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The Edge

Project Title: “The Edge”

Process:

Began with looking at surrealist art

I intended to explore “Edge” as a blur between reality and fantasy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmOQ6fXlhmf/?hl=en&taken-by=ines.alpha

I took inspiration from this artist who embodies this blurring of reality using what she calls “3d makeup”; computer generated images on faces made to look like moving art.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjpaOlHl3Ce/?hl=en&taken-by=ines.alpha

I also took inspiration from this artist who uses similar techniques to create images blurred with technology.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn6kz9xl4Fv/?hl=en&taken-by=antonitudisco

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmV9aZYFJk1/?hl=en&taken-by=antonitudisco

I became particularly interested in one artist who used digital techniques to draw portraits

I admire the way the artist incorporates aspect of realism with aspects of surrealism. I attempted to emulate this with my own attempts digitally.

I thought perhaps I could incorporate two ideas from my research into one and merge the idea of technology-created graphics with art that looks hand painted.  This led to ideas of an app named “EDGE” that would be able to merge these onto a persons face in real time. I then decided to experiment with logos.

Thing to take into consideration in app logo design: use of gradients, use of minimalism, use of bright colours

I used some inspiration from Motion Portrait, an app that will animate a drawn portrait. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSx8tNBIZmQ

Experimentation:

A further final piece would probably have included an animation whereby a persons face morphs into their painted self.

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Displayed in Harlow Open Exhibition 2018

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Displayed in Harlow Open Exhibition 2017

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I began my animation by roughly sketching out what I had planned on my storyboard. I would go over these sketches maybe 2-3 times to make them neater or  if glitches had occurred whilst importing and editing them in After Effects. My original sketches and the ending animation often looked very different.

Here you can see the original sketch underneath my final animation. Although I did neaten the edges significantly and also change the colour, I found that by the end I did not need to try to be too neat, as masking these layers via rotoscope and editing the matte often created a satisfactory outcome. 

I created my animations with a drawing tablet, often using my own limbs/hands or objects on hand to reference my drawings.

Here you can see the process of rotoscoping the animation. I decided to use this technique as opposed to using a mask layer as the jagged, hand-drawn effect rotoscope created was more stylised and created a nicer aesthetic than a mask layer. To do this, I editing the photoshop Layer, then reversed the background such that the object I had rotoscoped would show through to the layer underneath. For this, I consistently used a rainbow gradient for my character;

I thought that this created the dreamy effect that the music inspired.

For this part of the animation I looped both the falling girl and the clouds, and animated them using keyframes.

I edited this image onto the phone using the same technique; this time using the Y, Z and X rotation with keyframes. I found that the way I had set up my layers meant that some parts were covering others where they shouldn't be, as pictured above. This was easily fixed after rendering my edit as a .mp4 and editing in photoshop.

The remainder of my animation was hand drawn animation; this part I decided would not be masked or rotoscoped to create some variety and acknowledge that the narrative of my animation had changed. For this reason I spent a lot of time going over sketches, creating a more detailed but still stylised and hand-drawn look.

Original:

Process:

Result:

This in particular was a lengthy process, but I am reasonably happy with the way it turned out.

Ultimately, I am happy with the outcome of my project. If I were to change any aspect, I would animate in a less careful way at the beginning; as I was not sure how my rotoscope masking would change my hand-drawn animation, I did not know how rough I could be and still create a nice effect, therefore animating these parts took a very long time in an attempt to be neat and detailed, where it could have been a lot shorter had I known how rough I could be. For this reason, in the future I will attempt to experiment more in the process of creating an animation, so I do not go in blind and make this same lengthy mistake again. Had I done this preemptively, I could have spent more time perfecting or adding detail in the editing stage of After Effects, which may have produced a more polished outcome. Nevertheless, I am overall happy with my project, and think I adequately accomplished what I set out to do.

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Experiments and Final Outcome

First I experimented with pixelating images to make them into icons you would see in an arcade game - something familiar to many. I did this in relation to my research on lighthearted political campaigns; I wanted to use something that would be accessible to many people such as to encourage people to take the message of my poster to heart, as it would mimic something familiar to them.

Experimenting with pixelated text

Poster Experiments:

My Final Outcome:

Corresponding Gif:

I am very pleased with the outcome of this project. Were I to change anything I would perhaps create a more detailed or complex corresponding gif, however I also do like the simplicity of it. I would also maybe make more direct references to specific video games, as I feel this would hit a niche and make more clever comparisons towards this particular demographic.

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Protest Project

Design a poster and accompanying gif for a political cause

RESEARCH

I began by broadly researching poster campaigns

What these images have in common are bright colours and succinct messages, often put in interesting or clever ways, such as to make the viewer think. 

I continued on to more specific topics that interested me:

These posters are far more intricate than the first examples and I found this effective in a different way; the complexity necessitates a more careful reading, and I find I spend a lot more time looking at these posters and gaging the details of them. I found it very interesting to acknowledge the contrast in these two approaches and their varying outcomes.

In addition to these two approaches, I found another approach to political posters which I found was the most effective:

These posters take on a lighthearted tone, and despite their obvious message they can be shared easily due to the gentler way their message is put across; they are more accessible. I found it interesting that the most examples I could find of this approach were surrounding veganism; a diet some would argue is very inaccessible, but which is growing at a massive rate. 

The lighthearted nature of these images made them popular as wearable goods such as shirts:

I thought this was particularly interesting as it creates a trendy image for the movement it is trying to progress; likely very useful in spreading the message and normalising the diet in the mainstream.

Other examples I found:

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Final Piece and Digital Presentation

Overall I am happy with the outcome, however would I have done this project again I would perhaps spend more time on the animation, making it more detailed and complex. Nevertheless I am overall pleased with the outcome of this project.

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Process

The process of animating the videos taken during my time in Berlin. I chose to go for chaotic and hand drawn aesthetics, as well as using a lot of bright colours.

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Book Project: Animation Research

I knew I wanted to animate in some way in my end result, and as such I began looking at flip book animations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSj0lajQBrM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ8JlUVgGak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LguKiUMG6OQ

I liked the way a narrative could be told using this kind of animation, but ultimately I wanted the source of my narrative to be more organic, so it could more fully represent my time in Berlin. As such, I decided to use hand drawn animation only to add to my narrative, not to create it.

One particular video took my interest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nntGTK2Fhb0

This music video uses animation much in the way I had in mind, and I furthermore liked the hand drawn look to it, I decided to keep this in mind when creating my final piece.

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For research on my book project, I began looking at travel advertisements.

What I found interesting were the bright colours, and integral use of key landmarks in showcasing a particular place. Although the idea of a poster or advertisement did not suit my overall project, I did decide to go on to use these two themes in my end vision, so this particular research was very useful.

I furthermore looked at travel guides while in Berlin; the inclusion of small parts of history or key interesting facts was also appealing to me, and I decided to incorporate this in some way in my end result as well.