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FMP potential ideas mind map

For these 3 ideas I will have to consider what to look into specifically because all of them are very broad and I don’t what to lose focus with the project. I also need to figure out what types of primary research that I can collect for these.

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Production in Art

Marilyn Diptych, Andy Warhol, 1962:

The Marilyn Diptych was produced by Andy Warhol shortly after Monroe’s death of an overdose. Warhol used silkscreen printing which is similar to screen printing to produce multiple versions of the actress. He also presented this on a diptych which is two plates joined together by a hinge which can be used to show a contrast like in this piece. The piece on the left shows her life as an actress and how the public views her. She was a famous actress, singer and model who was seen everywhere and was constantly in the eye of the public which is the collection of the same image works so well. However, this is contrasted with the piece on the right which trades out vibrant colours for darker tones. What makes the side powerful is the fact that its the same image printed multiple times but each one is different, some are clear but some are faded, some are darker and some have ink obscuring the face. This represents her personal life and her struggles with fame as she took sedative drugs to help her mental health issues such as depression. This eventually lead to her death in 1962. Marilyn Monroe was used to mass produce movies, magazines and art which is why Warhol’s prints represent this well.

Sources: 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-marilyn-diptych-t03093

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/marilyn-monroe-is-found-dead

The Autobiography of an Embryo, Eileen Agar, 1933-1934:

Eileen Agar’s surrealist paintings of an embryo being formed are interesting because it shows the mystery behind biological production and re-production. Her painting uses organic forms and shapes, none of them feel rigid or harsh, instead she uses lots of circles and curves to make the piece more natural. This also helps her show the production of life in her art because these circular shapes represent not just embryos but fossils as well. Embryos and fossils contrast each well because an embryo is the beginning of a new life but fossils are the remnants of something that died long ago but both at some point are alive. Which lends itself to the circle of life. Where as other artists might try to tackle the scientific side Agar wanted to show the mystery behind it and it’s suppose to be how you would describe the story of life to a child.

Source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/agar-the-autobiography-of-an-embryo-t05024

Holes, Shozo Shimamoto, 1954: 

Holes is an oil painting which has been purposefully stabbed with lots of holes. It was produced using newspaper and cartridge paper which was glued together and painted with white and a light blue, he then stabbed it with lots of holes. He used newspapers because he couldn’t afford a canvas in the early 50′s but this was beneficial because he found that the way the newspaper would tear as interesting and it lead him to creating the Holes series. From a distance it could look like the surface of the moon because there are lots of bumps and uneven surfaces. The holes themselves make them look like craters. Shozo likes to use violent methods in his work because he’s responding to what it was like being in post war Japan after the devastating toll of the war, having to accept defeat and what it was like to rebuild. However, he likes to make these pieces beautiful because he believes as an artist his work should look good, he believes his violent methods are a tool so he can show the “beauty of everything”. He’s also used other violent methods like shooting glass bottle full of paint out of a cannon towards a canvas which was held up by some trees. This was part of his 1956 Gutai exhibition at the banks of the Ashiya Rivers, Gutai meaning ‘embodiment’ or ‘concrete’ was more focused on using shocking actions to create work rather than creating a polished final piece. Using destruction as a way to produce art can be powerful and I feel as if Shozo Shimamoto does this well.

Sources:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shimamoto-holes-t07898

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Unit 2 Assessment Sheet 1/3/22

Overall, I am happy with my submission because I was able to explore the theme of climate crisis which is a large topic with many areas to explore and look at it through the use of animation and illustration.

My targets for the FMP is:

- I want to continue drawing as much as possible. During my unit 2 I was using drawing a lot more to convey my ideas but I want to try and push this even further.

- I want to look into professional animators and illustrators so that I have a better understanding of the processes and the ideas involved. This in turn will lead me to produce better work.

- I want to use different forms of animation because I have only being using 2D digital animation but I would like to try 3D forms of animation as well like sculpting, Claymation etc.

- I want to produce more complex 2D digital animations. With each piece of animation I was trying to make it more complex so I want this to carry over into unit 4.

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Unit 2 Creative Conscience Outcomes 10/02/2022

These are my final outcomes for Unit 2 and I am very happy with how they turned out because they fit the intentions I had for this project. When I started this project I wanted to find a way to link animation and climate crisis together. I started to look at the different topics within the climate crisis and I settled on looking at sustainability and litter. This is because of two reasons: I wanted to look at something smaller than issues like rising global temperature or melting ice caps because smaller issues receive less attention and I wanted to deliver information that everyone can use. I therefore began looking at litter and sustainability because we can all reduce the amount of litter that we produce and we can all choose to live more sustainably.

The short looped animations fit my project in terms of its simplicity. The idea behind this was that I would create a simple short animation of a character doing something and I would then add a small fact which would give you some information and tips on how to live. The animation makes it visually appealing and the fact makes the piece meaningful. I really enjoyed this way of working because it allowed me to start exploring animation as a creative practice and the way I presented this information was completely new. I’m extremely happy with these final outcomes because they achieve what I was going for and I look forward to continuing animation on in my FMP. The only changes that I would make is that I would add different types of tips for the audience to live by so that it can have some variety.

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Adding a different fact to the walk cycle

I reused my best animation by adding another fact to it because the great part about these pieces is that it has a really strong template and I can reuse it as much as I want. 

I added a fact from Texas Disposal about how litter is a sustainability issue and to make sure the piece fits my theme of simple solutions for major problems I mentioned how disposing of your rubbish correctly is beneficial for the environment. 

I enjoy the simplicity of these pieces because its informative but it makes helping the climate seem more realistic which I like.

I like the font and keeping it black makes it easy to read which is vital to these pieces. The other colours can be harder to read.

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Font and Colour Experimentation

I wanted to experiment with some fonts and colours because in my animations I have added facts but how the words look is something I am trying to get right. This is because I want it to look visually appealing but I still want it too be easy to read and fits the style of my animations.

Similar to my letter press pieces I used the word climate because it emphasises my projects focus and I like how it looks when its been written multiple times.

I quite like the second from the bottom because it looks interesting but still easy to read and colour wise I quite like it because it’s not too strong which fits what I need. Although typically I prefer using black as my font colour because it means its easy to read.

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Walk Cycle

This is my first walk cycle of my character I really like how this came out because the motion is smooth and accurate. 

To make this I first started off by planning the walk cycle in my sketchbook and began the animation process.

I quite like this page because it is more detailed than my other frame plan pages and the way the characters look it reminds me of Keith Haring’s style of drawing characters.

When animating I saved time by copying and pasting his body because the only things that move are his arms and legs so it was more efficient to copy and paste the entire piece and then redraw the limbs. This is one of the reasons why it isn’t as jumpy as my previous animation and therefore makes it look better.

I added a shadow beneath his feet because I wanted to emphasis movement and it’s also what Tiantian used in her walk cycle. Her work was also what inspired this piece.

I also added a fact that I found on Global citizen about how seabirds are consuming plastic and that it is only going to get worse because I wanted this piece to be meaningful in some way. I then added about how we need to stop using plastic to save them in the future because my animations are suppose to be giving simple ways we can help with the climate crisis. 

My animation is currently running out 15 fps because it’s not too fast or slow and makes the character look like they're actually moving.

To develop this I would add in extra characters because it looks a little empty and a great way to develop/ make it more complex is to add more moving characters. 

Animation has been an enjoyable thing to explore within this unit and I want to explore other forms of animation like 3D and non digital animation in the future.

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Drawing Characters Into Photos

Animation, character design and photography have played a huge part within my work for the unit so as development I wanted to add my characters into photos I took.

I started off by photographing a bin and a plastic bottle bin so that I could draw my characters on top of them. I then made it so that they were saying something to the audience similar to how in my animations my characters are telling you facts.

However, because the backgrounds were dull I cut around the characters and objects and placed them into a muted colour background. I like using these colours for my work because they are a nice colour but they’re not overpowering and they don’t take away focus from the piece which is what I want the audience to focus on. I got the idea to use these colours from the 100 days of motion design artist Tiantian Xu and they link well to my project because rubbish is not particularly colourful so I added this in to make it more eye catching.

This is my first one that I created and I enjoyed how he was interacting with the environment however, I thought it was lacking more characters so for the next piece I decided to add more.

For the second piece I enjoyed having the characters climbing and interacting with the bin. I like to think that they were littered and that they are putting themselves in the bin because they want to do their part for the planet.

I like having the fact as well because it makes the piece more informative, useful and easy to carry out.

I enjoy creating these pieces because they are similar to the animations I’m creating and they can presented in poster format which is a really great way to deliver information.

As development I feel as if I need to photo actual litter and draw my characters into there so that it can link further to litter. I could even give facial expressions to the litter and make them into characters.

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For my development I need to talk about why I use muted colours for the background in my animations, I need to make some posters, make a letter font page and try to produce some more animations.

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Jumping Bottle Animation

As development from my previous animation, I animated this character jumping because with each loop I am trying to make the animation more complex.

This is one of my new characters that I designed and it’s based off of a crushed bottle I found in Highwoods. The reason why I wanted to change characters is because even though I like the mask character, I feel as if having the plastic bottle relates better to my project in terms of litter and sustainability.

To create this animation I used 18 frames instead of 12, which is what I used for my previous two animations. I started by designing the character and then planning the frames:

For the design I really wanted to emphasis the creases in the bottle to show what state it was in when I found it.

Planning out the frames is the best way for me to visualise how I want to animate this.

After this I began the animation process. It was a lot more difficult from my previous gifs I made because there was a lot more to account for like the fact that the entire body moves and that before jumping the characters has to lower the body so that it can build power to jump. Because there was a lot more to animate it did mean that the animation is not as smooth as the previous loops however, this was really fun to do and I really like doing these challenging animations.

I then added a fact from some of the research that I gathered so that it links back to my project.

For my next animation I plan to create a walk cycle of the crushed bottle character which should be challenging but interesting.

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Drawing characters into photos

As development I decided to add a character into a picture because I have being using photography throughout my project as development and reference so this is a good way to link it back. I created this in Photoshop which has been one of the digital programs I have been using for my animation and character design work.

I wanted to keep it playful by having the character in a simplistic style and telling the audience to put them in the bin and not to litter them. Also for the text I decided to draw it instead of type it because it fits the style of the character better.

Drawing into photographs is an interesting way of working because I like having the contrast between the environment and what’s been drawn in. It also means that I don’t have to add a background and it gives me an idea of how my characters would look in real environment.

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Letter press print work

These are some of the prints I created in the letter press workshop, when creating these I wanted to link these to my project.

For the first print I printed ‘Climate’ in green and ‘Crisis’ in red because the word climate links to the natural world so green suited it and it means that it makes the word crisis stand out and therefore emphasis the problem of the situation.

I also enjoyed using letters that didn’t match because it created some variety and interest.

These are some of the test prints I did where I was learning how to get clear and strong prints.

For this print I wanted reflect how we often get confused on what to do and how best to help the climate crisis. 

I really enjoyed doing letter press printing because being able to take a word and turn it into a piece is really interesting. I also liked how I added question marks and exclamation marks for these prints.

I enjoy creating print work because it links well to illustration and it can be used to produce some interesting results and I would like to incorporate these into future works.

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The work I am to do in response to the tutorial session is:

To create more character designs so that I can further my animation work.

Research 100 days of motion so that I can support my animation work.

Draw characters into photos because I’ve been using photography throughout my work to support what I am doing and for reference so it would be a good way to link it back.

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This week I have been animating the characters that I have previously designed. For a past couple of weeks I have consistently been creating character design by looking at my observational drawings of litter to see look at how it looks, what state its in, how its interacting with the environment etc. and turning them into characters. My inspiration for my designs has come from Gilbert Legrand, a French artist know for turning ordinary objects into characters. I have been working on my animated loop of a crushed bottle character jumping because bring these characters to life is something that is important to me as it makes the piece more eye catching and visual appealing. Its also important that they read the climate crisis fact I have added in because I want my work to be something that is educational to the viewer so having the text coupled with a likeable character will make my work and its message stand out more. My designs are inspired by Legrand through looking at the what the object looks like and seeing how to turn that into someone doing something however, I also like to look at how it is interacting with the environment because since its litter its important to take its environmental impact into consideration when turning it into a character.

I have been learned how to make animations which have more movement to it which is why I plan to make a walk cycle animation after my current loop because that will be more difficult to animate. For inspiration I looked at 100 Days of Motion Design which shows how Tiantian Xu learned how to animate 50 different pieces in 100 days which applies well to what I am doing not. All of this is influencing me to make more detailed and visually exciting animated pieces.

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Mask Waving Animation

This is my second animated loop based on one of my character design, for this piece I made it so that my character was waving because I wanted to develop it from the blinking piece. 

I enjoyed making this character wave because it makes it feel more real and interactive to the audience. I also like how smooth the animation is because when I was creating this I really wanted the waving to be fluid.

I created this by drawing the 12 frames in Clip Studio Paint and then exporting the images into Photoshop so that I could animate it. 

This is how it looked when I was animating it.

I added the speech bubble and the fact by switching from animation to video editing mode. The character and animation engages the audience and having the fact makes the piece feel more meaningful and educational.

For my next piece I am going to have a bottle character that I designed jumping because in terms of making a character move its the next step due to the fact its more complex than a hand moving and it requires more than 12 frames.

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Gilbert Legrand 3D Inspired Character

After looking at Gilbert Legrand and making some character designs based off his work I decided that I would make a physical character as development.

I wanted to make a character that was likeable because I believe that if everyday packaging and litter was given a personality then people would be more likely to buy things that were sustainable and would recycle their waste instead of littering it. So when I created this character I gave it a confused expression because it made it seem likeable and it relates to how we often get confused on what's recyclable and what's not. This is also the reason why I have it saying “Please Recycle Me” and “I’m sustainable so don’t litter me please”. Adding a message is something I have been doing in my digital pieces and I like doing it because it makes the piece informative which is what I have been wanting from my work.

This is my character design pages where I looked at the shape of the box and what I could do with it. I looked at expressions and concepts for the pieces and this is where I decided to wrap it in masking tape because the surface of the box is glossy so it was easier to paint and ink on a non-glossy surface.

I painted it purple because I wanted it to be visually appealing and eye catching because I didn’t want it to look like every other piece of litter.

If I was to develop it further I would give it arms and legs because that would make it seem more alive and it would also mean it could stand on its own.

This was an enjoyable way of developing my work in relation to Gilbert Legrand because I have only been doing 2D illustrations on paper and in digital so to take my designs and make it something physical is exciting.

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I’ve made the changes to my development slide by adding more of my animation work which also uses brighter colours. I also mentioned how that if I was to display this somewhere it would be on a random street or near a bin because those are common place where you find litter.