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29.4.2022 - 20.5.2022 (Week 5 - Week 8)
Loh Qiao Yin/ 0348923
Illustration and Visual Narrative/ Bachelor of Design in Creative Media /
Taylor's University
Task 2/ Decisive Moment
[Poster]
[Animated GIF]
LECTURES
Week 5: [Composition- Fore, Middle & Background]
Lecture report 4:
1) From any video, screen capture scenes that portray foreground, middle-ground and background.
2) Outline the areas of each ground.
3) Upload the pictures to the blog.
4) Explain the design principles and explain how it affects the narrative.
Chosen animated series
Love, Death & Robots [Season 1]: Three Robots
Foreground
The cat's position and eye-level in the scene is at the highest among the other characters, indicating it is kind of superior to the other three bots as the cat has been in the post-apocalyptic city long before the bots came visited. The figure of the cat does not only slightly overlaps the grey robot but is also motion-blured to give a sense of depth in the scene.
Fig 1.1 The bots' final stop at a nuclear missile base, 6 May 2022
Middle-ground
The bots are evenly balanced and put at the central point in the scene, all focusing on a basketball. The view is fixed at a low and wide angle, with a darken background and a bright foreground to direct the viewer's eyes to the centre.
Fig 1.2 Three bots figuring out the human sport- basketball, 6 May 2022
Background
Background is mostly used to show the tone and the setting of the scene. As we can see, the background indicates the location is at a abandoned place and is blurred to give more focus to the two bots' conversation and facial expression. The van in the background is positioned in an asymmetrical way to give a sense of organic to the scene, preventing it from being too rigid.
Fig 1.3 Two robots having a conversation at an abandoned restaurant, 6 May 2022
Week 6: [Perspectives]
Lecture report 5:
1) Find visuals from any comic/ graphic novel/ visual media that express stories that capture the 3 different perspectives: one-points, two-points and three-points.
2) Trace the perspectives and note on the vanishing points
3) Upload the pictures into your blog.
One-point perspective
The perspective chosen for the narrative of this scene intensifies the woman's urgency in fleeing from a killer. It stretches the buildings, making it seemed like a long way to run before she gets to safety, causing the viewers to be more anxious about her.
Fig 1.4 Love, Death & Robots [Season 1]: The Witness, 6 May 2022
Two-point persepective
Another good method to depict distance and depth, making a scene more appealing. In this scene we can see how the damage done by a antagonist spreaded all the way back to far away, destroying the buildings and injuring the character in the scene - All Might.
Fig 1.5 Boku no Hero Academia Chapter 92, 6 May 2022
Three-Point Perspective
I think this type of perspective produces a more bulging and wide angle scene, allowing more information to be expressed in a single panel while also depicting a dramatic feeling by either having the horizontal line at the most top, or at the most bottom in this case.
Fig 1.6 Boku no Hero Academia Chapter 307, 6 May 2022
1) From any video, screen capture scenes that portray foreground, middle-ground and background.
2) Outline the areas of each ground.
3) Upload the pictures to the blog.
4) Explain the design principles and explain how it affects the narrative.
Chosen animated series
Love, Death & Robots [Season 1]: Three Robots
Foreground
The cat's position and eye-level in the scene is at the highest among the other characters, indicating it is kind of superior to the other three bots as the cat has been in the post-apocalyptic city long before the bots came visited. The figure of the cat does not only slightly overlaps the grey robot but is also motion-blured to give a sense of depth in the scene.
Fig 1.1 The bots' final stop at a nuclear missile base, 6 May 2022
Middle-ground
The bots are evenly balanced and put at the central point in the scene, all focusing on a basketball. The view is fixed at a low and wide angle, with a darken background and a bright foreground to direct the viewer's eyes to the centre.
The bots are evenly balanced and put at the central point in the scene, all focusing on a basketball. The view is fixed at a low and wide angle, with a darken background and a bright foreground to direct the viewer's eyes to the centre.
Fig 1.2 Three bots figuring out the human sport- basketball, 6 May 2022
Background is mostly used to show the tone and the setting of the scene. As we can see, the background indicates the location is at a abandoned place and is blurred to give more focus to the two bots' conversation and facial expression. The van in the background is positioned in an asymmetrical way to give a sense of organic to the scene, preventing it from being too rigid.
Fig 1.3 Two robots having a conversation at an abandoned restaurant, 6 May 2022
Week 6: [Perspectives]
Lecture report 5:
1) Find visuals from any comic/ graphic novel/ visual media that express stories that capture the 3 different perspectives: one-points, two-points and three-points.
2) Trace the perspectives and note on the vanishing points
3) Upload the pictures into your blog.
The perspective chosen for the narrative of this scene intensifies the woman's urgency in fleeing from a killer. It stretches the buildings, making it seemed like a long way to run before she gets to safety, causing the viewers to be more anxious about her.
Fig 1.4 Love, Death & Robots [Season 1]: The Witness, 6 May 2022
Two-point persepective
Three-Point Perspective
Two-point persepective
Another good method to depict distance and depth, making a scene more appealing. In this scene we can see how the damage done by a antagonist spreaded all the way back to far away, destroying the buildings and injuring the character in the scene - All Might.
Fig 1.5 Boku no Hero Academia Chapter 92, 6 May 2022
Three-Point Perspective
I think this type of perspective produces a more bulging and wide angle scene, allowing more information to be expressed in a single panel while also depicting a dramatic feeling by either having the horizontal line at the most top, or at the most bottom in this case.
Fig 1.6 Boku no Hero Academia Chapter 307, 6 May 2022
INSTRUCTIONS
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Task 2: Decisive Moment
[Poster]
[Poster]
i) Visual Research
Colour palette
I took notice of the colour palette that gives off a minimalistic feel and realised they are either monotone or have 3 limited colours: black, white and one saturated colour.
Fig 2.1 Left: Design by @gomoku1 on Twitter; Right: Published by Image Comics, 7 May 2022
Simplicity
Taking note of the simplicity in composition and the cell-shading in an illustration.
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Fig 2.2 Left: Design by Michael Radford; Right: Design by Mithun Mitra, 7 May 2022
ii) Sketch Development
Initially, I wanted to design a poster based on The Mandalorian as I liked the television series a lot despite not being a Star Wars fan. However, Mando's suit is too much work to design. Thus, I went for Bird Box as it made an impression among all the other thriller movies I have watched.
Fig 2.3 Thumbnail sketch of poster layouts, 7 May 2022
1) Bird Box has an unseen monster so the hand trying to untie the person's blindfold is just a metaphorical way to describe the monster wants the person to see it and get killed.
2) Tried to explore one-point perspective but I cannot think of ways to put emotions into this design idea. It has the boat and the bird cage that are in the movie but there is no emotion in the design.
iii) Ideation stage
2) Tried to explore one-point perspective but I cannot think of ways to put emotions into this design idea. It has the boat and the bird cage that are in the movie but there is no emotion in the design.
3) A close-up shot of the boat and the blindfolds that appeared to be taken off. At first I thought that this would make it look scary because it means that someone died since they took off their blindfolds, but this would not make sense to people who don't watch the movie.
4) Extreme close-up shot of a person sweating heavily, blindfold taken off and eyes turning crazy. (this happens when a person sees the monster and then he/she will kill themselves) The logline beside would be "one look and you're dead" so people who never watch the movie would understand the narrative too.
iii) Ideation stage
I chose #1 and #4 to be further developed. I made accidental choices while designing (for example accidentally deleting something) and another new design idea pops out, good inspiration always comes out from creating, not waiting for it.
Concept #1
Fig 2.4 (Progress) Concept #1 development, 13 May 2022
Possibilities of animated parts: Monster's hand (up-down); Smoke (too much work though)
Concept #2
Possibilities of animated parts: Eyeball going crazy; Sweatdrops
Concept #2
Fig 2.5 (Progress) Concept #2 development, 13 May 2022
v) Chosen idea
I proceeded with poster #1's idea but changed the colour to blue to show its relevance to the movie. Then, I lightened the grey shade slightly as it was too dark. The placement of the title was also slightly adjusted to avoid a tangent between the edge of 'X' with the edge of the hair.
Fig 2.6 Chosen idea, 24 May 2022
After getting one round of feedback, I proceeded to the animation but upon finishing the animation, Miss Anis had a few more suggestions for me to improve on the poster by adding a gradient and silhoutte of birds, like the reference picture below.
Fig 2.7 Poster from mydramalist.com, 27 May 2022
Explored with the three types of gradient taught in a tutorial session previously. I find it difficult to adjust the text colours to ensure a good readability.
Fig 2.7 Poster with different gradient, 27 May 2022
vi) Peer feedback
Friend #1
- The range of tones is too wide and contrasting, the silhouette of birds could be more subtle.
Friend #2
- The black birds look too much like bats. Having a darker tone is better as it holds a more dramatic feeling.
Fig 2.9 Adjusting the colour to a more cyanish one, 27 May 2022
Fig 2.10 Different sizes of birds silhoutte, 28 May 2022
v) Final outcome
- The range of tones is too wide and contrasting, the silhouette of birds could be more subtle.
Friend #2
- The black birds look too much like bats. Having a darker tone is better as it holds a more dramatic feeling.
Fig 2.9 Adjusting the colour to a more cyanish one, 27 May 2022
Fig 2.10 Different sizes of birds silhoutte, 28 May 2022
v) Final outcome
I have chosen gradient #5 to be finalised as the position of radial gradient near the eye gives the most dramatic feeling out of the other ideas.
Fig 2.11 Final submission of poster, 28 May 2022
[Animated GIF]
i) Planning of animated parts
Sweat drops- Very subtle flowing down and also the opacity of increases from 10% - 40% and decreases from 40% - 10%.
Eyebrow movement- Arching from down to up and then up to down. The wrinkle follows too.
Eyeball (iris and pupil)- At the start, the iris slowly becomes bigger while the pupil becomes smaller. Then, when the 'maniac' phase starts, the pupil returns to the original size but it is flinching in different directions.
The row of black squares is the black screen blinking rhythm.
Fig 3.1 Planning of animated parts, 25 May 2022
Digitalised the frames and put them in the sequence I want.
Fig 3.2 Artboard animation frames, 25 May 2022
[First attempt]
- I feel so dizzy after looking at it and just want to set my laptop on fire so I wouldn't have to look at it.
- Everything moves too quickly
- The texts are somehow all misaligned despite me not moving anything when laying out the frames.
[Second attempt]
[Second attempt]
Fig 3.6 Second attempt of animated GIF, 25 May 2022
Fig 3.7 Timeline, 25 May 2022
- The flow of pupil changing can be smoother in some parts but can also be abrupt in some parts. Timing is the key.
- Misalignment of text is not fixed yet.
- Misalignment of text is not fixed yet.
[Third attempt]
Fig 3.8 Third attempt of animated GIF,25 May 2022
Fig 3.9 Artboard animation frames, 25 May 2022
- The sweat drops seem unnecessary as I do not feel any impact from them. I will remove it.
- A rhythm on the blinking black screen is established.
[Fourth Attempt]
Fig 4.1 Thumbnail sketch of animation frames, 28 May 2022
Fig 4.2 Artboard of animation frames, 28 May 2022
Fig 4.3 Fourth attempt of animated GIF, 28 May 2022
Note:
- The misalignment is horrible. I have no idea why Illustrator always moves my poster when being imported into stacks for frame animation. I tried googling to find out the problem but to no avail.- I realised afterwards the culprit was the auto-alignment option. It helped me last time but it became my enemy this time. I still had to fix some blank edges using brush strokes manually.
iv) Final Outcome
[Fifth Attempt]
The victim turns into a suicidal maniac when the monster is seen. When the monster is around, flocks of birds will fly around and chirp. Thus, in the colour inverted version, silhouettes of birds can be seen. The slight misalignment of poster still remains a mystery despite it being in the same position in Illustrator before I export them. *sigh
[Fourth Attempt]
Fig 4.1 Thumbnail sketch of animation frames, 28 May 2022
Fig 4.2 Artboard of animation frames, 28 May 2022
Fig 4.3 Fourth attempt of animated GIF, 28 May 2022
Note:
- The misalignment is horrible. I have no idea why Illustrator always moves my poster when being imported into stacks for frame animation. I tried googling to find out the problem but to no avail.
iv) Final Outcome
[Fifth Attempt]
The victim turns into a suicidal maniac when the monster is seen. When the monster is around, flocks of birds will fly around and chirp. Thus, in the colour inverted version, silhouettes of birds can be seen. The slight misalignment of poster still remains a mystery despite it being in the same position in Illustrator before I export them. *sigh
Fig 4.5 Timeline, 28 May 2022
FEEDBACK
Week 9
- Add gradient for poster's background and silhoutte of birds.
- In the animation, the pupils moving around was unnecessary. It would be better if the person closes their eyes and then opens them and gets 'infected' by the monster, along with the flocks of birds appearing.
Week 7
- Nice sketches
- Stick to the movie colour scheme so the audience will know it's from the specific movie.
REFLECTION
Experience
I had quite some fun in coming up with different concepts for the poster and I was glad that I did not face any creative block. The animating part was definitely daunting but once I get started on it and just identify and solve problems while I am at it, I manage to feel productive. When I figured out the texts were misaligned, I got really frustrated as I have to fix all the 20+ frames one by one but surprisingly it did not take too long either.
Observations
It was fun looking at other students' methods of animating and their outcomes. Most of us were kind of doomed after receiving major feedback 2 days before submission. However, we all agreed that fixing our work is better than getting a bad grade without knowing why.
Findings
This exercise allowed me to practise using the frame animation function in Photoshop more. This time I get to explore the importance of timing and tempo in an animation. It always takes more than a few tries to get things right but the sense of achievement feels really good when the outcome is what I expected (not exactly, almost, but I'll take it).
FURTHER READING
Fig 4.1 Framed ink: Drawing and composition for visual storytellers by Marcos Mateu-Mestre, 13 May 2022
My favourite go-to art books are from Marcos. His book Framed Ink is packed with tons of practical and useful analysis of composition and how to create them. Personally, I learned the most in how to think more and draw using silhouettes and big shapes after reading Framed Ink to create more dramatic and efficient visuals. But it was also very interesting and informational to see the breakdown behind comic panels and movies on the composition and how to make viewers feel a certain way.
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