BMA115 Comics research, style and format, 5 June

 I didn't like the story of this comic: there seemed to be some sort of demon/psychiatrist rape/incest Blech!!! going on.  I did, however, like the drawing and layout very much.  The cover image's extreme angle, the window, wall and shadow running at a slant from bottom to top drawing the eye to the lone figure.

 I may refuse to wear black or white, but I certainly like how it looks, especially when red is brought into the mix.  The banner and logo are repeated through the novel.

 

 The panels alternate between circles in the present day and squares in the past.  The circles drift down the page like bubbles and draw the eye along with them.  The figures in the square panels, the past, are framed from above or slightly above so their heads and body create round spaces and fill in the gaps between the circular panels.

The final image of the novel presents a lonely gravestone surrounded by snow and a few final text panels trailing to the bottom of the page.

BDM126: Jumps, Lifts and lip sync, 3 June

In Principles of Animation, we've been on a marathon of movement.  Walk cycles, running, flying and now lifting weight, lip syncing and jumping.  I've been using my Mozart character and using the references Vaughn has provided.  Those movements AREN'T Mad Mozart, though.  He's wearing heeled shoes and should be walking a little more daintily than he does.  I will either have to find references on the internet that move the way I want him to or make something up myself.  I might even have to be filmed so I get it right.  

The Lip Syncing is going to take forever.  I know how to make a puppet lip sync- you hit every other syllable and emphasize the downbeat, basically.  I'm finding animating to be tougher.  Maybe if I had started AFTER adding the soundtrack?  I made all of the mouth movements and am now trying to space things out to fit the words.  It's really fiddly. I added in some blinks and now I'd like to move the jaw and shoulders slightly so the figure has some life to it.  

My Bunny and Carrot series continues.  It's more work to add a second character, but it gives me the opportunity to have characters interact with each other, which is fun.  It creates moments which could become a story someday.  

BMA142: creating shapes and patterns in Adobe Illustrator

shape builder tool in Adobe Illustrator
ellipse tool.  holding shift makes it a perfect circle, alt +shift makes it come out from center
make sure that the circle is in the absolute center of the paper
make small circle outside of big circle.  watch for green lines that will tell me when I've hit center line of paper
alt and drag to duplicate the shape, pull it over to the left until green lines appear and both circles are the same size and centered

green lines and dots appear to help me line things up
alignment tools show up when you're on black arrow mode?
center alignment tool which makes the small circles line up in the center of the big circle.
shape builder tool (small circle next to big circle), left click and drag from small circle to space next to other small circle but inside big circle to create yin yang symbol.  repeat on other side.


creating patterns
blob tool
brackets make brush bigger or smaller, like in photshop

object_ pattern_ make
dialogue box will allow you to futz with it
to make a brick wall, create one brick and then choose pattern and tile
hit done, then hit swatches to right hand side. you must save a copy to be able to use it in multiple documents
create spline with pen tool and then fill it with pattern swatch

This is how I can make textile patterns and other items for costume use.

BMA142 Frida Kahlo-doscope #2, 1 June

I made my first Frida Kahlo-doscope a few months ago for our kaleidoscope project using the Corel Painter program.  Excited by the possibilities of working with traditional media in a digital format, I started this one around the same time and decided to finish it up for inclusion in my magazine project. I created the 4-way Frida in Corel and created separate files for each of the corner characters which I added in Photoshop.  I've always loved Frida because she is an unflinching self-portraitist and turned her personal struggles into beautiful imagery (Frida Kahlo biography).
I've chosen my favourite images from her life, culture and work for each of the corners.  Te Amo (I love you) is a milagro, religious folk charms from Mexico.  The silver charms each represent a body part or need that is prayed for. I bought a heart-shaped milagro wall hanging in Detroit's Mexico Town and the wall inspired my background colour choices.


Te Odio (I hate you) is muralist Diego Rivera, Frida's husband.  They had a tumultous relationship and married for a second time before she died. biography  Te Quiero (I want you) is one of the monkeys that feature in many of her paintings.  Frida and her monkeys have also inspired the final image of my storyboard this semester in "Monkey Saves the Daypaint!"  Te Necesito (I need you) is one of the babies that pop up in her work (Moses).  She paints her broken body and heart organ but I already had the love heart milagro and I felt using the organ would be redundant.  Birth, motherhood and babies appear thematically in her work so I chose the baby just about to be born to symbolize her creative process.    

BMA142, Digital Painting- Fluffy clouds part 2, 1 June

At the beginning of the semester, we played around with making clouds in photshop.  My first attempt wasn't great, so I went back to it as part of the preparation for my magazine project.    I re-consulted the cloud reference photo I took in February and I pulled up an image of a woman in 19th century western wear from the internet.

Second cloud/western woman digital painting.  Having a reference photo to consult makes all the difference!

Inspiring Art, 1 June

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/kehinde_wiley_new_republic/#


Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
"Through the process of "street casting," Wiley invites individuals, often strangers he encounters on the street, to sit for portraits. In this collaborative process, the model chooses a reproduction of a painting from a book and reenacts the pose of the painting’s figure. By inviting the subjects to select a work of art, Wiley gives them a measure of control over the way they're portrayed."

I love everything about Mr. Wiley's work: the deep reds, the bold prints, the contemporarily-clothed men and women adopting classical poses from Western art.  And the scale!  Most of these pieces appear to be life-sized, or larger.  They're really impressive.      

BDM125, BDM126, Animation Reviews, 17 May

I'm well behind on my animation reviews.  This week, 2D, stop motion and 3D shorts. 


Korgoth of Barbaria 2006
Directors: Aaron Springer, Genndy Tartakovsky, Production Companies: Cartoon Network Studios, William Street

If I liked Conan the Barbarian movies, I'd probably love this more.  As it is, Genndy Tartakovsky worked on the Powerpuff Girls, so this was definitely worth my time.  The jokes are funny and if I'm looking for a variety of ways to strip flesh off the human body, I'll be back.

 Moving On: A Stop-motion Music Video for ‘James’ Made with Yarn by Ainslie Henderson



This was very moving.  The death, or unraveling of the child in the bed and it's subsequent "rebirth" is really touching.  The full range of emotions were on display here without any facial expressions.  I loved the limited colour palette and the use of yarn to create the bodies and sets.  More than just a material, the yarn also acts symbolically to depict death through unraveling and connection through the cords that attach the characters to each other.

 5 Mètres 80: An Absurd Animation Depicting a Herd of Giraffes Leaping Off a High Dive by Nicolas Deveaux

This was gorgeous!  The complementary colours of burnt orange and browns against the aqua blues and greys of the swimming pool.  The line of giraffes patiently waiting for their turn to dive and their inventive acrobatics.  A 2D version of this would be an amusing fantasy, but making it 3D created a world where it could really happen and makes the idea of diving giraffes charming and exciting.