling out for help.

2) A visual idea, without narrative, that responds to the secondary research I did on Cannon Street and plays with the idea of the trains candle-like glow as it travels through the tunnel. The area used to be called Candlewick Street.

3) Playing with scale. The aspects of the space that I noticed the most are enlarged e.g. a huge pigeon stands next to a small man.

4) They are watching. This idea was based on the amount of CCTV equipment/cameras I saw situated in the station, together with one abandoned glove. The cameras come alive and create a mega robot that controls the people within the station.

It was relieving to finally come up with a few storyboarded ideas as there was so much information to work with. I find myself most drawn to the second idea, as I feel it will be interesting to work on a non-narrative piece and explore visual metaphors. However, I don't know how well received it would be by an audience, because effectively it is an educational piece on the history of the area. Moving forward with this idea I will return to the station and record more videos and sound, which could potentially be used in the final piece.

Freedom & Liberty: Title Card

Title card design development

Authors own

I focused on the idea of being trapped and controlled, in my title card design. I wanted to include the protagonist and the antagonist in a situation that represented the concept of my piece. I think each idea that I produced captured that in one way or another, but I found some of them to work more successfully than others when considering visual communication and aesthetics. I was also playing around with the symbolism of the black power salute (a raised fist) in reverse (a fist punting downwards) to symbolise the oppressive nature of the narrative. I also worked slightly with tone, using a darker tone to surround the character, reflecting their mental state. I found this ideas to be very visually effective and emotive. However, when regarding the pose of the character, some of the positions were quite weak. For example, the very last coloured image that you see in the photo above gives the expression that the character has laid flat by choice, voluntarily being controlled. In order for me to create a successful image for the title card I will ask others what each image is saying to them and from that choose the one that evokes the most accurate interpretations. Once I have decided this, I can finally move onto the production stage.  

Freedom & Liberty: Final Storyboard

Reworked storyboard

Authors own

I reworked my initial storyboard so the idea's explored are much clearer and flow better. In this new narrative the character is walking to the park and is constantly bothered by the giant hand, getting poked around, tripped and dragged across the floor. They are then picked up and placed at the gates of the park. Relieved that they have been left alone and are at their intended destination, they enter the park. Suddenly, the hand reappears and crushes them into the floor, they are left a squashed and dizzy mess. This story works better because the character is put through a more brutal sequence of events and we are taken on an emotional roller coaster of tension, empathy, hope, relief and shock. 

Freedom & Liberty: Character Design and Development

                 

  

Character design

Authors own

I feel that the most successful part of my character design is its detachment of gender and race, as humans comprehend it. I kept everything simple, which works well in portraying a lack of identity. The process of designing the facial features of the character was interesting, as I had to consider avoiding any racial stereotypes, so I tried to keep the features simplistic, choosing to give the character brown eyes as brown eyes can be found within most races. I chose orange as the skin tone as it further detaches human ideas of an existing race. Initially I was going to give my character hair, but it quickly became apparent that different styles/textures of hair were developing an identity for the character, no matter how androgynous the styles were. Therefore, I decided to stick with the one curled hair atop the characters head. I tried to design an outfit that was in keeping with the idea of non-gender, non-race, non-ideanty. I found the red jumper and genes to work best as both men and women these garments and they are quite simplistic designs, saying very little about the personal taste of the character. 

Freedom & Liberty: Initial Storyboard

Initial storyboard

Photos are authors own

This is my initial storyboard for the freedom and liberty project. I found the process to be very time consuming as it is the most in-depth, elaborate story I have worked on so far. However, due to my inclusion of more boxes I was able to get a clearer picture of my final piece. The most successful component of this storyboard is the concept and its potential. Although, the sequence of events sort of splits into two separate stories. In order to work past this issue I will pick one half of the story that I can work best with. I need to identify one goal for the character, which is making it to the park. I also need to create a more sever antagonist and identify the significance of that antagonist (the hand). At the moment it is coming across as a parental hand, but I wasn't leaning towards that idea. I wish to make it the hand of unnecessary brutality and control.

Freedom & Liberty: Storyboard Ideas

Storyboarding 2 ideas

Authors own

The process of storyboarding my ideas was quite challenging, as I had a lot of places I wanted to take them.  I feel I produced some successful ideas due to the responses I received when pitching to a group of my peers.  However, I went with my first storyboard idea, as it had the most potential.  What I think works well about the idea is its potential to engage with the viewer causing them to empathise with the character and its struggle to control its own freedoms.

The narrative follows the journey of a non-gender, non-racial character as they attempt to make their way from A to B.  However, throughout this journey they are burdened by the presence of a gigantic, controlling hand.  This hand pokes and pulls at them to the extent of them snapping and fighting back.  When reviewing the story I can see that the extremity of the hands behaviour needs to be intensified in order for the audience to have an emotional response and for the characters resulting reactions towards the hand to be justified.   

Metamorphosis: Initial Idea (decided concept)

Initial storyboard (left), initial character design and research into concept (right) 

Final character design 

Layout/setting design

Photos are authors own

I decided to work with a slightly obvious idea, which is the metamorphosis of a butterfly, but including the idea of death and afterlife. My initial working story was that a caterpillar awakens from sleeping in the form of a butterfly and is first confused, but the fearful as the shadow of the former caterpillar tells him the he has died and entered the spirit. I left the story as a cliff hanger. However, after attending a critic it was brought up that the story requires the viewer to erase what they already knew about the natural life cycle of a butterfly and it was clear they I needed to include some representation of death into the story. 

Before going on to make a final storyboard I proceeded to create my final character and layout designs. I decided due to time keeping that I would create the animation using grey scale (no colour). However, this seemed to work well with my concept with black representing death and white life. The colour choice will also create a more obscure, eery mood. My final storyboard will therefore be made in black and white, using the polished character and layout design.

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.

Day 1: Illustration Book Cover

Mindmap of things associated with illustration

 Research into the context/range of illustration

Illustration with text/existing book cover designs

Experimenting with cover layouts

Experimenting with cover designs/titles

Using Illustrator to digitally draw the text

Font experimentation

Using indesign to create the final book cover

Final book cover design

All photos are authors own

This was the first in 6 one day projects that I completed over 2 weeks. Starting with the my chosen topic of illustration I proceeded to do research in an effort to produce a book cover design. I really enjoyed this project because it gave me an opportunity to learn more about illustration and it's diversity. It was also a chance to create a more illustrative graphic's piece, as it fitted well with the concept I was working with. It was challenging to come up with a concept, research, ideas and final piece all in one day, but it encourage a more efficient work approach.

I am pleased with my final book cover design. I think the pencil mark background I created by dragging a graphite stick across the page is in keeping with the typical associations with illustration e.g. personal, hand drawn marks. Also, small design choices such as, the handwriting type face in the corner of the front page to represent an artists signature, help the appearance of the piece. However, I'm not sure whether the image on the front cover is clear. My idea was that it would relate back to an earlier illustration I did, but was shaped to look like a question mark and the teeth spell out "Illustration". The title of the book being Illustration? 

Final 'New' Poster

I made some adjustments to the poster to make it look more presentable. I used Photoshop to cut the main image out and placed it on a clean, white background in Illustrator. Here I reapplied the music stave to the image and added text that was neater and placed in a more balanced position to the rest of the design.

The process of using Adobe definitely aided the final presentation of my poster, plus it completed tasks fast, helping time keeping. I was glad that I was still able to use my hand drawn design too, as it personalises something that could otherwise look quite cold. Because I photographed the original design instead of scanning it there is some discolouration to the "E", which does bring the quality of the image down. However, I do believe that the message trying to be communicated is still graspable.

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: Poster of the Future

This was the outcome of the A2 poster I created, which is supposed to promote an aspired exhibition of my work at the Cartoon Museum in summer, 2033. The idea is that I am coming out of a TV screen asking passers by if they will be coming to my exhibition, much in the style of the WW2 propaganda posters. In the wooden under compartment of the TV set up is the brief, clear information that people may need to know. 

I don't feel this poster is very effective. The main issue I have with it is the fact that the character (me) coming out of the TV should have a stronger presence, hidden behind a shoulder and hair gives a standoffish feel to the image, whereas I wanted it to be more confrontational and therefore more engaging. Their presence should have consumed more of the poster. However, I do like some visual aspects of it, like the shading in the wood, the ripples in the TV screen and the use of colour and pen markings on the hand pointing out of the screen. Also, I feel it has successfully related to the kind of work going to be seen at the exhibition e.g. cartoons, animations etc.

Graphics: 'Poster of the Future' Plan

The final task of the graphic's project was to first, generate some ideas for a poster from a gallery exhibiting my work in 2033 and then produce an A2 sized version of your favourite idea. However, before jumping straight into the A2 sized version, I reworked an idea in A4 in my sketch book then enlarged the design. I enjoyed the idea generation process and I was able to integrate exercises I had used in previous tasks to produce quick, un-generic ideas for my poster. It also helped me avoid any nasty mistakes on my large piece. For example, in the second image my hand that is pointing out of the TV screen is the wrong way round (notice the thumb is on the wrong side), also I changed some colours and mediums used.  

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.

Graphics: View Finder

I made a 2cmx2cm view finder and sectioned of an area of the collage featured in the previous post. I then enlarged the area x10 in my sketchbook and created a mixed media (collage, pencil, pen and oil pastel) study of it. I really liked the process and outcome of this exercise, mostly because it gave me an opportunity to develop my existing ideas and in turn allowed me to create a strong, graphic piece.