Gaining Recognition!

Through the summer and autumn I found a number of opportunities and chances to get my Artwork seen more around the area, as well as promote the more untraditional element found in my Art; 

June 20th 2013;
I was approached, online, by a local journalist Mel Miller, who was creating a piece of online written work, concerning the local Artist work in Berwick and the surrounding area, "Berwick and District Art Space," or BADAS as it has come to be known.
I felt rather shocked that someone was interested in my work, as I consider myself to be on the lower end of the scale when it comes to talent in my local area. However when I spoke to Mel she was very interested in how I create my work and the processes and tool that I use to complete them. As digital art isn't something that I consider to be widely known about or appreciated in a fairly isolated town in the Borders. She described the work that goes into digital art really well, and made it very clear for readers who may not have a single clue about  what digital art is. 
The link to the online article is Here, where she has featured two wonderful local artists who use a more traditional, but altogether unique means of practice, who I was honoured to have shared a space with on her article.
Two of my pieces that were featured in the article were ;

"Nebula Elf."                                                                               "Arwen Undomiel."

Although I consider these pieces to be old, and I have improved on my actual digital painting skills since then, at the time I was most proud of these two, and relieved very kind words from a collection of people.

Project 3: Week 3 Reflections.

Week 3 Reflections. 

Days:	Monday 18th	Tuesday  19th	Wednesday 20th	Thursday 21st	Friday  22nd	Saturday 23rd	Sunday 24th
Work to Complete	Listen to the music provided by LoopDe Loop.	Begin drawing up a character in college and digitally at home.	Finish digital drawing of character.	Begin animating character  on After Effects.  Look into puppet pins!	CAD session  - keep blog up to date.	Documentation.   + Hand in to LoopDeLoop	Reflection

This week I took part in a smaller project, separate to my main project, and created a small looped animation for a competition. 

Monday 18th November: I listened to and chose which piece of music I wanted to use for my animation. 

Tuesday 19th November: Drew up a character straight away which was a little cat with headphones on. A pretty simple character which will be easy enough to animate.

Wednesday 20th November: Finished up a digital drawing of my character with separate body parts that I could track to the body and move with the music.

Thursday 21st November: Began animating my character in separate pieces, with the body first, and was also able to make the character blink and smile at certain points.

Friday 22nd November: CAD session and filled in blog!

LoopDeLoop Competition Entry/ Evaluation.

During the week we had a small surprise live brief;
We were asked to take part in a competition, based in Australia, named LoopDeLoop! Which consists of entries from all over the world which are all examples of looped animations. 
We were given the week-long task of designing, creating and animating a small animation Loop to go with a subject, and a sample of chosen music.
There were a set of rules we had to follow in order for our loops to be considered for the competition, and these rules were;

• The animation loop must be 24 frames per second.
• It must be designed and animated to the beats of one of four samples of music chosen by you.
• It must be made and rendered on a green screen-like background (#00FF00.)
• No shadows and the character must have a crisp and clean silhouette.
• All loops must be submitted under the appropriate formats.
• Can be as long as you like, as long at it loops!

The track I chose was very up-beat and quirky, and was my favourite out of all of the songs, and it made the think of a very cute and lovable atmosphere.
 The character that I created to go with this song was a little cat with rather large headphones on. I made the cat look rather techno-like, to match the song choice I made, as well as keeping the colours rather light and "cute" in order to keep up this cheerful appearance.
I made this animation using Adobe AfterEffects, where the character was drawn in a digital program (Paint Tool Sai) and I then put all of the separate drawn pieces into AfterEffects and animated the cat manually through grabbing and moving parts of her body.
Before I did any of this, I had put the track into After Effects first, and then worked out the beats and timings on After Effects' timeline and was able to map out specific parts that my animation would need to move.

Here is my finished, small animation loop;

Evaluation.
I was pleased to have a small break from the big project we were undergoing and doing something small and fresh was a big break for us. I found this project both fun and rather challenging at the same time, as it was my first time using After Effects. I chose something cute and small because I have a lot of experience with that kind of subject, and I chose a very simple design which for me is rather unusual, but I did feel it would help with making the movements of my character a lot smoother and work better all round. If I had to have done anything differently, I would have taken a bit more time ensure that puppet pins and pieces of her body were more intact and running smoothly than on what she looks like. But overall I'm quite pleased with how my animation turned out, I think had I known more about After Effects and also taking to account that the project was only a week long, I could have done slightly more to enhance my animation and make the character do a little bit more with regards to movement.

Project 3: Week 3 Plan - 18/11/13

Project 3: Digital Skills Application.

For this project I have been given the task of showcasing my digital skills by making an animated short, along with any other digital work that I feel shows my skills to their full potential. 

Monday, 18th of November:

This week I will be taking a short break from my current project, and taking part in a short live brief with the class. The live brief is that of an Australian competition called LoopDeLoop.

Days:	Monday 18th	Tuesday  19th	Wednesday 20th	Thursday 21st	Friday  22nd	Saturday 23rd	Sunday 24th
Work to Complete	Listen to the music provided by LoopDe Loop.	Begin drawing up a character in college and digitally at home.	Finish digital drawing of character.	Begin animating character  on After Effects.  Look into puppet pins!	CAD session  - keep blog up to date.	Documentation.   + Hand in to LoopDeLoop	Reflection

Project 3: Week 2 Reflections.

Week 2 Reflections.

Days:	Monday 11th	Tuesday  12th	Wednesday 13th	Thursday 14th	Friday  15th	Saturday 16th	Sunday 17th
Work to Complete	Start digital work on  first storyboard.	Finish first storyboard and begin second.	Finish second storyboard and begin third	Clean up all 3 storyboards and create small animatic (IF I HAVE TIME.)	CAD session  - keep blog up to date.	Documentation.	Reflection

This week I concentrated on the creation of my storyboards, and ensuring that the story was clear through visuals alone. 

Monday 11th November: Completed all of the line work for my first storyboard and began to colour at home.  

Tuesday 12th November: Finished first and second storyboard at college and started the third at home.

Wednesday 13th November: Re-done my third storyboard as I wasn't happy with the characters on it.

Thursday 14th November: Finished all three storyboards and began sketching up characters and walk cycles instead of animatic.

Friday 15th November: CAD session and filled in blog!

Storyboards/ Explanation/ Evaluation.

Creating and finalising my Storyboards;

 My storyboards depict the travels of a small Raccoon named Archie, who goes on an adventure to find the delicious pie, who's enticing scent makes Archie go against his better judgement, and goes exploring in search of the source of the smell. 




He begins by going to find his close friend Lola, a fawn, who is confined to the "daytime" forest, and tries to encourage her to join him on his travels. And against their better judgement, they travel into the nocturnal forest alone together. 
During their journey, a set of thorns catch onto the skin of Lola, who, as a "daytime animal" will react badly to that.



As they continue their journey, the camera focuses more on Archie, where he begins to hear strange noises. After a while he turns around to address Lola, when he's met with a gruesome sight;
Lola has become putrid and disfigured, a reaction cause by the catch of thorns.
It is then ambiguous as to what happens to Archie and Lola, as the camera pans up towards the top of the trees, where "The End" title appears. This leaves an open ending and plenty of options for the audience.

Evaluation.
 Over all I am rather pleased with how my storyboards have turned out. I completed these storyboards straight away digitally, and that is something I haven't tried before, as usually I have sketches them out by hand first. I did come into some problems whilst creating these storyboards, mainly because of the size of the panels, and my inability to let myself draw something small and less detailed than it needs to be. I did overcome these issues however, especially with the trees in the forest. I was able to make them look rather detailed but maintain a decent size to them as well. I am particularly pleased with the colour scheme I chose for this animation too, as it is out of my usually comfort zone with keeping things simple and rather plain looking, as well as my lack of outline on the scenery, which is something I have never attempted...ever!
So over all I'm happy with the out-come of this part of my project, although I think if I have time, I will create a slightly higher quality version of them, just to make them more professional looking.

Project 3: Week 2 Plan - 11/11/13

Project 3: Digital Skills Application.

For this project I have been given the task of showcasing my digital skills by making an animated short, along with any other digital work that I feel shows my skills to their full potential. 

Monday, 11th of November:

This week I will be focusing on the creation of my storyboard which will help me with regards to creating my animation. I will be focusing on timing, colour schemes and camera angles in these storyboards as well. 

Days:	Monday 11th	Tuesday  12th	Wednesday 13th	Thursday 14th	Friday  15th	Saturday 16th	Sunday 17th
Work to Complete	Start digital work on  first storyboard.	Finish first storyboard and begin second.	Finish second storyboard and begin third	Clean up all 3 storyboards and create small animatic (IF I HAVE TIME.)	CAD session  - keep blog up to date.	Documentation.	Reflection