Sunday 15 May 2011

Disney Art






These images were tweeted by one of the Disney pages I follow. Images taken from the Disney Archives.

These images are absolutely beautiful, of concept drawings and storyboard drawings.

This is hopefully one day what I will be doing. As I've mentioned before my strengths lie in drawing so to be able to look at storyboards from absolute classics is breathtaking for me. I find these images so inspiring.

The images from Dumbo second from the top are precious and are masterpieces.

Reference for my flying paint




These are CGI images taken from a video I found on youtube.

During my Lucy Letters section paint flys across the screen. I was having trouble with the shape of the paint, completely bewildered of what flying liquid would look like. I studied the video a few times and took a couple of screenshots of the precise frames I wanted so I could carefully look at separate droplets.

This was an extreme help to me and I was pleased with the final outcome of my flying paint.

Who's Hungry? by David Ochs






This short film 'Who's Hungry?' is actually quite sinister but the animation and illustration is delicious. Simple yet sketchy looking the characters really 'pop' off the screen even more so as the background seems dis-jointed from them in a way and is very placid. The two contrast wonderfully which what makes the animation absolutely gorgeous. This is childrens illustration but for the enjoyment of adults.

General Update

I have uploaded my most recent Showreel to Vimeo, also my 'I Wonder' titles.



Beautiful Childrens Illustration




I couldn't quite catch the name of this designer because it was all in a different language but I thought I have to put them up here because they are so beautiful. I love the quirky illustration and attention to detail. They are exactly what I think of when I think of Children's illustration. Especially the bottom one as it reads to me as the dream of a little girl, dreaming of unicorns and Princess dresses.

UPDATE


Today I decided to e-mail Kim Majkut who I went to visit down in London. Kim is the woman who took me on the tour around Nickelodeon Studios.

I e-mailed her in regards to my Children's titles 'I Wonder' for my Major Project. I sent her a link to Vimeo and asked if she could e-mail me back any advice she may have. I would upload a copy of the e-mail I sent however it was quite long, giving my thanks again and explaining what I had done.

I also invited her to my End of Year Show. I did explain that I knew this was only a slight possibility because of major factors such as time, travel and cost but stated the invite was there anyway.

Saturday 14 May 2011

LONDON: Paul Roberts, Portfolio Visit



7th March 2011

After researching designers in London I came across Paul Roberts, a motion graphic designer. I was very interested in him as he had worked for clients such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and seen as half my Major Project is titles for my own children's programme, I thought this would be suitable.

I met up with him during my visit to London. Paul is a freelancer and rents a space within a studio who he shares with other designers. He told me that he used to work for a company. Finding a designer who has had the opportunity experiencing both I had to ask which he preferred, working for himself or a company? He stated that he much preferred working for himself. You have the opportunity to go and travel whenever you want and also when working on a project you are included through every process from beginning to end, from the first initial thoughts to production. I was very impressed with his answer as I'd never really thought of it that way before and I began to think would I want to be included through every process as I have been doing at Uni, or just stick to my strengths and stay within my comfort zone. As i have to admit this is what I was looking forward to when i leave, but would I find this challenging enough?

I began to show him my work, particularly wanting to show him my Disney Cinemagic ident as so far it's my only finished piece of work aimed at children. He loved the idea and thought the visual was beautiful. He was interested in what software I had used, after explaining I had used Maya he delved into talking about Cinema 4D. I've heard a lot about Cinema 4D as a past freelancer I went to see in Manchester claimed he much preferred to work in Cinema 4D. However every software has its purpose. Maya being more for character animation and Cinema 4D for graphics. 

He generally seemed impressed with the span of work I presented to him. I also decided to take along my current sketchbook for my children's titles, which he also liked flicking through. I always get a good reception after designers have seen my sketches and drawings so I need to specifically push this when applying for a job to expose my strengths to a future employer.

After explaining what I had planned for my Major Project in regards to my children's programme he asked me if I would like to visit either Nickelodeon Studios or Cartoon Network as they both had studios situated in the London area. I thought he was joking at first. He suggested Nickelodeon for me as he had done a lot of work for them and seemed like he had established strong links with them. He said he would send them an e-mail and he would get back to me with their answer after explaining i had to get my train the following day at half 4. Round about half an hour later I got the confirmation, I had a visit with Nickelodeon Studios. 

Thursday 12 May 2011

PORTFOLIO VISIT: LOVE


11th May 2011

I was lucky enough to get a second visit to Love after visiting the studio last November. Love has been a favourite studio of mine and is definitely a place I would like to work at. I think I'd be happier working with a team of people rather than by myself as a freelancer. Ed, the guy I visited while there talked to me about what happens when the team pitch an idea to a client, explaining that they all sit around this huge table sketching storyboards as ideas grow. This painted a lovely picture and I think design and creativity blossoms when surrounded by others to bounce ideas off one another.

I first showed Ed my Green & Blacks piece, the Van Gogh inspired one. He instantly made the connection with Gogh and as the petal uncovered the tagline 'It's an art' he immediately said nice. He was really impressed with the piece and stated the idea could also be carried through the use of other paintings, when at this point I explained that this in fact is what I had already done and went on to show my Hokusai inspired piece. Again he was impressed, at the stop motion and loved the colours.

I also showed Ed my titles for my Children's programme 'I wonder'. One of the first of my renders, explaining it was not yet finished and refining was needed. He thought the animation was lovely and he especially liked my felt character 'Lucy letters' and her facial expressions as she read her book. I explained how everything within the piece that was possible I had hand-crafted as I love creating stuff that has a more organic feel and hasn't completely been generated by a computer. He thought it was good that I had established an area I can develop in and become a trend throughout my work. This inspired me to carry on with such a style and want to keep using elements I have hand- created within future projects. Possibly my own personal projects as Ed said these are the type of people who stand out in the workplace, who are, in their own time scribbling down random ideas.

The criticism was about how the characters seem lost within the set and need to pop out more. I have corrected this and increased the colour saturation on Pippy Painter and replaced the dark green hills with lighter and softer looking ones.

He asked if I had a show coming up and what I had planned for it. I explained my idea about the diorama. Re-creating my characters World by hand in physical form. His reaction was very positive to this and said it would certainly add to my piece. He also gave me a reference for a diorama called Dinner for Schmucks, a title sequence (images above). They are absolutely beautiful, the lighting, composition and how everything is hand- created.