2017 Summary of Art

2017 has been a mixed bag for me art-wise. It felt like I slumped most of the year but looking back I did still produce a lot of work - only it was largely for class projects.

January:

I chose this picture for January because it shows an example of something I don't always feel confident in: background art. This, along with February's piece, was something I produced for my A-level graphic design. I was making a fantasy themed pop-up book, which required backgrounds in a range of locations, including forests and caves. The style I used for the backgrounds was largely inspired by some of Tom Siddel's work creating the backgrounds for his webcomic 'Gunnerkrigg Court.' I was pleased with how this scene came out in the end, despite my initial trepidation.

February:

This piece was also a page from my pop-up book, and you'll notice the dragon is missing his head. The dragon's head was the pop-up piece for this page, and was therefore drawn and printed seperately to the main bulk of the picture.

March:

This is the first piece of work in the list that I did purely for myself. Noelle is a recurring character of mine, and you may have seen her on my blog a few other times too. I was pleased with the lighting effect that I achieved in this piece, although it was before I had quite worked out a proper style (or how to draw eyes in a way that I like).

April:

This piece was again produced for my A-level graphics class, this time on the topic of Ethical Graphics. My project was an informational campaign on the inclusion and safety of transgender students, and my friend Teddy modelled for me. This piece is inspired by the work of Vince Low, and is in a style that I love to work in since discovering it at GCSE.

May:

This piece was also produced for my Ethical Graphics project, designed as a poster for school hallways. I enjoy the simple, clear colour blocks that come from working in vectors, as well as the calmer feeling created by the loose lineart.

June:

 I didn't actually do much drawing in May it turns out, probably due to exam stress. What I did produce though is a map of the starting town for a D&D campaign I am running for friends back home. This was my first time creating a full map, and it was an interesting learning experience.

July:

Speaking of D&D, this piece is of the original four player characters in the campaign. The green elf on the left was retired before the game began and we acquired another player, but I still like this piece. It was based on one of cROXover Goddess' 'Draw the Squad' bases.

August:

This is a piece you've already heard a lot about if you've been following this blog from the beginning!
Read about it and see the progress here!

September:

Once again on the D&D train, this is my character from the first campaign I ever played in. Her name is Tye, short for Tyviana, she is a tiefling wizard, and she likes fire. A lot.

October:

This piece I produced in life drawing class when my shoulder dislocated and refused to go back to its socket (not an unusual or hospital-worthy occurrence for me, don't worry). Laptops and graphics tablets are not made for life drawing. Particularly a vertical pose on a horizontal screen. This meant that the legs and the torso became a little out of proportion with one another sadly. Aside from that though, I'm quite pleased with the results.

November:

This was a fun one! I have a selection of ridiculously coloured cartoon cats that I like to doodle from time to time, including the above Spark (left) and Mesetan (right). This is coincidentally almost a perfect redraw of a piece I produced in 2013, and you can see the improvement. I love the bright and fun designs of my cats, so this piece was very enjoyable to produce. I was quite disgruntled to realise that they look better in each other's clothes than their own, however.

December:

This is my first self portrait with a mobility aid, as well as a look to a future where I can hopefully present more masculinely. I wanted to capture the full extent of my ridiculous posture, with a sway back and hyperextended knees and hips, and I think I did quite well in that aim. Of course, what better way to finish a picture than with super intense moody lighting though?

3D Bouncing Balls

Our first task in 3D was to animate a ball bouncing across the screen:

Whilst experimenting, I attempted to give the ball character and emotion, emulating a sigh and despondent movement:

Stop Motion Pendulums

Our first task in stop motion was to create two pendulums, one free-swinging and one mechanical, as well as a heavy ball dropping to the floor.

Free Swinging:

Mechanical:

Heavy Ball:

2D Head Turn and Take

Next in 2D we were tasked to create a head turn, followed by a surprise take, with an attribute such as hair or long ears with which to demonstrate overlap and followthrough. To begin with, we had to create a turnaround showing front, profile and 3/4 views of our character. I decided to revisit my character Noelle, previously seen in A Walk Cycle, But Not.

Noelle turnaround.

First I worked out the basic movement of the head as it turned, and then recoiled in surprise.

I then added detail with the face and eyebrows, giving the character expression.

Next I drew out Noelle's hair, giving it drag and followthrough separate from the movement of the stiffer head.

Finally in the roughs stage, I sketched out the pupils, exaggerating their shrink to emphasise the character's shock.

I then inked the animation:

And lastly I added colour.

I am pleased with this work, however I know it is not as good as it could be - there are a few slightly odd movements in the top of Noelle's hair, particularly as she first comes to a stop after turning, and some inconsistency in the size of her eyes and the edges of sections of hair. I am most pleased with my final sketched version of this piece, and may revisit the inking and colouring stages in the future.

2D Hand Turn

This week in 2D we have been animating turning hands. We started by creating rough sketches of the front, back and side of a hand, using our own as reference, and decided on the timing.

We then created a new layer and drew a traditional cartoon hand, like that of Mickey Mouse, still based on our initial sketches, and inbetweened the turn.

When I was happy with my rough animation, I moved onto my lineart.

Finally I added a little colour to the finished animation.

2D Flour Sack Weight Lift

Our next task in 2D was to show weight in an object by having it be picked up by a flour sack.

I began by sketching out key poses and adding some inbetweens.

I then finished inbetweening my rough animation and got the timing to a point that I was happy with.

Next I inked the animation, creating clean lineart.

Finally I added colour to the animation.

2D Flour Sack Hula Hoop

This week in 2D practice we were tasked to create a cycle of a flour sack hula hooping. To begin this exercise, we went out into the courtyard to record reference videos for our timings:

From here, we created a few basic key frames for the flour bag and the hoop, before adding more inbetweens.

From there, I wanted to smooth the movement of the hoop, as the 'corners' seemed to have a jagged and uneven movement. Taking in mind the movement of arcs, I experimented with following a pair of ovals as guides.

I found that the ovals, although smoothing the movement of the hoop, also caused it to seem to move from side to side rather than around the flour bag. To counter this, I created a timing chart and marked out the places on the flour bag where the hoop should be making contact in each frame.

After a little more experimentation, I began inking the animation, beginning with the flour bag. As the hoop remains in the same spot throughout the cycle, initially I used the same section of lineart for all of my frames, only drawing the top of the bag afresh for each frame.

I found that this technique had the opposite effect to what I had hoped - making the bottom of the sack look unnatural and the movements look strange, so I restarted my line work, drawing the whole frame from scratch with the lightbox tool. I was happy with this line work, and finished up by colouring the bag and hoop.

2D Flour Sack Jump

In 2D practice this week we have been exploring more anthropomorphised movement, with particular emphasis to anticipation and follow-through. To this end, we have been animating a a flour bag jumping over an obstacle.

To begin this exercise, I created a page of sketches, exploring the range of movement of the flour bag and how it behaves under different circumstances.

This helped me to get a better understanding of the weight and form of the flour bag, so I could begin my animation with more confidence, starting by drawing out some basic key frames.

I then played around with the timings, speeding up the initial push up into the jump and slowing the follow-through after the bag lands.

From there I cleaned up my timings a little more and created the linework for my animation.

I then added colour and a dropped shadow to my animation in order to give it a greater feel of realism.

At this point I realised that I had made a mistake - what should have been the slowest part of my animation was on 1s, as opposed to the 2s of most of the rest of the animation. This was fixable by removing some of the frames and adjusting timings, making the final animation look less wobbly and more smooth in the centre of its jump.

Drawing For Animation - Les Miserables

For our second weekly drawing for animation task, we had to ask our fellow students how they were feeling, then draw an exaggerated caricature of them in said feeling.

Many people I talked to during the week gave me the response of either 'ill' or 'okay' - but I tried not to repeat any poses or expressions.

I am most pleased with my drawing of Tabby, leaping in the air as he feels 'hyped for life'. I think that this pose has a strong line of action and portrays the feeling well.

Drawing for Animation - Toy Story

Our first task for Drawing for Animation classes was to take a toy on a week of adventures.I started with a few warm up sketches of my toy, a small dinosaur figure with a fluffy body, and a couple of colour experiments.

My toy's week began with simple adventures, exploring a tipped over drink can and a trip to the laundry.

He then decided to visit my desk, climbing my pot plant and engaging in a stand-off with another round, spiky creature.

The next night we cooked together, and my small friend attempted communication with the suspiciously dinosaur-like ladle.

To finish the week, we visited the beach together with the Pride Society, where my dinosaur posed in front of a flag.

2D Waterballoon Bounce

This week we have been exploring the twelve principles of animation, working with squash and stretch particularly. To learn about this, we were tasked with animating a waterballoon bouncing across the screen in TVPaint.

We also looked into using different fairings to increase and decrease the movement speed (as seen in the screenshot above), giving it a slow-in / slow-out effect to make it appear more natural.

Once I was happy with the basic flow of my animation in 2s, I inbetweened the frames to bring it to 1s, before inking and colouring the final sequence.

2D A Walk Cycle, But Not

Over the summer leading to my start of my university course, I wanted to set myself some small animation challenges. The first of these was to create a fully looping walk cycle - but with a twist. As a part-time wheelchair user, I decided that I would animate a character wheeling themself along in a manual chair, as this form of movement interested me greatly and I expected it not to be something that we would cover in class to any extent. I chose to use a character that I had designed previously for this project, named Noelle.

Noelle, March 2017

I started with a basic sketch of a wheelchair, changed slightly from previous designs, and mapped out the frames with a stick figure. I used my own range of movement when in my chair to get a feel for which parts of the figure would feature the most movement - these were the arms and spine.

After a few attempts to smooth this sequence, I was happy with the result and ready to flesh out the sketch a little more. I filled the stick figure out into a full person, and explored the ways that the head might tilt with the movement of the body, settling for a steady forward-facing gaze. I also payed close attention to the movement of the hands, as this plays an important part in making the movement of the wheelchair user look realistic.

From here, I added more details to my sketch, giving the Noelle clothing and hair.

Finally I drew the lineart for each frame and added colour to the animation. In the final version, I slowed the framerate slightly from the sketches as the character appeared to be moving unnaturally fast.

If I were to do this exercise again, I would explore slow-in slow-out techniques further, particularly at the end of the movement as Noelle lifts her hands off the handrim and pulls them back to push again, adding more frames to the sequence in order to make the animation more fluid and realistic.