Holden and Sons | Protfolio Visit 3

I stuck to what I said, and didn't waist time by showing my show reel, instead I went straight in there with my ident, which went down well. It was nice as they got to see a contrast between both mine and jacks idents. They pointed out how the movement of the textures as the sun comes into shot adds to the piece and emphasizes the sun being in your eyes. I still feel the sound is not the best it can be in this piece, mainly as its very quiet. I really want to create a better sound for it as it will make the whole thing so much better. The making of for the ident, again, went down well

From looking at their website and seeing what they do, I decided on showing two pieces of work which I did at LOVE creative which was an umbro brief, as i thought they'd appreciate this more than my short train animation. They really seemed to like one of my executions for the brief, as i explained to them the meaning behind the concept before showing it. This is something i need to start doing with all my work when showing people, really giving the viewer some idea of what’s going on.

I finished with my latest project, Feel Good Drinks brief, its not even finished yet, but I'm really liking how its turning out, plus i was able to show my sketchbook work which shows my process.

Overall, what was good about this visit was that I realized how much I need to do towards sound in my animation. I wouldn't have noticed this if it weren’t for it being a joint visit. I haven't really got a finished piece which has great sound on it, and I feel sound really makes or breaks a piece of work. I really want to work on sound, especially for my final major project.

Feel Good Birds Research

I've been asked twice now about whether my feelgood birds animation has been influenced by any particular person or style. My answer is that I can't really pin down a specific artist, illustrator, movement or style. I look at lots of different things which have influenced the look of the animation.

This first one, below, was just a sketch I did once I figured out the layout and colour. But actually, the construction lines worked quite well with it, in comparison to the one below this one, and decided to keep them in and work them into it. Although, I wanted the background sketches much more subtle.

One of the first things I did was changed everything to square (below, not the video), mainly because of the way the characters were drawn, it made the birds feel part of the scene and vice versa. I taught my self to use the pen tool in photoshop to create the curves. I used to think it was really complicated to use, but have now got my head round it.
I also wanted to start making my own brushes in photoshop and after watching this toutorial, I created my own which gave me the texture you see on the main branch...

I experimented with adding sketches with thinker lines, it looked really out of place and ugly to look at

Even a neater version looked bad...

After I'd hit a brick wall, i decided to look around on the websites i regularly check. One which i love called Grain Edit gave me some inspiration and also an ex student of Stockport College Chris Madden. I can't tell you what I saw as I can't remember, all i can say is that it inspired me to add the brush texture I'd made to different parts of the background, only subtly though, just to hint at the roughness of the style.

This was the almost final background, only apples need to be added...

Lastly, in terms of technique, I was inspired by an animation which was made on a small scale called 'Nosy Bear'. I find that my drawings look nicer when very small so this whole animation, like nosy Bear, fitted in one sketchbook....

Work Experience LOVE Creative

From 31st May till 24th June I was at a studio called LOVE Creative. I was there with three other people from Stockport College; Helen Porter, Dominique Byron and Jack Maguire. Me and Jack are working on a short animation so that's what we were working on whilst in the studio. As well as working on this short animation, we were also given some after effects work to do at some points.

 Me and Jack helped out Dominique bring one of her illustrations to life, this was nice for two reasons; firstly it meant it could put our after effects skills to the test and secondly it was nice to use someone elses work which looked really cool.

I started thinking more about colour, my aim was to get started on a colour script for mine and jack's animation. To give a brief out line to what the vision is, we want to get across the feelings of two characters in a relationship, by using the seasons, for example; the animation will start in spring as spring is known as the season of new life etc also, we go through eight seasons all together and as the relationship turns sour, the seasons should mimic this.

As well as this going towards a side project, its also helping me on my self initiated. 

Also use of the 'Hue and Saturation' tool in Photoshop helped out a lot, you can take the colours your happy with and make then really vibrant or really saturated in an instant. (that how i got the really vibrant orangey/red on the first autumn)

In terms of moving image stuff done at LOVE Creative, I did 2 seconds worth, here it is...

 

Also, my after effects skills also got a lot better from having some briefs of the LOVE creative team...but I can't show them on here. There on my Hand in disc for refrence.