Animation Test

Today I tried animating my paper puppet! Here is the result..

Just a very quick test to see if this media would be appropriate for the animation I have planned and just to improve my animating skills. I found the puppet really easy to animate - much easier than I think it would be to animate a puppet with wire limbs. I like the jerky movements and the method of replacing the head for different angles. I might try altering the puppet by making the limbs skinnier - a bit more like the illustrations I've recently been producing - to see if it would work as well. 

Overall I am quite please with this quick test. It has given me more confidence to actually get stuck in and produce an animation for my uni project..rather than just have the idea lingering in my head for a billion years! It's also given me a rough idea of how long it might take to produce a 2 and half minute animation (which is roughly how long I want my proper one to be)...

To produce this I took the frames on my Nikon D40 and imported them into iStopmotion. I added a filter to the video in iMovie :)

Animation using simple shadow puppet techniques

I am thinking of producing an animation for my final major project at uni, so I thought over christmas I should start doing some experiments in pre-production. This is just to experiment with my character style and use of media to see whether it would be too ambitious or not...

I decided to create a pierrot character inspired by this little guy I found in my house...

I wanted to make the animation from collage and my initial thought was to make the puppet using a simple technique often used to make shadow puppets. I created the main body of the puppet and the limbs on Photoshop, printed them out and attached them together using split pins. This of course allows me to move the puppet into different poses easily..

I want the head to have a greater range of movement, so I decided not to fasten the head to the body. Instead I have created six different heads showing different angles which I hope will add more of a sort of 3D looks to it. Obviously by using a puppet like this, it won't be the most sophisticated animation in the world, but I sort of like that simpleness of it. I can remember making puppets like this at primary school and I really like the fact it looks playful, like a child can make it. It reminds me a lot of childhood and I hope it will evoke this same feeling or memory in the viewer once it's finished!

Last Editorials for Uni

Wooohooo! Here are my last final editorial pieces for my university project!

Looking back over this project, I can't believe how much I have learnt and how rapidly my work has developed. I've really enjoyed doing these last magazine editorials, and can really see myself doing this sort of work in the future. These last 4 finals, in my opinion, are the most professional looking illustrations I've done and probably the only ones from this project that I will put in my professional portfolio ready for when I leave uni.

So..it's the end of a project, but I feel like it's just the start of my life as a professional illustrator! 

Happyhappyhappy 

^____________^

Magazine Editorials

Here are my two latest editorials for magazines. I am really happy with the result of these! My style has developed dramatically since doing the newspaper editorials. 

I think my work definitely works better in this context rather than newspapers. I like the way the text is more free in magazines. There is still a neat layout, but the text curves around the image and sometimes the illustration can slightly overlap other aspects of the layout.

I am really happy with how my style is developing; it's looking more professional and I'm really enjoying working in this way. Looking back over my previous work from the pas few years, I realise I've finally found a way of combining it all.

 I started out with a very graphic, flat, digital way of working; I got bored of just sitting in front of the computer all day etc. So I moved onto working in 3D but I didn't think it looked professional enough. Somehow, I've developed into this..combining my love of 3D aspects and textures and my ability to use Photoshop. After all the years of experimenting, I feel my work is finally beginning to make sense!

Third Newspaper Editorial

Here is my third final for my current university project. The article questions the motives of the UK looters and reasons behind the riots

Second Newspaper Editorial

Here is my second final piece for my current university project on editorial illustration. This article was about art therapy in schools. 

I'm not sure I like the restriction of having to work inside a box! Newspapers have quite a strict layout; everything is very regulated and square, and it was hard to try and fit everything in!