Pre-production - Folk Art and Minnie Evans

Untitled (Faces at Median) - Minnie Evans 1960

Pre-production - Folk Art and Minnie Evans

To start our Pre-production module we were given a card at random with an art movement on it and asked to find and research an artists from this movement, I was given Folk Art. At first this confused me because of the shire volume of art works considered to be 'folk art' as any art produced by someone with out artist training or by an 'outsider artist' is considered to be in this movement. By its very nature Folk art becomes part of our lives so finding some stand alone pieces was difficult, however I came across an artist called Minnie Evans.

Evans was an African American artist who often used different medias in her work such as wax and crayons, being inspired to draw from visions that came to her in dreams, she is considered to be not only a Folk artists but also a surrealist and visionary artist. There was something in her stylized swirls and patterns that I really liked and throught would really lead itself to an absatract aniamtion style, I produced a copy of her piece 'Untitled (Faces at Median) - Minnie Evans 1960', using pens and markers.

Life Drawing Set No.9

Life Drawing Set No.9

For this set of drawing I wanted to try using sugar paper to explore my use of tone and mark making. I found that using chalk lent itself to a more bold expressive drawing that allowed me to look at my use of lines and exploring the different curves of the body. I again choose to look at my use of colours, deciding to not just use black and look at the way it effected the mood of the pieces, I was happy with the results. 

The Rush Job - Final animatic

The Rush Job - Teaser

The Rush Job - Final animatic

After everything was completed it was time to but it all together in the final animatic being pushed to the very end of the deadline, much of the original storyboard had to be cut and reworked to ensure it made sense. Due to some members of the team, sound design was also left to the very end and meant the final thing was rushed even further, given the time we could have a produced a fair better sound bed, and more flowing final story. However the experience was a fun one and we're proud with the end result, winning 3rd out of  the 10 groups.

The Rush Job - Storyboard

The Rush Job - Storyboard

With designs and concepts down, it was time to start on the storyboard, to make this task go faster we decided that all the animators would work on there own sections. After reading through the script I created a shot list to help us keep track and everyone got to work. As well as a basic storyboard we wanted to produce as many detailed panels as possible, so to make the animatic look more detailed, so along side this two members worked on backgrounds. Here are the storyboard panels I produced for the project, we choice to work in a monochrome style to save time but also give depth.

The Rush Job - Character Design

The Rush Job - Character designs.

As our first second year project we were tasked with working in groups of ten with Television Students to produce and animatic for a christmas advert. The animatic for the company 'benjamincook.com',  had to be 1 minute long as well as a 30 second teaser. We had four days to come up with an idea, write the script, create character designs and concept art, produce a storybooard, produce an animatic and finally complete this with sound and music. The task aimed to emulate a possible fast passed industry scenario, and working with other students in a limited amount of time. The TV students quickly produced a script and I started working on charactet designs for are two main characters.

Life Drawing Set No.8

Life Drawing Set No.8

For this session I chose to focus on my use of form and using materials to exaggerate these shapes,

I particularly liked exploring my use of different colours in doing this. I discovered that by using lighter colours such as blue the body has a much harder/colder feel, while bright and bold colours such as the yellows and browns back the work softer and more warm.