Monday 21 February 2011

Rough Stop Motion Animation/Animatic Concept for Oxfam Campaign

Here's my rough animatic. I produced this in order to gain an insight into  a narrative for my initial concept ideas. It's pretty crap at the minute - I'm not really an animator, but it (hopefully) gives an idea of where I'm going with this project.


Horrible Mental Block...Be Gone!

Last week was a horrible week. Not motivated, depressed, tired and generally could not be arsed to do anything towards this Oxfam project. Today is Monday though, and I decided to drag myself out of bed for uni to see if I could get anywhere with it....

After speaking to tutors, I started experimenting with "thumbnail" sketches using a handprints concept I had already come up with and tried to put them together to form a narrative, perhaps for an animation as well as a printed illustration:





I plan to take some of these small images I created to produce a short animation/animatic of how I imagine them to look if they were part of a TV advert or viral video.

This is a very different style for me, as I'm used to my work looking quite dark and scary. This project however has required me to produce a very bright, colourful piece in order to convey the positive aspect of giving to a charity.

Here are a few images I found that helped me envision what I wanted my work to look like:



Wednesday 2 February 2011

New Project: Oxfam Campaign

Just had a bunch of briefs given to us at uni for commercial and issue based illustration and I’ve decided to do one set by Oxfam.
It’s an open competition featured on the D&AD website, so there will be people in lots of different specialist areas entering, e.g graphic design, photography…
Was a bit bummed at first as most briefs were quite vague and were quite uninspiring but now I’ve got some ideas going I’m quite excited about it :D
Will keep posted on this project!

Tailcast Valentine Competition!

Great news!
I won first prize in a competition by Tailcast, to create the most interesting and innovative valentines card! I’m very chuffed indeed!
Tailcast is a great website where you can buy some really innovative greeting cards, invitations and wall art etc. designed by a range of new artists. For creative people, it’s a great way to show off your work and get decent feedback from other artists on there, so sign up!
You can view and purchase my designs here:
:)

2011: New Year, New Experiment!

I really want to start making my own 3D characters in the form of sculpture, puppets and dolls!

The other week I decided to try experimenting with salt dough. It's piss easy to make and dirty cheap! Here's a random illustration I created using a little salt dough person I made :D




This was my first attempt. I'm learning how to light and photograph this sort of thing; I wanted lots of nice shadows to fall upon his face.

The editing to start with was pretty crappy! I did this in about half an hour because it was just as spur of the moment test..

The background is digital collage and the model is obviously photographed but I think these two techniques side by side work really well here.





This is my second attempt which looks a bit more proper! I especially love the lighting falling across the figures face; I also used the burn and dodge tool on Photoshop to ever so slightly emphasise light and dark areas around the eye and cheek. I think I'm in love with the expression on his face!

The text is a line from a song called White Lips Kissed by Mew, which was running through my mind whilst making this image. I used a cool filter as I felt this represented the idea of "nightmare" better than the previous attempt.

From doing this small experiment I now have a clearer vision of how I want my work to look :)

Yay!

2010 Work: D&AD Competition Brief for Diesel

These are the final illustrations for part two of my storybook inspired by “My Funny Valentine” as covered by The Tiger Lillies. These were designed as part of my university project; a competition brief set by D&AD, to illustrate to a piece of music. 













Possibly the part I'm most proud of here is how the colour schemes merge into each other. Part one starts with dull yellows and sepia effects, through to cool blues which continues into part two and slowly transforming into some very romantic purples and pinks. I was worried that, as I had a massive break between creating part 1 and part 2, they wouldn't fit together. I think they work pretty well though! 


Future aims - to try making my own dolls/puppets to add quality to the image.

2010 Work: D&AD Competition Brief for Diesel

These are the final illustrations for part one of my storybook inspired by “Pretty Lisa” by The Tiger Lillies. These were designed as part of my university project; a competition brief set by D&AD, to illustrate to a piece of music. 











Research
This song absolutely screamed at me and I was instantly inspired! For research, I looked at old circus costumes, posters, makeup, freak show acts, fair organs, toys and any sort of circus memorabilia I could find. Other inspiration came from movies such as Coraline and Monster House, and artists Edward Gorey and the great Tim Burton.


Process
Each illustration is a digital collage that I created on Photoshop using readymade dolls that I modified and painted, various found textures and photographs. All of the text was handwritten by myself, then scanned into the computer and edited.


I wanted the colour scheme to be very antique and sepia looking at the beginning of the story. I wanted it to have that vintage circus/carnival feel to it.. The colour scheme changes towards the end, as the darker side of the story prevails.


There will be a “part two” to this story, this time inspired by the lyrics of “My Funny Valentine”, covered again, by The Tiger Lillies.

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About Me

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Hi my name is Chloe, 21, currently based in Birmingham and studying Illustration at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.