dani-b-usw-3

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 1

Finding a placement.

This week, I have sent off my online portfolio, created with Wix, to several clients in hopes of being accepted for a placement. These placements were advertised as a group by our module leader, so these were not difficult to find, although I did seek out Clothcat on my own accord, as when I originally set off to apply, they were not openly available to applicants. I have written a covering letter to provide the employer with some information about me, my background in illustration and my strengths. I have applied mostly for marketing positions as I feel I can put my skills to the test as well as bring forward some of my skills as a character designer and single-piece works. Ideally, I would hope to complete two placements between the 28th Nov to the 28th Jan 2021. I will keep this as my main goal but will see how things develop with my first placement, as I want to be able to provide quality rather than quantity, as well as maintaining outside commitments such as personal commissions and a part-time job.

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 2

I have been accepted for a placement as Hijinx, working on the 12 days of PAWBmas project they host, Am waiting for a confirmation on meeting dates and placements.

Hijinx is an all-inclusive theatre group that provide marginalised actors and artists who feel they do not have as much of a platform as others. They provide different courses to teach actors with learning disabilities to either improve their life skills through drama or performance training.

Their goal is to create a working theatrical environment to allow everyone to follow their dreams without discrimination or favouritism.

I feel that this would be a good place for me to complete my placement as it would allow me to work more in-depth with a community and learn more about how to professionally compose myself to suit the client. It will also be good to be able to provide people with materials they need to progress their skills or profession.

I will be working with the drama groups, which will consist of two projects at once. The deadline for which would be the 2nd and 16th of December.

An  important thing I’ve learned so far with online placements is that I need to remember to reach out more, as a lot of technical difficulties have happened since I began this journey, and I can not assume everything will work out or there is some reason for what is happening. Following up if I’m unsure or need help is a must.

Tuesday’s drama group is focused on a light hearted drama piece involving animals and gifts. After hearing and interacting with the group, I have been asked to make intro and outro cards to present the actors’ names and special messages. I suggested that we do something similar to an animated film, where they show the credits overtop some scenes relating to the play. Getting the go-ahead, and being told to so what seems good, I began a rough example of what I had in mind.

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 3

The Wednesday group was based around christmas ghosts and what christmas is all about. I was given more free reign with this, and suggested the idea of creating images and GIFS that could be placed on the video at different parts to brighten it up or add effects that, again, the group unfortunately doen’t have access to at this time. This involved going through the script and picking out key moments and words that could use an extra boost. I began by compiling all the possibilities on top of a written script.

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 4

The ClothCat brief if to create a group of characters that use an ‘imaginative and inventive use of space’. The end goal is to produce a group of up to 6 beings. A few examples they provide is a family, pets, roommates etc. We are expected to provide backgrounds, dynamics and personalities to them that would work well together. The developmental work must be professional as well as the final piece. This means very first sketches, brainstorms, concepts, turnarounds, expression sheets, dynamic poses, world designs, all the way through to quality ‘well polished’ artwork.

 They are asking for any digital media, developmental work and notes. We are expected to finish with an A3 piece innovatively showing the characters, their personalities, backgrounds and location via a poster or action shot. We are also asked to provide mood boards fro the characters to show a more in-depth look of their buildup.

We can interpret the brief however we like, as long as we follow the ‘inventive use of space’ theme.

All images can be portrait or landscape but must be at a resolution of at least A3, 300dpi.

DEADLINES 19 / 10 / 2020 - Live brief launch at USW 02 / 11 / 2020 - 13:00 - Live Blackboard Collaborate brief Q&A with Adam Bailey, Producer and Head of Animation Development at Cloth Cat Animation 30 / 11 / 2020 - First review - character and environment designs review and feedback deadline 11 / 01 / 2021 - Final Review - DELIVERY to Cloth Cat for final feedback

 I’ve decided to start some basic research by collecting images from existing media that will provide me with some inspiration and means to find linking dynamics.

From a visual standpoint. This mood board shows that most groups of characters tend to have height differences. Particularly when involving two characters, or a larger group with different age ranges. The largest differences in height seem to be human/animal relationships, such as Pikachu and Ash from ‘Pokemon’, Tintin and Snowy from ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ and Pery and Dr.Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. An exception to this is Tom and Jerry, due to their species difference, as well as Monsters Inc’s Sully and Mike. In most of my examples, colour also plays a part in the dynamic. Clothing is used for most human characters to provide each of the cast their uniqueness, such as Mario being mainly in red and Luigi being mostly green. These are great example colour-wise, as red and green are complementary colours, which may indicate their bond as brothers. Another example of this is the’ Inside Out’ characters. Each of the main characters is coded with their colour to represent an emotion. Only one of the 5 characters shares multiple colours, which is Joy, although she is still mostly yellow to represent happiness. Inside out is also a good example of using multiple shapes to create a group of characters. The shape is used to provide different auras and feelings when creating a character. Circles are mostly used for happy or kind characters, whereas Triangles are used for more sinister or evil characters in a lot of cases. This will be very important to keep in mind for this brief, as we will need to use our imagination to create characters that fit in a space well, and variety within that is very important, as it may seem boring to have the same shape used multiple times.

My first exercise was beginning to experimenting with different shapes. When creating characters, I do not usually do this, as I stick to my comfort zone, so this was a new challenge for me.

I found an exercise online that involves randomly scribbling shapes, and then creating characters using the shape is a base.

I found this exercise quite difficult, as I was attempting to create full bodies characters with basic, single shapes. It allowed me to get creative however, and I ened up creating some interesting figures with the basic shapes that I wouldn’t ordinarily think of. It also made me think more about character silouettes and how they can be important when creating interesting and effective characters.

Once I had this ecercise done, I decided to start thinking about concepts that interested me that would fit in with the brief. I created a mindmap of things I could think of that could be a unique or fun project.

Although I enjoyed a lot of the ideas I generated  throught this, the ones that stuck out to me the most were the concept of phobias or fears and the different layers of hell or the different sins. Seeing as these were quite mature topics, I decided to lean more towards the phobia theme, as I could create that while avoiding more topics that may make others uncomfortable better.

 After deciding on my theme, I created a list of two possible outcomes. Characters that represent phobias, or characters that suffer from said phobias. I made a list of the best phobias that would work with either catagroy to see what ideas I could generate from that.

Looking as some of the possible concepts, I decided that my strength would be monster/animalistic based designs, and that I would enjoy working with the phobias themselves. I though about what I could do to bring a group of phobias together to create a cast of character.  

I though of having these character exsisiting in a separated part of a person’s brain or imagination, as phobias are a psychological condition. I thought about what kind of environment they would live in, and considered the possibility of these phobias living in a caged up city away from the rest of the brain/imagination. I roughly sketched up some basic ideas for what I had in mind. I was thinking along the lines of a ‘bad neighbourhood’, run down city type vibes, as phobias and fears are usually negative and avoided at all costs.

I wanted to make the buildings look gross and unsettling to fit the theme, so I made a sketch of them looking like brain matter. I would likely go with blue, red, pink and black colour themes for the main colour palette, as those colours remond me of creepy atmospheres as well as colours found in the body.

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 5

I wanted to make the buildings look gross and unsettling to fit the theme, so I made a sketch of them looking like brain matter. I would likely go with blue, red, pink and black colour themes for the main colour palette, as those colours remond me of creepy atmospheres as well as colours found in the body.

I decided to first try creating 3 varying designs for each phobia I was using, so I could gauge what ClothCat would prefer and what edits I could make to attempt to make the best characters I could. I created basic front views of each design, leading to 15 total designs for the 5 concepts. I attempted using muted or duller colours in most cases, as I wanted these characters to be somewhat evil looking to go with their origins. The landscape would also be muted with a red or purple tone behind it, so I would want the characters to fit in with that concept, althought the scenes are not yet set in stone.

Upon hading in my current work to ClothCat for a midway review, I received feedback on the what I had produced.

Some of the areas I need to work on are as follows.

“The interior is nice but we are not sure if it is connected to one of the phobias. Is it a brain? It's not entirely clear. A little more explanation was needed.”

“Feels like these are final as opposed to concept because of the clean line. Would have been nice to see the sketches or early concept too, so we could see how they had progressed.”

“How do the characters co-exist? Are they of the same world, do they live together? What would it look like if they were all together in the same location. A bit more to be explored here. For the final key image we want to see how the characters fit into the world. We had a few questions which can be answered in a strong, busy and emotive key image Don't be afraid to push your poses more, be ambitious. Currently a little static, they look in their 'at rest' pose.”

With this feedback, I produced some more sketchwork and dynamic images to push the idea I had better, as well as make it a bit easier to understand the imagery.

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 6

As these briefs have come to a close, I am concluding these blogs with what I have learned and my thoughts.

 It has been very interesting to work with two very different clients over the past few months, and there has been a lot of variety in my work because of this. Something I have discovered while working with Hijinx is that communication is extremely important, and I must always check if my communication is working correctly. I, unfortunately, lost a lot of time due to technical issues, but I have learned to reach out if something doesn’t seem right to allow me to get back on track quickly. Most of my work in the past outside of university has not had strict time constraints, so this experience has opened my eyes a lot in that regards and it is something I will hold on to in the future.

While working with ClothCat, I’ve noticed that I do not thumbnail or create as many basic concepts as I probably should usually. I have learned that I need to produce more options for clients before turning in a select few ideas. Seeing as my FMP is similar to the ClothCat brief, this is something I have to carry forward if I want to produce quality work. I need to learn not to settle for the first best things and branch out to as many unique possibilities as I can. I have also learned that I need to be more explanatory about my concepts and ideas, as part of my feedback from the ClothCat team was that they weren’t quite sure where the location was. I feel that if I had produced more information about that, it would have been better translated I have definitely enjoyed the briefs we have been given and I hope to take what I have learned through this experience into the next part of my illustrative life and produce the best.