Animation. (Techniques)

This is the type of Animation I've been thinking about doing. It's stop motion, but more with Humans and things around you than creating models or sets. I really like the idea of this because I could experiment a lot and try out different methods. I could also try animating a wide range of materials to come up with some kind of concept.

The reason I liked this video is because it uses a mix of media's, such as a girl walking on a bed, but there's other things that move such as pillows and blankets - and it works really well. I'd like to delve in to this area of animation and come up with something thats more my style.

Another short animation which uses this technique is deadline. A guy used post it notes on his wall to create moving objects such as logo's or monsters. He animates as well and he actually interacts with the movements of his animations, so it all becomes a nice blend of mixed media and clever timing, movement.

Animation. (Research - tutorials.)

Because I want to do my this animation in Photoshop, I've decided to view some tutorials online on the best, most effective ways of producing one. Because I don't want to start out with something really hard, I've been researching in to small animation. This one included a cat which flicks it's tail - to do this she simply drew in separate layers on the parts she wanted to move, and then drew in a different colour above the original position, where she wanted it to move too. This is a technique I may use because it's straight forward, it works well and it means not having to redraw everything again.

The reason why I'm choosing photoshop as my main tool is because I feel it looks more effective and allows you to use more digital techniques with ease.

Research. (Animation - creepypasta.com.)

I've been reading a lot of scary stories/poems to help me come up with a concept for my animation and digital posters - this is one of those examples. I find reading disturbing and creepy stuff allows my mind to think about idea's I can use or how I would turn the words in to illustration and do them in my own way.

One of the main writers I've been looking in to has been H.P Lovecraft - he's an author who delves in to sanity and the world around us. One of the things he's known for is saying that sane people don't see the world for what it is because anything to disgusting (like monsters/ect,) we have learned to block out and ignore. Only insane people can see these things - which ironically, makes them the sane ones.

For this project, what I really want to do is show the kind of stuff I want to do - such as surrealism and creepy, shocking images. Thats why I'm going to come up with concepts based around these theories and look in to more writers like H.P Lovecraft, Richard Laymon, Stephen King and Junji Ito.

Research. (Web design -http://www.xperiment.ca/.)

This website is based on drugs use and those effects. It all revolves around an animated eye, which is why it takes up most of the room on the screen. This website uses various methods to convey a message in a way which is interesting and can keep someone entertained. It uses a clean, well thought out layout which uses well animated characters.

The website opens up in a grimy, dark room with the eye ball in the centre and the only focal point. At the bottom, there's commands such as "choose a drug," and "choose an effect." At the top, there's all the main links to access other pages. This website mostly depends on it's ability to entertain and be interactive, because these are it's strongest points. For instance, if you click on "choose a drug," it allows you to choose from a selection of various drugs and actually drag them on to the eye to see their effect - the eye will then demonstrate what happens when you take the substance, such as displaying actions of paranoia and sickness/ect. A voice over describes what's happening, this is so you can watch the full effects of the drug and understand what's happening and not miss anything by having to read text - however, there is a link which takes you to a page where it explains in more detail (and in text) what happens when you take certain drugs if you don't wish to watch the animation and listen to the voice over. In doing this, they allow the viewer to choose from two different ways to learn about drug use, which overall feels more comfortable.

The website is perfect for people looking to learn about drug use. Not only does it use a lot of methods to keep the viewer interested, it also allows the viewer to feel involved by having to click and drag things to activate the animation. The text is also informative and straight to the point and the animation of the eye demonstrating the effects of drugs - even though it is just an eye - is slightly disturbing and well done visually.

This site is, I feel, aimed at teenagers doing drugs - and I think it works well for that age group. It's fresh, it's young and it's shocking so it's bound to leave some kind of impact on the people watching it. Overall, I really like the website and love the way it's animated and its interactions - the only thing I felt it lacked was showing the effects of more drugs, since there's only three to pick from. - With my website I'd like to do something shocking and make some kind of impact, because I feel the end of world is something people take lightly these days.

Research. (Web design - http://www.jasongraymusic.com/.)

This website to promote Jason Gray uses a wide range of materials and methods to come up with something I feel is really creative and interesting. At the beginning, the page opens up on to a main title screen where all the links and small amounts of information is. At the top, there's a half face where images and the text is - this is where you click and navigate. When clicking upon a link, it changes the part below the page to what the link is about - so basically, rather than opening up a new page, it just alters the parts below the focal image.

What attracted me to this page was the various animations it had. For instance, when moving the mouse around the head area, the eyes will follow it's movement - and if you roll over one of the eyes, it will close. Also, when you roll the mouse over one of the images in the head, it shows a small animation inside. Another feature I specifically liked was the background and how it looked like scanned in bits of paper - I thought this added a nice, traditional feel too it and made it seem more "Artistically" themed - it follows this throughout with the text, sketchy drawings and background - which I particularly liked.

The things I didn't like so much was how it didn't open to another page, and just changed the bottom part. After seeing the main page, there isn't that much else to see but bits of text and the odd video - I felt it would have worked better if it had opened up in to new area's with more variety of designs and concepts. What I did like about it, however, is how well it's laid out and how the interactions are. I love the small bits of animation and how the eyes follow the mouse - it makes you feel more apart of the design. I also like the Traditional, artistic look about the theme and how it all works well together. For my design, I'd really like to try some traditional methods such as illustration and small animations.

Research. (Web design -http://www.diegomonetti.com/.)

The main thing which attracted me to this website was how there was a nicely done blend of digital images and actual film. It begins with an animation of the wall opening up like a sliding door, which creates an entrance for the artist himself. If you choose to click on one of the links, it will take you to another part of the website and the film animation of the artist himself will tell you (in speech) about what he does and who he is - unfortunately, this wasn't in English.

I believe it is created by using various types of media such as actual film footage and for all the digital parts, it is done in flash and all put together really well. The text is all clear and comes up in a clean, professional and creative layout. I feel what I liked most about the website is the use of different media - like the film footage and how this all blends well - I feel it gives it a more personal and individual status.

There's a lot of interaction in the page, such as the photographs on the walls would animate when clicked upon, and you can listen to the guy actually talking, rather than having to read everything. There's also various text that comes up every now and again. There's not a lot of unique idea's for the website and the interactions are pretty simple - but what it lacks in cliché, it makes up for in how well everything is achieved.

Personally, I love the idea of the artist becoming more apart of the website - it allows you to feel like you're more on a personal level and lets you see more of their personality and what their about, rather than just reading everything. I also like how everything is clean and easily accessible, so it's not confusing and does only what its meant to do. For my project, I really want to try out different media to accomplish a more complex and uniquely styled website.

Animation. (Test.)

A quick line test; I've tried to see how easy and effective it would be. I used someone else's sketch, and went over it in the black paint brush - it took me about a minute.

I think with the time I've spent and how it looks now, I feel this would be a really good method to use. It looks clean and I can keep the original sketch on under neath to give it that "Traditional" feel.

Animation. (Ideas.)

Because I did a traditional animation last time - with frames and pencil/water colours - I have decided to go for something more digital. I've been looking at other digital works and found the execution can be done well if a lot of time and effort is put in too it.

As you can see with this animation, it was done in photoshop but still works really well and still looks traditionally sketched - this is the type of feel I'd like to achieve with my animation. I'd also want to add small amounts of dark colours and shades - all achieved in photoshop. I also love the movement and how everything seems more inline and clean than Traditionally done.

Digital Work. (Research.)

For my "End Of The Beginning Of," I have chosen fear. Mainly because I like the idea of toying around with that concept of people being able to do whatever they want - whether it be killing themselves, killing others, committing unspeakable acts and in a way, acting out their true emotions. Of course, there's bad and good side's to this scenario, but I mainly want to concentrate on the bad sides.

One of the concepts I've decided to research in to is poster design and I can incorporate this in to my final pieces. I felt a theme was vital here, so I've decided to look in to a kind of Circus Of Horrors style, like so;

This piece is from an Artist called Thomas Woodruff and shows a follow on collection of a freak show. I particularly love how when you first look at it, you don't straight a way see the abnormalities of the people in the side show and rather, have to look for them. I also like the style of glamorizing something like this - as though it is beautiful - when evidently it's not. It's like a big lie in some aspects. However, one of the specific things I do like is how everything follows on, as with another artist who does this quite a lot, James Jean;

As you can see, the image is cut up in to piece's to make one big image, which is something I'd like to use. Either that or having a running theme so you know their all in the same collection.

Animation Research.

For Animation, we have to develop a short piece to go with a music video. Some of the video's I've been looking at for inspiration have been these;

This animation video is called "Hey." It's animated using digital technique's and the main reason I liked it was how it was stylized and how everything comes together in the video. It works well with the type of music playing and it follows a set, well thought out story line.

At first glance, I thought this was a Tsunami - but actually it's big wave of cloud rolling over vast arrays of mountain.

I'm fascinated with Tsunami's. They seem so big and powerful - and as much as I wouldn't want to admit it, the after effects of water flowing and buildings submerged is extremely interesting.

However, when viewing this picture I particularly loved how it looked like something else. What I would like to research more in to is altering an image and have people believe it's something else. Or, editing it in a way so you don't realize what it is at first.

For our website design, we have to do an interface for a "End Of World," scenario. One of the things I'd like to really research in to is an actual apocalypse in a judgement sense - so there's a holocaust of infected people and horrific natural disasters. I'm not sure if I'd want to involve all of these, but I would love to develop something that is big and powerful - because thats how I feel it will end.

Another thing I'd like to do is involve a beautiful sense in my designs - so not to show a really bad, gory scene - because I feel if you're watching a nuclear explosion or loads of natural disasters, it is scary but at the time it's powerful and immense.

At the moment, I am torn between a natural disaster or epidemic - I feel I'd mainly want to do the after effects of one of these, rather than before or during.

Animation Edit Process

The style I chose for my animation was hand drawn with water colours - using traditional techniques to create my final piece.

To edit my animation, I began by cutting the frames up in to separate scenes so I would be able to edit them individually - I did using the scrubber and pressing "I" for the input and "O" for the out. I then placed them on to the

time line of Final Cut Pro in the correct order.

After the first short scene, it goes in to a dream sequence so to show this I used an effect called "Arithmetic," which gave it this faded, white feel and overall allowed the animation to make more sense, like so;

After doing this, I added a fade in and out at the beginning and end so the entrance and exit shots weren't so sharp. I also put one of my shorter scenes on a loop so it would continue for longer - I did this my copying the scene and pasting it next to the original clip on the time line. Like so;

Finally, I added the music. The music is something I had recorded on an acoustic guitar and cut up in Audacity. I placed it on the time line and sized it to the same size as the animation, like so;

For our new project, "The beginning of the end of," I've decided to research in to Japanese mythology and curses - since thats an area I'd want to involve. I'm still stuck between two options of Fear or Humanity, but whichever I choose I'm sure I can still use this research anyway.

Some of the films which involve curses are Ju-on, Uzumaki, Cursed, One Missed Call, The Grudge, Dark Water, Sweet Home, Tomie, Unholy Women and Shutter are a few of the Japanese curse movie's I've seen, so I'm sure I can use these in some ways.

Probably one of my main forms of research will come from Uzumaki - This is one of my favorite manga's which involves a cursed town. I love the illustrations and the messed up things Ito Junji draws.

Web Design. (Recycledlifeforms.com - Research.)

I felt this was a good website to represent recycled goods, and showed a lot of interactivity and imagination. The first thing that caught my attention was how the landscape had been morphed in to the theme of recyling by the vegetables being used as a part of the structures - I felt this was an inventive and fitting way particulary for this type of website. I also liked how two types of style were incorperated to create a varied design - for instance, they have used a blend of real materials with images done in photoshop.

This site has various interactivity functions and all of these rely on the viewer clicking different spots on the page. I specifically liked how the animations played out by doing this, and how what was being displayed was all to do with helping the environment - so rather than making it boring and like a lecture, with loads of text about what to do to be "green," they've made it in to little animations which are far more interesting. To tie in with this, I also like how some of the landscapes move without having to click it - but others need your assistance. This allows you to feel more involved.

The main downside to this would be the loading times. It take's so long to load up the site itself, and then it's only slowed down when you finally get on the page because of all the various animations and movements - which only complicates things when you click on objects to make them animate too. Also, what was extremely annoying was when you press one of the top buttons for another page, it opens in a small box with the background still animating, so it's still painfully slow for no reason. Overal, it feels like they've tried to put too much on one page and rather than having it spread out on various other pages to make it faster, they've lumbered it all together. Also, one very important mistake was that things on the website can be missed because of the "clicking anywhere and hope something animates eventually," thing - because bluntly put, you may not press in a vital area and might miss an important animation.

However, the inspirations I found from this was how well real materials/objects can work with photoshopped ones - and how you can incorperate your theme in to anything - such as the structures using vegetables.

Web Design. (Patrickbizier.com - Research.)

This website is for an Illustrator's work, so I felt it was worth including in my research because it held a lot of good and bad points.

Firstly, what drew me to the website was the hand drawn feel to the design - I loved how the Artist had used his own artwork and style to create the webpage. It made the overall feeling more about the Artist, which created a more personal feeling too it. I also liked how the background seemed to be painted on some kind of material like a book, which reflects more with what the Artist does - this, I feel, appears more effective than having a Photoshopped background or just plain colour. It gives the whole "atmosphere" on the page more feeling.

I feel this website is a fine example of how to stay intune with a specific theme throughout. Even when clicking on a link and being taken to a new page, it still has other drawings in the same style, so this shows a continuation of a styalized webpage. I feel one of the biggest mistakes is using various styles, colours and images throughout a website because it becomes messy and confusing - sticking with one theme allows it to be more professional and focused.

On the down side, there wasn't much interaction or imagination in how navigation was used - it was all pretty simple. Infact, other than the nice hand drawn imagery, the whole thing didn't really use any interesting techniques or functions. And although when you do view it, it does make you feel warm inside - almost like settling in to bed with a warm drink and a story book -, it does get boring pretty quickly because there's not much to do or access.

The main thing I want to take from this website is the classic, hand drawn feel too it. I love how it's laid out like an Art book and follows this theme throughout.

Animation. (Research - Move Along.)

For my animation project I want to create something that could be quite versatile and fit in with a certain theme. For instance, I didn't want to do a straight forward animation of me walking around and interacting with people as a portrayal of my life.

After coming up with a few idea's, I decided how I could merge a few together would be to do a technique used vaguely in this music video. Basically, I like the idea of having myself in the foreground with a background that move's and changes it's scenery - but everything in the foreground would stay the same. It's something I want to play around with and possibly use Typography to create a more versatile overall effect.

There are several options I could choose with achieving this technique, such as green screen and having actual models or photographs - but the way I'd first like to test is having it entirely drawn and move in that way - or use various images and photographs for the background, but create the foreground with pencil. The characters and art style is something I'd like to experiment a lot with and try and make my own.

Web Design. (Nawlz.com - Research.)

Nawlz opens in a clean, industrial style with not much imagery - but I think thats the kind of feel they wanted. To get on to different pages, you press links and it operates like a slide show, which works better than opening up another page entirely. This format also helps because it's advertising a comic book, so the sliding effect is almost like opening a page.

The artwork is all amazingly stylized and created to a rather high standard - and the comic book, more importantly, fits with the style of the website. The various pages you can click on all have some form of interactivity and differences, so it's not like changing pages is going to be the same experience over and over. It has a lot of various functions and interactivity which is both quirky and intelligent - with how it's laid out like a comic book, how it slide's in to each page and how small animations are instigated on specific pages. Probably the main thing I like about it is how well it's laid out and how the creator has made it in his own style, which is something I'd want to do for my website. I also love the colour scheme and how it all blends well with the electric blues and pastel like purples - and their also not just standard paint but rather a nice spray paint effect.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of clicking involved to see various pages and loading time's can be demeaning. Also, the text is really small and it's obviously created for teenagers so other age groups may feel slightly alienated. But once you get passed this or this is your kind of website, hopefully you can see the real beauty in how much effort, originality and wit has gone in too it.

Web Design. (Bio-bak.nl - Research.)

Bi0-bak relies mainly on it's interactivity functions, which are insanely whacky and creative. It demonstrates a nice blend of Artwork and interactions which are all done to a high standard. At times, it's almost like you're playing a game because the webpage allows you to get so involved with it.

Particularly, I love how you need to actually search for things yourself. Using the mouse, it enables you to scan the entire page and find other functionalities or information - this makes you become more involved with it, especially when it asks you to locate a battery to make a speaker work, which results in a small animation. Basically, instead of going on a website that has everything already laid out for you, this requires a bit more patience and wit - you're also rewarded in a sense, whenever you do find something new because of the various animations being activated, it makes you feel like you've accomplished something. The whole page is all vibrant and happy, even though a big chunk of it is black the colours seem to spring from the page, with uses of different tones and variety.

As a critique, I feel it should have some sort of link that allows you to see the animations/interactions in some other format. The problem is, when you're scanning the big page, it can get boring if you're seeing the same things - and because of this, you may miss something on there that's quite important or interesting. If I had spent so much time designing and creating this, I'd want people to see everything about it - I feel the web page is let down slightly because the creator has given attention to some detail that people may not see.

Web Design. (Rolando.com - Research.)

For my Web Design research, I wanted to look in too something which not only was "pretty" to look at, but actually has a nice interactivity which can hold an attention span for a few minutes.

The site "Rolando," is somebody's Portfolio which has a nice blend of Art with good interactivity. The basics of the site is you control a small Cherub with a camera, which can move him a long the page to spread out one huge image which plays "home" for a number of different, interesting and versatile characters and scenery. What first caught my attention for this site was the gothic, child-like Art theme and how it was laid out almost like a story book. I felt it was well presented, with it's own added touch's of "attitude" and animations. It's designed a lot like a childrens story book, but the good feature about it is when you do view the page properly, you can tell it's more aimed at adults which I thought worked well.

My main downfall is that the slide show doesn't like very long and it can be annoying to have to turn the character around to scan the rest of the page - this requires going back through everything again. Another thing is having to work out for yourself where to click to activate the animations, since it's quite big and you have to operate the character you have the added annoyance of clicking the page as well. Other than that, the Art is beautiful, the animations are well achieved and the concept is fairly original.

For my design, I'd love to have animations which reflect my personality, and be able to create a world inside the site that people can enjoy and also, works well with how I want to portray myself in the form of an image/animation.

Light Wave - Research. (Futuristic City.)

Our project for Lightwave is to design what thing's could look like in the future. It's a fairly open project with a theme thats already got stuck in my head.

In some ways, I'd like to show the world for what it is today, and how thing's may only get worse for the future. I decided to pick out the barrier's between poor people and the rich, focusing on how poverty separates the class's of today and what effect this will have on the future. Think of it as the Earth being set on levels like some huge Metropolis and the Rich being at the top in a place seemingly like "paradise," and the poor being at the bottom in the slums.

This image shows a beautiful city in the background seemingly taken hold of by technology, and then in the foreground a town that doesn't seem to have moved forward at all - and appears like a poverty stricken area. It shows the separation of society and how the Rich will grow forward, but the poor will still be expected to do the "dirty work" and live in grotesque environments. So, overall, the only people who really move on in the future is those with fortune, a good background and career prospects - which is a lot like today, but on a lesser scale.

Photography. (Early Development - Sin City.)

Well, everyone has to start somewhere. And after trying to think up a better idea for Mark's Family project, than having a load photo's representing some place I've visited or some folk I've met, I decided to go a long with some kind of other theme I could portray with the use of photo's. In the early idea stage's, I thought about some kind of comic strip style which might make the photo's more interesting and have a different way of expressing the story.

Along with this, I wanted to fit in some kind of artwork which would fit with this idea and came up with the style used in Sin City. This picture is a prime example of an idea in the early stage's of development.

Influences. (Comic Books.)

Coming back to the comic book idea, I absolutely adore this style. I love the smooth pasted effect which give's off these soft blends of colour. I also love the attitude they bring with the characters, and the use of small quirks such as goggles or tattoo's to give them a more diverse character - which reminds me a lot of the Tank Girl comic books and how the artist Jamie Hewlett choses to create such intriguing characters.

I'd like to use this kind of technique with creating my own characters and scenery. I want to make something which use's nice little added touch's with it's own Art style in such a diverse way, you actually remember them for these quirks and "different" characteristics - than having a generic boy or girl, or generic scenery or structures.

Influences. (Sin City.)

So, I've already been influenced by the Artwork and style of Sin City. I'd love to incorporate some of it in to various aspects of my work. For instance, I love the comic book style and overall, the movie effects. I especially like the choice's they use in colour, such as using a lot of black and white's with only added bit's of colour on symbolic things.

At the moment, I'm thinking a slide show of photo's made in to a comic book strip would make for an interesting, diverse piece and one I'll begin to look in too. Not just a clear view of a Traditional comic book either, but something more than that.

Hello future me.

So, basically, this place will be a home for all my research, idea's, development and influence's for my Multi Media work - and not much more. Unless I'm drunk and somehow find my way on to this site to write random crap, which won't make much sense or anythin' - but there ya go.

Main influence's in the past have been Tank Girl's artist Jamie Hewlett, James Jean, Junji Ito, Surrealism, Darker Arts, Spirited Away, Shadow Of The Colossus and various others that will hopefully continue to help me out with any future projects.

Sayonara-