Act of Kindness - is this it?

Yesterday I bashed out this- an illustrator rendering of the sketches I have made.

The type was just to give me a loose idea of what I wanted -  so that needs further development. Other little touches need doing (thicker nose lines?) - but other than that I feel like this could be final? 

Given some time to reflect on it, today it might look a little simple (maybe this works given the format? and there is a lack of colour (again, maybe this works, maybe I could try some simple colours instead of black and white - red, blue yellow?). 

Overall, I'm happy with this and would be happy to submit it - I feel a little uncomfortable about how fast it has come to me - I think it would be silly not to at least try and find some other visuals / another act of kindness given the fact I have another week. I really like this idea but who knows what I could stumble on if I keep going. Also could play with this idea a little further.

Act of kindness (notes?)

d.i.y/punk - maybe not aesthetic but mindset

spreading good vibes

try make people think

people don't like being preached to (especially by a sticker)

text? - should it say everything w/ out needing language (constant battle)

should be sharp, clean simple image - easy to read

talk to strangers - is the image clear enough (as always)

welfare state/nhs/taxes - how do I communicate something more complicated - but perhaps more important?

explore your area

really like strangers because of imagery I have thought up - but not sure its right - on one hand first thought best thought. On the other should I try other things more - push through an alright but slightly flimsy idea to a better one. Not sure its good enough to not try other things. I never talk to strangers - maybe I should try and force myself to the next few days.

Playing w/ 'talk to a stranger'

Nothing really stands out
other than 'talk to a stranger'
-need to push harder?

3D giffin'

After having strong fears of the 3D gif, the cultural phenomenon of the origami swan came to me yesterday. I was unsure about lens but in the end I thought I could make it in a sink either filling up or going down. After testing the sink draining make more sense. 

I found the idea of the swan in the little sink a bit funny - after seeing the videos of the lovely swans on big lakes. I wonder whether the swan in the sink might look like a bit out of a cop out though? The photos were surprisingly fast and painless compared to the crafting in the other gifs.

I used a tripod but must have still been knocking/shaking it as the image moves a bit. I wonder whether the framing of the shot is right. Maybe a slightly higher angle would have shown it better? I like having the tap and plug in that show it is a sink v clearly but what if it was a bit more zoomed in? Could I have used a kitchen sink? So many questions. 

I feel there is something missing to it/making it not as good as it could be but I can't work it out. I think I often have this with 3D/lens - knowing it isn't as good as it could be but not knowing why or how.

After taking the photos this morning, I went in and made them into the gifs. In the end I had these 2 - both with their own flaws. Would probably go with the second.

Unnecessary frames at the end? 

Slightly lower res?

Now the gifs are done I feel like the brief has challenged me and pushed me out of my comfort zone. Learning something new is exciting but also I have found them time consuming. Probably would consider doing them again if it lent itself to a brief. They do show how tricky I find digital work and they a bit simple/crude. Doesn't stop me from wanting to do it more and conquer it.

Gif angst

Spent the day trying to bash out the digital gif. It has been a day of trying something that may be impossible (effort vs time) at first I wanted a continuous flow of swans (2 of red, blue, yellow) swirling around. I realised that 6 things lining up is very hard. After getting to nearly 90 frames with just 3 swans I realised I was losing/had lost my mind. I then realised that getting 3 swans to move from white screen to white screen was more realistic. Now I'm finding even this hard. Does it need a background? probably yes.

Looks underwhelming considering the frames & effort it took.

At the moment its not even looping which makes me quite sad but its much harder than I expected. Want to make it how I first imagined it (continuous loop) but i don't think I have the time or commitment.

Would settle with this as a final. But should I?

Yesterday I got the hand drawn one done. A lot of pain in that one. I ended up doing 47 frames (I keep doing too many) and it looks fairly shoddy due to being lazy at tracing and inconsistent at scanning. Annoying that numbers in the corner keep popping in but also maybe ok with the jolty handmade feel?

Character dev

Dev of the charros

I forgot to blog this at the time but character development for the gif - I found this quite hard as I don't quite know how I feel about characters - often don't like using them. Finishing the sketchbook wasn't hard - but I found very few of the characters any use. I find I tend to just churn things out without thinking very much. I look at other people in the studio who have considered a drawing much more before starting and it look like its much more useful.

Drawing developing ideas or ideas developing drawing?

When I looked at what I'd done maybe one or 2 ideas from the whole sketchbook were viable to push further. While I think this wild approach can be useful for idea generation I need to harness it for my own good and not let it run free like a wild beast. I need to consciously think more as I draw and generate ideas. 

Too inhibited? I think so. What is it
saying? How would movements
translate the vibes of the song?

Nice - But complicated
- especially w/ animating- 
how will all those bits move?
what does it say?

Of all the characters I thought these ducks/swans were most viable. They seem to fit the music better than a human, floating along as they please - plus who knows how a humans limbs move? not me. 

World of swans

I found this video of Ukranian swans. Natalia appears to have filmed this on her camera phone and put some kind of looping (xylophone?) track over it. There are many reasons it should be very wrong but I really liked it. Seems to have been filmed in the early evening. Lovely reflection from the lake. Something very calming about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_VtX8AuM78

Here are some seemingly Dutch swans on land. Not as graceful as the Ukrainian swans but some interesting camera work (voyeuristic zooms?) - could there be a deeper meaning to the boy doing scooter tricks?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJR02SfZVAw

These Danish swans don't move very much, but I respect that, and I respect Danish society for respecting that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IpWIBeOCzA

These aren't swans as such, but they are Russian and I suppose they say something about swans. Getting side tracked. Its mesmerising though. Also, lovely sounds Pyotr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rJoB7y6Ncs

The low down is the internet is full of swans moving in all kinds of ways. Having a good look at these swans to see how they move and hopefully informs how my gif swans move.

Animating/next moves

Developing it a little further the analogue one will be rain on a swan- with it getting mark making on its body as it rains then effectively reversing as it drys out. Started it and I hope its ok. For the digital one I would like to do coloured, slightly transparent swans overlapping as they swim (they will create extra colours in the overlaps)

The 3D/lens one is quite scary and daunting I hope it comes to me soon. 3D generally scares me - but its also something I want to try and conquer.

So far I have been thinking of the swans as floating in the ether- do they need a liquid base? I imagine water hard to animate (its quite hard to draw) I could just over lay it as a layer on photoshop - certainly on the digital one. But these (compositions? shots?) might look pretty confusing/empty if theres no context to these birds. 

I feel like I've probably not really working as hard as I probably should be; I've been doing more personal work and I feel like I find it hard to maintain a high work rate for a long period of time - can't really take your eye off the ball - even for a few days - with these briefs.

One more swan video:- Susan (I'm presuming she's Scottish) is offering us a social commentary of some swans. Really like the simple title. She has some lovely videos, great movement from those swans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGwGUNwVp3o

Fan art vol.2

In the end I decided I couldn't find a way of getting perspective, colour, line of sight into a musical or film idea - I found it really hard picking a focus. In the end I decided on going to the pub and salty snacks- slightly twisting the brief.

Printing reflection

I realised I had thought the poster through much more and had much more effort into planning and making than I normally do for a short brief - especially visual language. I made sure there were no rough edges (unusual for me). For a long time I have been thinking my work has been a bit slap-dash. This process made me realise I need to work like I'm planning a print more often - and maybe do more printing. The confines of print make me work much more carefully - but there things I can still try and mess up if I want to (like registering). On that note, I am a big fan of wonky registers and did a few badly registered prints. 

But yeah, I love printing and how many you churn out so fast. I definitely need to use it MUCH more.

Picture reflection

The half tones didn't work very well - the (grain?) size wasn't big enough I think. also some of the black wasn't full black- so I got fuzzy blacks and black halftones bits. With the final prints I realised I could have used over laying of colour much more- for a third colour. This may have been easier than half-tones. 

In the end, its probably ok - not visually super adventurous but thats ok. At the time I thought it had come out much better than expected. - looking now I definitely feel the use of colour and process could have used better - by thinking harder about layering. There is big use of big chunks of colour- it looks a bit like a paper stencil print with the simple shapes- looks this way partly due to half tone probs. 

The actual colours used mattered much less than I thought. I was really struggling to think which to use but we did 2 different colours and I both look fine.

Did the colours again - this one worked
much better on Simon's but I can't really
decide which of the 2 colours I prefer on
me own.

Colours 1 feat. naughty thumb mark (oh well
the registering was well off anyway)

Fan art poster

Doing thinking for the fan art poster (print slot on Monday)- had a few ideas about what to do.
I have a feeling fan art is quite often quite cheesy- I was thinking I could embrace and go with this- creating something about Coldplay or Elton John (both musicians I rate but are also pretty cheesy). Other ideas were picking a cool band - Pere Ubu, Suicide or Neu!, would be plenty of good visuals I would have thought - I always think of them as very clean, sharp bands- maybe they already have too much of a visual feel to them?. Part of me thinks do I really want to make just another fan art poster? should I twist the brief? Its not very long so I need to think fast.

 Inspo 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPxSZOCg9Sa/?taken-by=good_press

Poster of the Fall- follows their slightly wild, DIY aesthetic. Obviously doesn't really lend itself to screen print but its a good example of how fan art can say something about the subject.

Jay Cover Henri Moore print. Like how it is so simple
and like Jay Cover's work yet you can still tell its
 Henri Moore.

giffin'

Visual Communication - GIF brief intro

The 3 songs I was given were Age of Consent by New Order, Sun Godess by Yesterday's New Quintet and Waterfall by Weather Report. Although Age of Consent is a big tune I didn't think it would lend itself as well to image-making. I went for the Weather Report as I felt the biggest vibes for it. 

The whole character development thing sounded tricky to me as this isn't really what I'm into- but I'm looking forward to challenging myself. 

Ideas

I still can't really work out what the song is saying and what I want to say. Sometimes it feels quite melancholic, sometimes it sounds joyful- maybe I can weave multiple approaches in. Some imagery popping into my head so far is someone standing under a waterfall, a cool jazz cat smoking a cig, people in the rain, someone curling into/uncurling from a ball. All have been hard to translate into the real world -  getting the poise and vibe of the character right is very hard - I think need to get back into life drawing.

Visuals

Fallingwater

Liam Cobb

Nice cover, Chet

Visually I've been thinking of jazz album covers- lots of amazing design, cut paper shapes. I feel like this Chet Baker one communicates the music so well - a prime piece of visual communication. I first listened to the album because of the cover-you can almost imagine what the music will sound like from seeing it. Had a think about Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (similar to the title of the song) looking at a picture of it is calming, again it feels like its saying something/working with that waterfall. Can buildings function as illustration? FLW sending me off to Liam Cobb - mad architecture drawings and sweet characters. Nice vibe to his illustrations- space, tranquility.

Sketchbook

Finding it hard to finding a path - throwing out lots of ideas and not really liking any of them. May be being to fast, not thinking enough (as I tend to do). I feel like I need to work out what I want to say before the characters will come?