Process and Production ~ Creating an Animated Character in After Effects

Before I could begin editing I was asked to create an illustrator document of any character, separating the limbs that were required to more in the animating process, in this case I separated each leg, the head and the facial features of my sheep character.

I imported the file as a composition and then opened it up, ready to work with an make changes to. I also changed the colour of the background to a green colour to add the metaphor of grass for fun.

I moved each of the anchor points to the location on my character that I wanted them to move from. I also parented each of the body parts to the main body of my character by selecting each one and using the ‘pick-whip’ tool. This prevents the body parts frantically moving around and rotating from unwanted places in the composition.

I began by creating some movement in the legs of my character, clicking the stopwatch to do so and then moving the ligament accordingly over the period of time I wanted the movement to take. I alternated the movement of the two front and back legs to create a walking movement.

I also decided that to make the walk appear more natural the sheep’s head would bob up and down so I once again used the rotation to create this action as the legs worked alternatively in time.

There would be no use in the sheep’s legs moving if he wasn’t actually walking around as he was currently standing on the spot, so I repeated the process of using the stopwatch however this time I repositioned the sheep at the other side of the composition to create a walking movement across the frame in time of his legs.

Finally, for a little effect, I decided that I would make the sheep’s nose twitch up and down a few times as if he was sniffing the air inquisitively, to do this I once again used the stopwatch and the positioning tool.

Finally, I rendered out the clip and then uploaded it to my Vimeo account. Here is my cute little creation!

Animation Using Keyframes from Rebekah Hollins on Vimeo.

I think the animation, although clearly a first attempt in using keyframes, worked really well. Unfortunately I needed to clip the length of the animation which I didn't not do and this will be something I ensure happens next time. However despite this I think overall the result is quite positive.

Process and Production ~ Working in Adobe InDesign (Advanced) - Part One

The initial task in this session was to create a layout of around 6-8 pages which demonstrated our ability to us Adobe InDesign along with showing that I am able to comfortably work with text and image. These are the print screens of the design whilst I was editing it, showing templates and editing boxes.

After making some final touches I exported the document into PDF format and have included images of each slide below.

I am really happy with the result of this, I feel I have showed a confident range of ability throughout this presentation that I am able to place text into columns and also make use of the text wrap features along with displaying a confident ability to use InDesign.

Contextual Portfolio ~ Art Nouveau

 Art Nouveau was an aesthetic style that was anti-capitalist, anti-industrialisation and an embodiment of social reform, created to represent in a change of life, a new aesthetic. They proposed the importance of craftsmanship and the appreciation of specialist skills and a sense of individual pride in your work. Art nouveau can be distinguished by its natural motifs, ornamental use of nature and unique typographical elements, a lot of colour is used and very often feature a female figure.

One particularly well known artist in the works of Art Nouveau would be Alphonse Mucha who’s work I have become very fond of particularly in college when I created a project based around the styles and composition of Art Nouveau. His work is a classic example of the style; you get an alignment with the social world and see the ease of advertising products or showcasing entertainment. The women being commodified were a model for the consuming lifestyle.

Contextual Portfolio ~ Iconography and Iconology

On the 2^nd of February we had a lecture about Iconography and Iconology, Iconography is derived from the Greek word, image, and to write. It focuses on the study of symbols depicted in work, art and design and it is the identification and description of the content of images. Symbols that are used often come from previous understanding, for example a skull and crossbones or a dove are widely recognized among many cultures. Images in general are very polysemic and for this reason it is the previous understand that we need to allow us to interpret the message at hand. Iconology involves the study of meaning behind the symbolism, the image has to be put into context and understood wholly in terms of the artist or timeframe it was created in. After looking at the examples displayed in the lecture I decided to find some of my own to anaylse to better understand the meaning behind the iconography and iconology.

This is a perfect example; the primary picture is very simplistic, hardly resembling the content of the image at all. If the viewer does not have the context off the images then they do not understand the references to Disney films. The second image is simply a crescent shape, however people who have watched the film understand that it is the cats smile.

As said before, the images are accompanied by text to allow the viewer to put the icons into context, the viewer would not make the link to the films as the designs are extremely simplistic, however with the accompaniment of the text it allows the viewer to put it into context and then recall iconic moments in the film and relate it to the symbolism shown in the designs.

Contextual Portfolio ~ Representation

In a lecture we viewed a film where the camera zoomed right out from two people having a picnic into space, showing the insignificance of the two people sat on that earth compared to the vastness of the rest of the world. It then zoomed in and rather than stopping on the people it continued through their skin and showed the biological construction of their bodies, the skin layers, the cells, the bones, everything. Rather than stopping at what we would consider a boundary, it continued to break those boundaries, revealing a complexity and interconnection that the viewer might consider very daunting.

Human beings are very structural, we work within a structured society and aim to put everything into categories and sort everything so that we can be in control, or at least feel a little more in control than if the world were in complete chaos. This works with the belief that everything that we see is experienced through a lense, we never truly experience the chaos of raw matter. The mind collects information and warps it through this lense in order to represent it to us the world the way we see it.

When we see the world as explained above, we see it through the phenoumenal which is inother words, the lense that was used to describe this theory in the work of Immanuel Kant. The noumenal world could be represented through storms and vast landscapes, things that we cannot control or put into order.

It can be argued that it is possible to represent the sublime through the use of artwork and this is why it becomes so valid in life. Someone is able to throw colour at a page such as in the image above and call it the sublime because of the lack of control thereof, however as humans it is instinct to begin to categorise and structure this design. Naturally we begin to analyse it, why has the artist used those colours? Why have they thrown the paint in the direction they have? And it becomes phenoumenal as it is then being viewed through the distorted lense.