Leche Flan

To my surprise, there is actually a few videos that show you how to make leche flan. With this one and pretty much all the Leche Flan videos they talk you through all the necessary steps whereas mine is what i'd like to call self explanatory. The only problem with my video in comparison to video's like this is that obviously with me letting the video do the talking the amount of ingredients isn't exactly clear. I show that I've used but not quantities. So if I were to do this again, I would perhaps add text and list the ingredients as they pop up.

Leche Flan Storyboard

This is the rough storyboard I made for my Instructional video. I made it pretty simple and didn't really gone into much detail regarding the types of shots because I wanted to experiment with different things t get a feel for filming and making sense of what the eye and brain is use to seeing when putting things in sequence.

I was also in the video so I did a bit of directing with my sister s she was operating the camera. I quite liked having this kind of control so I might consider trying to lead the group when we pick our teams. 

Short Animated Films

Okay so, I've been having a look at various short animated films and I found two in particular that I really love and I really wanted to share them, so here they are~

This first film is called 'The Lady and The Reaper' and it was made by Javia Recio Gracia and was produced by a company called Kandor Graphics.

Hope you like it as I did~




The lady and the reaper from Hormoz Zamanpour Siahkal on Vimeo.

I really love this piece because it's just chuck full of comedy. There's some really nice shots in there too and I love the use of the silhouettes and the staircase on the chase scene. The music also goes really well with it and more than anything I absolutely adore the characters and the storyline. Despite the situation which appears to be quite sad and moving at first, it turns out to be a very comical bit of film and I think this idea was very well thought through. The characters just seem so fun and friendly which is great for capturing wide audiences.

Now moving onto my second short film.

This film is another comical animation which is actually part of a graduate student project from a college in France.

Enjoy~


Oktapodi by Gobelins from Feride Seferaj on Vimeo.

The storyline for this is a very cute but strange love story. Because they're creatures though, I think the way that they've been animated especially the facial expressions and the body movement. The emotions of the characters comes across really well and I like how they've thought about how an octopus moves out of the water. I think that idea was really clever and it all gels really well together.

I looked at quite a lot of short animations but the reason I chose these two animations in particular is because I want to get across how strongly I feel about stories and characterisation. This is something I hope will stand out in my future works.

Stopmotion

Okay so, the last couple of weeks i've been sitting through some seminars in which we explore the world of animation, the first being stopmotion.

I thought I knew most of the types of stopmotion but this presentation showed some styles that I'd never even heard of like, Strata Cut and Clay Painting.These were under the subheading of Claymation but there was many more as well.

Here are just a few of the styles and videos that took my interest starting with Dante's Inferno, which is a freeform claymation.

Sadly, this video isn't permitted to be played on here so here's the link instead: Dante's Inferno by Alexis Waller

I really like this piece because the style and aesthetic look to it is very striking. The movement in this animation is jerky at times but overall I think the animation is surprisingly fluid. I really like the transitions between all the scenery and figures  and the way that the clay has been modelled. One of my favourites being from 1:15 - 1:40.

Another great thing about this video is that Alexis really uses the clay to it's fullest by moulding it in such a way to create some really lovely textures especially when doing the rocks and the ocean. It shows such attention to detail and I think it deserves a lot of credit.

Now moving onto another really lovely piece by Joan Gratz called, 'Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase'.



This is one of the styles I didn't actually expect to be classed as a form of stopmotion but after watching it and reflecting on it a little more, for me, it kinda reminds me of J.Stuart Blackton's 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces'.

All these animations show a certain degree of talent which is undeniable but in this piece, what stood out to me more is the attention to all the transitions from one work of art to another. There's a really nice and subtle transition between every piece but just for an example, from 0:22 - 0:28 the details and the shadows are taken out leaving you with a flat image until it eventually fades away. And going a little further on from 0:28 - 0:35 the figure moves into position for the next image which really gives you that sense of continuity throughout.


So after looking at some of the videos I was briefly shown in the seminar I decided to search for some more videos that I found quite interesting.



Most documentaries, especially that of David Attenborough feature the time lapse, which is basically a stop motion that's done over a vast period of time.  I thought I'd find something a little more now, so I decided to take a clip out of BBC's Frozen Planet which has been on since last month and just ended recently. I really enjoyed this documentary. I'm a love of nature documentaries anyway but some of the shots in this and the time lapses are really amazing. What I also love about this particular series is that, at the end of an episode it will show you how they managed to record particular stuff, what equipment they use, and basically show the lengths they go to to give us this incredible footage.


Khoda from Reza Dolatabadi on Vimeo.

This is a really beautiful piece by Khoda. I was pointed in the direction of this video after taking an interest in the Mona Lisa piece above because this 5 minute video was animated using 6000 oil paintings. The detail in this is just stunning and like Joan Gratz's animation the transitions were well thought out but, I'd say that Khoda's approach to animating paintings has more of a cinematic view to it.

The music to this animation is really good.. The atmosphere and the suspension creating by the sounds really made my heart race. The impact it has on you as a member of the audience really is something and I think that it shows without a doubt the amount of effort that was put into this. Amazing.

Maya so far

Okay so over the last couple of weeks, I have been introduced to one of the top leading 3D softwares in industry, Autodesk Maya. Learning how to use this program comes hand in hand with my animation brief in which I am to produce a 2 minute animation using a simple looking toy, preferably a child's toy because of the basic geometric shapes.

These pictures will also serve as a source of reference and will be added to the front and side views on the Maya workspace.

At first, the program seemed so complicated and I got easily frustrated but I'm more or less getting the hang of it now. Here's some screens and short animations showing what I've been doing/learning.

This model of a truck is the finished product of a tutorial I followed in order to get use to the tools and my around the basics of the program. After learning the basic layout and tools, this was the first task given to me and I struggled a lot with this. There were some functions like the snapping function that I found really hard to understand even now so this is definitely an area in which I need to practice.

These two images (above) just show a bit of experimenting I did with the deformer tools which are Cine, Twist, Wave, Bend, Flare and Squash. In the bottom screenshot I used a combination of to different types of deformers to see what shapes I could create.

These three screens shots again show some experimentation but this time, for the hypershade tool and with this, I applied some basic colour to my objects. As you can see, I had a play around with the luminosity, transparency, light intensity among other things. 

Takashi Murakami

This is one of my favourite adverts. It's rather strange for what it is but you can't deny the beauty in the animation. Watch it and you'll see~

Enjoy~



This animation was created by a superflat artist called Takashi Murakami. I think it's so beautiful, vibrant and full of colour. It makes you feel very happy. After looking at other pieces of his work, I'm almost jealous to know that someone can see the world with such vibrancy; I think it's a wonderful gift. Attention to colour is another focus that I hope people will be able to see through my work too.

Similar to G-Dragon's 'Butterfly' MV, the journey throughout the animation and the transitions are amazingly thought out and executed. I hope that I'll be able to make something just as good one day~

Murakami, being an artists has also created an array of other works from prints to sculptures and here are just a few I picked out.

I think this piece is really nice and in comparison to his quite crazy and super cute prints, this one has such elegance which I found quite interesting. 

This canvas piece looks amazing.. I just wish I could swap places with the woman and really look at the detail that's gone into this but either way.. I think it's stunning. I quite like the juxtaposition of the bright colours and the image of the skulls. very Intriguing.

I really like the overall structure for this. I like how the vines spiral around to creating what almost looks like the top photo. It looks very fun and this piece definitely has a presence about it as well as standing out from the crowd.

This images is actually kinda creepy. The combination of the colours and the design for this character comes across as quite crazy and sinsiter but I think his overall style is really something. It's very individual~

A favourite Music Video

Okay so, since my last brief has ended i'm now working on an animation project and a film project. So I now have the perfect opportunity to share some of my favourite animations and this is one of them.

Enjoy~




As you can probably gather, I'm very much into Korean music among other things. This one is by an artist called G-Dragon who's from a well known Korean group called Big Bang. G-Dragon as well as a few other band members release solo songs every now and then and this is my favourite one by him for many reasons because as well as liking the song, I think the music video for this is beyond beautiful~

There's quite a complex mix of 3D/2D animation and live action and the way they've put it all together and made them interact with one another is so clever in my eyes. One of the parts that stands out to me regarding this is transitions between the different kinds of scenery seen from 1:10 to 1:30 in the video. It really takes you on a journey and the styling of it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, especially the part when the camera comes in through the shrubbery to see the girl standing in a woodland area.

The girl has a very photo realistic appearance which works really well with the environments she's thrown into. She also fits in very well with the more artistic pieces like the phoenix. 

 I took this screen because I really like the way some of the things have been animated in this video. This shot for example, the way her hair moves looks and gives it such a paper-like feel. I think it has a really nice effect~

This is just one of the examples of interaction I find quite intriguing when G-Dragon is shot doing live action. Right now I'm not sure how easy or how hard this is to do but I would really like to try combining both live action and 2D animation together. I think it's impressive.

These two shot are some of my favourites~ They're both so beautiful and artistically composed. The waves at the top have a close resemblance to 'The Great Wave' by Katsushika Hokusai and obviously shows that some artistic influences went into making this video.

The silhouettes and the carousel kinda reminded me of some of the cuts scenes in the game Fragile Dreams too. If you don't know the game I recommend you check it out~ Beautiful story, really emotional and it has some amazing cut scenes and great characters.

Moving Image Analysis

Context of Practice: Grafitti

Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen

Here are some images of Disney character's that have been transformed and drawn in a more photo-realistic style. I just thought I'd post it up here because of my previous posts about Princess Jasmine and Esmeralda. Hope you like them as much as I do! 

Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notre Dame

Princess Jasmine from Aladdin

A special thanks to Lija for sending me the link for this! It's much appreciated~

All credit goes to Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen for these fine pieces of work. If you're interesting in looking at more of this artists work, you can find it here: http://jirkavinse.wordpress.com/

elledupomme

This is an image from a Deviantart artist called elledupomme and you can this image and the rest of their work here: http://elledupomme.deviantart.com/

The colours in this picture are very well executed. I like the faint blue glow around the hair that falls so beautifully off the side of the moon. The dots of green and red bring about a really magical feel and the clouds look very real, light and fluffy. 

As well as this image being very beautiful, the rabbit on the moon is what really reeled me in because I'm a big fan of mythology and the moon rabbit is a myth based in Eastern Asia. There's many different concepts of of the moon rabbit but it's most well known for pounding ingredients with a mortar and pestle. 

Knowing the basic myth behind the moon bunny, I find this image very interesting because the rabbit is sharing tea with someone. Did the rabbit prepare that food? I love images that make you ask question and really get you thinking.

Identifying Images

The images on this first slide show the 6 images from which my initial ideas were born from.

Shell image inspired ---> Warrior Concept

Model inspired ---> Clock work mannequin

Greek model inspired ---> Siren Concept

This slide shows the 6 images that most influenced the character I chose to develop which is my Dancer Concept.

The model at the top is what first inspired the dancer concept and all the other images had influence on colour schemes, materials and the environment. 

animae_rian

This is an image from a Deviantart artist called animae_rian and you can this image and the rest of their work here: http://animae-rian.deviantart.com/

I found this image on Deviantart and the colours captured me immediately~ I love how bold and bright the top of the image is in comparison to the bottom. It creates a wonderful contrast. The glowing effect and the blending on the jellyfish really brings them to life. My favourite part of this image though has to be the hair. I really like the way this artist used different colours to separate the strands. It also brings together the rest of the picture because it kind of melts into all the other features below.

Chosen Archetype

These are just some brief slides explaining the archetypes I've chosen for my character. I didn't feel that the 7 archetypes stated on the brief really fit my character so I decided to choose something else. I thought that a healer/cleric would be fitting for my character because of her caring nature and after some research, I found the perfect archetype, the wounded healer. This is a person who has suffered from something in the past and has gone through a transformation or softs, which propels them into doing good deeds.

I was happy to find an archetype that matches her personality but, in order to fulfil the brief properly I had to use one of the 7 archetypes stated so after a little bit of thought, I decided to join this archetype with the hero/heroine. I think helping people no matter how small is seen as an act of heroism anyway so I think it works well together with the wounded healer archetype.

Context of Practice: Post-Modernism

Personality Traits

Healing Instrument

As I want her to be within the healing archetypes I had to of course design a weapon/instrument of some kind that helps channel her healing abilities.

After looking at several artists, I've been thinking a lot about dancing props and how I could tie the aesthetic looks of this instrument to match her character. So, I looked at different designs of staffs and they all have an ornamental design at the top so I decided to create a feathered design to resemble a feather fan.

It looks very basic but what better to bring it to life than colour~ Like the caravan colour schemes, I decided to play around with different Hue settings until I could find one that I was happy with.

The colour I decided to pick was is this blue/gold combination because it matches perfectly with my characters outfit. I thought that the gold was quite important since it works together with my character's jewellery and the green stone in the centre of the prop matches her eyes.

As you can see here, I came up with two different ways of wielding this instrument. The one of the left is of course suppose to resemble two small hand fans. At first I was aiming to create a staff but I quite like the other design because it works better as a dance prop in comparison to the other so, that's the one I've decided to pick.

This is just a very quick doodle I did on Paint tool SAI so you can get a better idea of how my character looks with the props. This picture also gives a good indication of the size of these props in relation to my character. 

Where's the colour?

Another thing I've decided to address after various comments during my presentation is the colour of my caravan. With it current colours, I've been told it looks more like a western wagon rather than a gypsy caravan and it's quite dull in comparison to the mix of rich colours inside. So I decided to have a play around with the saturation and these are the colours that took my fancy.

This is the colour scheme I have chosen. I chose this one in particular because I like the combination of both the pink/yellow and purple/yellow. These colour are also a little more tame in comparison to some of the other colour schemes. They're more subtle yet still quite vibrant which matches the rich interior perfectly~

The Caravan

Okay so, I've already designed the inside of her caravan so I've been busy working on the outside. These are a few very rough sketches I did. The overall appearance of this caravan is again based on the gypsy style.

This just shows the different elevations (Front, Side and Plan).

These were only rough little drawings to get an idea of the kind of shape I wanted to go for and this is my second drawing which has more detail.

As you can see here, the perspective is off and the wheels are totally flat. This was something that was pointed out during my final crit presentation so I went back and fixed it.

 As well as correcting the wheels, I fixed the angle of the door and added the other back wheel (behind the stairs) which is suppose to be visible from this angle. I'm happy with how it looks now and the difference between the two pictures is as clear as day. I'm glad this was pointed out to me because I'm always open to any corrections and improvements. I aim to get better so, please feel free to share your views on my work.

Hyung-Tae Kim

Hyung-Tae Kim is a Korean Concept artist that's done work for the likes of Magna Carta and War of Genesis. the style he uses known as 'Manhwa' which is basically a term for Korean comic style and it comes to no surprise that it's similar to Western comics and Japanese manga.

I like how in Hyung-Tae's work, he combines both western and Japanese styles in his work. He over exaggerates the human anatomy but doesn't harshly outline them like in the Marvel comic books. Instead he uses his colouring to define the body's features. This is something I'd like to have a go at sometime.

I've looked at a lot of character work but I chose these two specifically because I think their appearance is fitting of a performance troupe.

Starting with the one on the left, her outfit is very feminine with the lace and frills. Her under-bust also fans out into a petal-like arrangement which also emphasises this femininity. Her appearance is also very striking from a theatrical point of view, all the way from the fish net tights to her umbrella prop. Which again, brings me back to possibly making a prop/weapon for my own character.

Now for the picture on the right. I think her design is similar to that of a dancer because of the few clothes. It's defiantly a good way to show off the female form too. Another thing similar to a dancer is the colourful and light materials like the veil attached to the back and her see-through sleeves.

I really like the green colour used in her design, it's very eye catching. And I'm the kind of person who likes all the smaller details but, I adore the leaf-like design throughout her outfit. It really brings it all together and gives an organic feel to the character.

Overall, I find Kim Hyung-Tae's work extremely inspiring. His outfit design are just so individual and distinctive.

Alex Drummond

Alex Drummond is a concept artist that mainly specialises in environment designs. He's got clients in lots of big industries such as Universal Studios, Marvel, Rare and many more. His work is very refined and his attention to detail is immaculate. I'll definitely be coming back to his work if we doing anything in environment design again.

I really like this piece, I think Alex has done a good job of creating a mystical atmosphere with the use of green/blue tones. The orange glowing orbs dotted around the picture also add to this and create a beautiful contrast with the rest of the surroundings.

His attention to detail with textures, the reflection in the pool and the lighting really brings the image to life. It has a soft after glow feel to it creating the perfect ambient fantasy setting.

I also like the way he's put a person in this setting because it gives you a good idea of size. I should really consider this the next time I do any environment work.

I think this is a great example of light and shadow. I really love the overlap of the cool blue lighting and the warm reds from the torches.

Strangely enough, the bookshelves are my favourite part in this picture. I really love how Alex managed to define the books by using the dark and light in the image. They aren't done in much detail of course but you can still distinctly work out what they are.

And again, use of placing a person in the image helps you grasp the idea of size.

This is one of my favourite images Alex has produced. The colours used in this picture actually reminds me of some of the settings in the movie Avatar.

He's created some interesting shapes with the trees and the hanging shrubbery which almost creates a veil around the area. That webbed-like effect also creates a very mystical feel to the image.

The water again is just so full of life with the different blends of colour and the reflections. The waterfall has a nice glow rather like the the surroundings on Twilight Princess during the night.

Overall, I adore Alex Drummond's work. He does a lot of sci-fi designs as well but I think I'm more drawn to his fantasy and ambient looking works.

If you wanna check out more of Alex's work here is his website..

http://www.alexdrummo.com/

All of these images rightfully belong to Alex Drummond and all credit goes to him.

Pose and Colour

This is just a quick doodle in which I was experimenting with colouring. I didn't really like how my turnaround seems to be so flat so I decided to do a rough drawing where I've coloured and shaded. It looks pretty damn messy but I don't think the gradient for the skirt looks too bad when you do it yourself.

The pose for this is suppose to be a dancing pose. Like I mentioned in some older posts, I think I really needed to draw something that clearly shows who she is/what she does. I just hope the messy colouring hasn't taken away from that.

Disney's Princess Jasmine

Princess Jasmine is the second Disney character that I've been told my character resembles. She was created by John Musker and Ron Clements who are also very well known for working on The Little Mermaid, Hercules and the more recent animated film, The Princess and The Frog.

Princess Jasmine as you all probably know, is from Disney's Aladdin (1992). She's not a performer or anything or the sort so, I think the reason for the comparison with her and my character is to do with the use of blues and her black hair and maybe the skin tone. Also, the flat colouring I've done on my character sheet is similar to that of Disney. 

Here are just a few concept drawings of Jasmine.

I adore the simplicity of these sketches. As well as doing expressions, I should probably do more work on drawing her face from different angles like on this image. I've still yet to draw some expressions for my character and post the one I've drawn based on my own photos but I shall get round to it.

The colouring here is very simple and it looks like it's been done with markers. I like the idea of using each stroke to define the folds in the curtains, it's simple yet effective. I also like how the jewellery stands out a lot. 

In Jasmine's colour scheme as a whole, I think they picked some very good colours. Looking at colour psychology, Blue is said to have a very calming nature about it. It's not necessarily the shade of blue Jasmine wears but, the colour blue does have some associations to Royalty.

As for complimentary colours, Blue and gold are said to be a perfect match and contrast with each other very well. They're also a very rich colour combination which maybe the reason she has black hair to help absorb these bold colours. Black and gold are also another set of complimentary colours. 

Overall I really like her design and going through it now, I can see a lot of similarities between my character and Jasmine but only in regards to colour. Still, very interesting to look at none the less.

I do not own any of the images above.

Disney's Esmeralda

Okay so, after having a lot of comments about my characters resemblance to princess Jasmine and Esmeralda, I've decided to have a look into their appearance and characteristics in more depth.

Let's start with Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She was created by Victor Hugo in the early Hunchback of Notre Dame novel in 1831, and has been re-created in various films but is probably more well known for in the Disney version.

As a character, she's probably the closest match to my creation because she's a gypsy and a performer. I found a very interesting blog here that goes through her history and where she originally came from. I was surprised to find her appearance is most likely based on Gina Lollobrigida who played the character Esmeralda in 'Notre Dame de Paris'. Tony Fucile, who was the animator supervisor for the character Esmeralda in the Disney movie, might even have studied some of the dance sequences that took place in 'Notre Dame de Paris'.

Take a look and tell me what you think~



]
In this video, Esmeralda's dance starts at 2:19

I think that the way she moves, especially the very quick frantic movements and the way she uses the space or her stage may well be inspired by the above video. If I were to create a longer animation of my character, these two videos are definitely the ones for me to look at. Another thing I could look at is props. In both videos, Esmeralda uses props. Maybe this is something I could look into for my character if I have time to further develop her or, I could even incorporate her weapon into some sort of dancing prop or instrument because I've yet to design her weapon.

Here are just a few concept pieces I've found..

The big curly hair defiantly resembles Gina for me, and even the red outfit she wears is quite similar to the design they gave the Disney's Esmeralda.

Now, the top picture got me thinking about my own character and about poses. I should really draw a quick sketch of my character in a dancing position because action poses can tell you a lot about a character without having to explain. You see this a lot in concept art for example, warriors are usually in a fighting stance or at least looking ready and preparing themselves for battle. I should quickly sketch some images of her holding her weapon of choice and/or do some rough dance poses.

A special thanks to Lija Jursins for giving me the idea to look into Esmeralda and for sending the link of the 'Topsy Turvy Day' video. Thank you! 

I do not own any of the videos/images above.

Animate!

For my third mini brief, I had to create a flip book animation. I had various ideas of this and my first one was to make her dance or twirl. Then I started thinking about her clothing and such and I realised it would be harder than it seems so I had a play around with other ideas. One of my peers suggested doing a courtesy but when it came to drawing it, I actually found it harder than the twirl despite the fact it's a more simple movement so I decided to go with my initial idea. 

Here's the storyboard work for my animation. 

[I apologise for the bad quality scan, I'll be updating this post soon and replacing it with a better image]

Since it had to be done in a flip book, I only had to work with 20 pages so for the story board there wasn't really going to be lots of key frames so I stuck to the start, middle and end. As you can see, the sketches don't have much detail, the reason for this is not only because I wanted to focus on the movement, but because it was quite a complex movement, I wanted to keep her as more of a silhouette so it would be easier for me to draw.

I've done story boarding before for a film trailer I produced in my Creative & Media Diploma and what I did was use post-it-notes to help me gather my ideas and get a better feel for each frame and it was easy to do the filming from too. So, I decided to draw my animation out frame by frame on post-it-notes. I just found this easier since I'm able to trace of each image into my sketch book, that said, I didn't trace over the previous drawings like onion skinning, it was merely a method for me to transfer it easily.

And here is my finished animation. It's basically all the above post-it-note drawings all put together in sequence because I drew it frame by frame.

This is is the finished thing that I've transferred over to Photoshop for my blog and portfolio or work. It looks like I did the drawings for this fairly quick but It actually took a long time to do because the twirling motion wasn't as easy as I thought It would be. It sounds simple but it was hard to draw. I think I captured the twirling movement pretty well in this animation though.