Toolkit - Morphing Animation

I really enjoyed our first animation class. We were tasked to make an animation in Flash (now Adobe Animate) where we morphed our face into our favourite food, then to our favourite animal, then back to the face again. It was really fun to do some 2D animation as I haven't done much since I left college at the beginning of the year. I didn't finish the animation in class so I've finished it off at home. Here is the final GIF:

More to come soon!

Invisible Cities - Thumbnails 35-58

Here are some more thumbnails for the Invisible Cities project. I've tried different ways of creating them here, as advised by Jordan in his class. I have used the lasso tool, the brush and collage to make a different variety of designs.

I have also settled on Fedora as my city, so I have created a few more drawings of how I think the city could look:

Invisible Cities - Online Greenlight Review

This is my OGR for Invisible Cities. I'm happy with how the project is going so far, and I have a clear view of what I want the outcome to be. I'm really disappointed I didn't get to 100 thumbnails before the OGR, but I'm going to keep working so I hit that goal before the end of the project! I can't wait to start developing my chosen city further.

Life Drawing

My drawings from my third session. I'm not very happy with the one on black paper, but I've decided to include it anyway and I'm hoping to improve on it next time. I really enjoyed doing the quick poses today, it was nice to not really think about what I was doing and make lines instinctively instead. I'm already looking forward to next week!

Toolkit - Invisible Cities Ideation

In our lesson with Jordan last Monday (I'm a little bit behind!), we explored how to come up with ideas for our thumbnails. We started off by studying the work of Sterling Hundley, who explains how to plan your ideas to make them more interesting and to make it easier to generate them. Here is his list to follow:

Begin with the text
Research
Reference
Simplify the text, break it down into key words
Create word associations in a work stack
Create simple icons (drawings) next to the text
Form bridges between the words
Develop your ideas from you words
Use values to explain shape
Draw a box to define your composition
Define your drawings into a final solution to the text.

The main thing that was emphasized in the lesson was using reference. If you want to know what things like, you need to reference them! I'm going to really try in future to gather some reference and make some inspiration maps, as I think this will really help me to come up with more ideas. Another tip was that when you're stuck, start thinking of the opposite of what the city is meant to look at, and think abstractly.

As well as learning some methods of idea creation, Jordan also showed us some more effective ways to make thumbnails in Photoshop. Originally, I used the method of drawing lineart digitally to make a thumbnail, but I found this really messy and I didn't like it at all. I was amazed to see all of the different kinds of methods there are when it comes to making small compositions. First of all, you can paint, filling in the shapes to help read the space. Make sure to use values: bright and sharp is closer up, neutral and fuzzy is far away. You can also use the lasso tool, which is like digital tape! You can draw out different shapes using the tool, and then paint into the shapes you've made. It seems like a very interesting way to create texture very quickly and effectively, and I can't wait to try it! The last method is quite similar, which is to the use polygon lasso tool. This makes the edges a bit sharper, different from just using the normal lasso. One more interesting point is that you can use layer settings to put designs on top of each other, to make a completely different thumbnail out of existing designs.

I'd like to try all of these methods and can't wait to put them into practice. I'll be making a post with my outcomes soon!

Film Review - Metropolis

Metropolis (1927), is an ambitious science-fiction film directs by Fritz Lang. It was made seven years after The Cabinet of Dr Calagari, and it's amazing how quickly technology has progressed over less than a decade. Camera shots are more ambitious, compared to Caligari, which has a completely static camera throughout the whole film. The production design is extremely extravagant, with special effects (such as a whole town flooding, or explosions in the undercity) as well as interesting environments which definitely show an influence from Robert Wiene's work in Calagari.

The film begins illustrating the idea of an undercity and an overcity, with the undercity being a place full of the machinery which keeps the luxurious overcity working. The workers in the undercity are treated like slaves, whereas the others in the overcity have a life of relaxation. Maria is the woman that gives the men of the undercity hope, preaching to them in secret, unknown to Joh Fredersen, who is the master of Metropolis. Freder, who is Fredersen's son, decides it's unfair for the people of the undercity to be slaves, and he meets Maria, who shares his ideas. Meanwhile, Fredersen and Rotwang the scientist work together to bring the undercity to its knees. After the conflict between the undercity and the overcity, the film concludes positively, showing both sides resolving their differences and agreeing to work together.

The differences between Calagari and Metropolis are profound, but there are also some similarities. They both make use of warped perspective in their environments. Although Calagari definitely pushes that perspective a lot more, the influence in Metropolis is very obvious, shown by a comparison of shots from the film below.

Fig 1: Metropolis

Fig 2: Calagari 

Described as the "most innovative and influential figure in movie history" (French, 2010), Metropolis has some real-world parallels that reflect the stance of society in the 1920's. Maria is a very sexualised figure in the film, starting off as stereotypically 'pure', before she is replaced by Rotwang's robot, where she is portrayed as incredibly tainted, as shown by a scene where dancing provocatively in front of crowds of men. The fact that the fake Maria has to act in this way to be shown as 'evil' says a lot about the view on women in the 1920's. Not only this, but there is also a reflection of political topics: in the film, the city is led by just one dictator, Fredersen, who doesn't necessarily know of the best way to lead this society he has created, evident by the fact that "Fredersen out-and-out encourages an angry mob to destroy his own city" (Abrams, 2010). This seems slightly similar to how Germany has been led in the past, where the mass has been controlled by a few select people.

Fig. 3

Although there are a lot of parallels between Calagari and Metropolis, "Lang develops this story with scenes of astonishing originality" (Ebert, 1998). It has a bit of everything in it: robots, explosions, action, and a dystopian, futuristic city. Although the story can be a bit confusing at times, especially with some lost footage, the effects and environment of the movie are certainly very stunning, and Metropolis was, without a doubt, one of the most influential (and expensive) films of its time.

Bibliography

Abrams, S. (2010). "Metropolis". In: slantmagazine [online] Available at: (https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/metropolis)

Ebert, R. (1998). "Metropolis". In rogerebert [online] Available at: (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-metropolis-1927)

French, P. (2010). "Metropolis". In: The Guardian [online] Available at: (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/sep/12/metropolis-fritz-lang-review)

Illustration List

Fig. 1 - http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/graphics/metro94.jpg

Fig. 2 - http://www.cinemas-online.co.uk/images/caligaristage.jpg

Fig. 3 - https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b6/78/ec/b678ece88e7303022b4e38212c883aae--metropolis--fiction-movies.jpg

Toolkit - Maya Lessons 1&2

Our first Maya lesson was just a small introduction, where we were shown a presentation then went into Maya in the last half hour of the lesson. We were taught some basic tools, like how to move around, change perspective view and turn soft select on and off. Although we didn't have much time to use Maya in the first class, I was still happy to get back into it after not doing much this summer.

In our latest Maya lesson, we had to design some characters based on different stereotypes we were given. Mine was beatnik, and we also had the added challenge of making them aliens/monsters instead of humans. We also had to draw a table and put three random numbers up to four in. We later found out that this would be the number of arms, legs and eyes our characters would have. We started with eight very simple shapes, drawing what we think the silhouette of our character could look like, and not adding much detail at all. Here are my original eight:

After that, we walked around the room and talked to the rest of the class about our designs. We had to pick three designs out of the eight to develop, and I chose the ones that have numbers on above. My most favourite design, (no. 2), was a bit of a mistake because I didn't do any arms when I was supposed to do three! However I really liked it, so decided to develop it further. Here are my three developments:

After this, we got to pick one to make as a final design. I chose number two, because it was my favourite even though it didn't have the right amount of arms! Here is my final design.

We scanned the final design onto a memory stick so we can work on it in a week or so. We'll be taking it into Illustrator to make a digital design then modelling it in Maya.