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| Sheet from Visual Language - practice in depth & perspective |
With all the other modules altogether, this academic year has been significant in the development of my initially "incoherent" style of drawing, where I had never placed such a huge emphasis due to my stop-motion orientation. Luckily, my horizons have been broadened and light upon traditional 2D animation has been shed, resolving in my distinct development of a drawing style inspired by my fellow peers, observation, and practice, all purged by all of the modules. And, with time and practice, I created a style that showed depth; a style that I became comfortable with and started implementing and gradually modifying - even as I write. Initially, before college, I had been drawing cartoon characters solely with pencil and never digressed from drawing flat and lifeless 2D faces, mostly 2/3 profiles. For example, if I were to draw something else, it would look highly unaesthetic with a lack of depth (not applicable to Solid Drawing, in other words) as I would draw with brisk pencil lines instead of firm and flowing lines. However, through the module Animation Process and Production, I started using other tools, such as the drawliner, which gave me the opportunity to draw coherent and accurately distinctive lines in thickness. Now, following the manner of some of my peers solely as inspiration, I only used pencil to create the template over which I drew the real deal, mainly the character, background, and element design for the 2D animation. With this, came my broken line style, where all lines I draw are generally shaky without definite curvatures. As I continued developing this, it reached its prime during the Visual Language module where we were to create our own character, which relied on this drawing style. Edrik showed depth and visual enrichment with the shaky lines, whereas if I were to draw him in a smooth manner he'd lose all of that appeal. And, thus, based on all of this, I gandered into doing side projects and assignments, one of which is for a future musical event back in Macedonia, for which I acquired to be the logo and poster designer through a commission. This is where my style of sub-realism kicks in where I reference real life objects and draw them in an emphasized manner, still keeping their key elements while altering their realistic aspect - for the event's logo I drew a gramophone with a conch for a horn, based on a picture I piled together of a conch and a real gramophone for reference. The broken lines that define the contour of the shape assumingly give it a perceived texture of ruggedness, whereas the inner incomplete lines give it that 1940 illustrator print feel. Another project is a possible album cover for a musical project which I am a part of inspired by the graininess of old prints. All in all, I am quite satisfied with this style I've adapted and look forward to its constant improvement with future practice endeavors. Thus, the final project I've been assigned is making logo designs for bands - 2 in particular - one of which is my own. In order to create these, I implemented two styles and fused them together: traditional, with which I draw the assets for the logo, and digital, where I scan those assets and tinker and modify them for the final digital outcome. For example, for the Visterija logo (displayed below) I drew the vines and the tree branch in my sketchbook and then scanned them in to give them the overlay effects, whereas the font is just a normal font manipulated with the liquify tool - solely digital.
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| Initial drawing, rough lining, textured feel |
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| Digital rendering of poster template |
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| Possible draft of an album cover, digitalized ink drawing |
Multimedia animation is at the heat of the industry currently, and as time is progressing more and more emphasis is being placed on a fusion of different animation techniques as separate elements that perfectly create an aesthetic for a vigorous animation. However, one thing I've noticed is that the most versatile of techniques are used in the making of animated music videos that strike the media, most of which possess a brilliant opportunity for young animators such as myself to learn, analyze, and attempt, for the sake of eclecticism. The animated music video of Of Monsters And Men's "Little Talks" served as a perfect paragon of this notion, as well as a brilliant opportunity of inspiration. Considering that I'm in the middle of working on my animation for the module Applied Animation by blending stop-motion with post-rotoscoping 2D, I found this animation particularly interesting and bewildering as I can identify some techniques I have yet to try, but believe I have the knowledge to attempt. Initially, the animation reminded me of the vivacious Pythonesque technique of puppet animation where segments of images are bound together to be controlled and animated without re-drawing every consecutive frame - a technique I'm really keen on. However, this animation incorporated the technique digitally as to juxtapose it with the live-action heads of the characters which are stuck (through green screening) to the puppets. Furthermore, the animation reminded me of Kiszkiloszki, an animator that incorporates this style through the revival of old baroque art, but makes the movement of his characters much more flexible by adding motion blur. Nonetheless, in "Little Talks" this technique is perfectly blended with realistic green screened effects of sparks, explosions, and smoke that add color to the animation - perfectly juxtaposing the mise-en-scene elements in the shot. The FX go well with the animation since practically most of the elements are modified segments of fabricated live-action scenery (the trees, the gargoyle head, the monster) where they look like they are vested in reality due to their detail, but actually are not (except for the faces). To account for this, I researched that many animators had produced this animation, all of which had animated the separate and different techniques in the final output, once again, proving that different styles plus teamwork account for brilliant interdisciplinary art.