Tuesday 21 October 2008
Posters...
Well, I spent all of today working on my 3 poster designs. After Julie came over and pretty much destroyed my previous ideas I decided to rethink my angle. I came up with some new ideas, and at the same time developed some of the existing ones. Im pretty happy with what ive produced, but am a little worried they're not "flashy" enough. I've always been a fan of the "less is more" way of thinking. I dont like clutter. But I could just be lazy? Oh well. Guess I'll find out what people think tomorrow if I can ever get these damn files to burn onto CD...
Friday 10 October 2008
My History & Animation...
Ok, so I caved and im going to write a little bit.
Warning - I do tend to ramble and go off subject frequently, read at own risk...
The main reason I'm on the course I am, "Digital Media Design", is because I have a great love of both animation and digital art. I'm far from a pro in either department but I'm hoping to improve vastly in the next three years. Everything I know and do is self-taught. I always felt pretty constrained back at school when it came to art, being told to produce this like such, and do that like this. I remember back in year 11 I suggested the use of photoshop to an art teacher (this was about 4 years ago now?) and she told me that wasnt art, and then went about complaining that the way I had drawn something was wrong. (She wasnt exactly the biggest encouragement when it came to free thinking and originality). When I finished secondary school I was left not wanting to study art again for this reason, and when I went into college I studied an ICT topic. Whilst studying that, I really got into Flash and started to spend alot of time on it.
At first I was mostly influence by videgames and webcomics that friends had linked me too, and infact tried to set up my own webcomic, called JUD Junkies. It was a failure, since at the time I was still sort of coming to grips with actually digital editting. At first I attempted to draw and colour in photoshop, but I wasnt happy with the results. After a few trial-and-error attempts I found a method I quite liked. I started drawing out my characters by hand, scanning them in to photoshop, cleaning up any cracks of speckles left by the scanning process and thickening any blacklines I didnt think would survive through to flash. Then I would import the scans into a program called "Steamline", I never really toyed with this program, so in all honesty I dont know what its main purpose was, but I would use it to convert the pixel-based images I had scanned into vectors. This then allowed me to import into flash and edit images in here. Flash gives some of the most nicest lines ive come across, and they're so easy to alter and shape. As time went on I got better at using flash, as can be seen in most of my webcomics, then I bought a tablet and really got going. I stuck to using the same method for a while, only using the tablet now and then I decided to start drawing things fully digitally. I got mixed results at first, but finally found a style of producing work that I liked, usually drawing 2 or 3 layers of "rough" lineart, in several shades of gray, and then on a new layer, of the top, drawing a final, neat layer of the final lineart. Whilst this sped up the process a great deal, by the point I had already given up on my webcomic. I still prefer to work in flash due to the incredible results that you can get and the ease of use with a tablet, however, im also trying to get myself to work in photoshop and illustrator more.
As far as animation goes, its something I really enjoy, though so far I have only really dabled. I've produced quite a few simple, animated .gifs and few animated "cartoons", though nothing longer then 2 minutes really. In the future I hope to produce more interactive animations, maybe even some flash games.
So there you go, I warned you I rambled. This post was originally going to be about why I like animation so much, and some suggestions on some really good animations to watch...oh well, maybe next post.
Warning - I do tend to ramble and go off subject frequently, read at own risk...
The main reason I'm on the course I am, "Digital Media Design", is because I have a great love of both animation and digital art. I'm far from a pro in either department but I'm hoping to improve vastly in the next three years. Everything I know and do is self-taught. I always felt pretty constrained back at school when it came to art, being told to produce this like such, and do that like this. I remember back in year 11 I suggested the use of photoshop to an art teacher (this was about 4 years ago now?) and she told me that wasnt art, and then went about complaining that the way I had drawn something was wrong. (She wasnt exactly the biggest encouragement when it came to free thinking and originality). When I finished secondary school I was left not wanting to study art again for this reason, and when I went into college I studied an ICT topic. Whilst studying that, I really got into Flash and started to spend alot of time on it.
At first I was mostly influence by videgames and webcomics that friends had linked me too, and infact tried to set up my own webcomic, called JUD Junkies. It was a failure, since at the time I was still sort of coming to grips with actually digital editting. At first I attempted to draw and colour in photoshop, but I wasnt happy with the results. After a few trial-and-error attempts I found a method I quite liked. I started drawing out my characters by hand, scanning them in to photoshop, cleaning up any cracks of speckles left by the scanning process and thickening any blacklines I didnt think would survive through to flash. Then I would import the scans into a program called "Steamline", I never really toyed with this program, so in all honesty I dont know what its main purpose was, but I would use it to convert the pixel-based images I had scanned into vectors. This then allowed me to import into flash and edit images in here. Flash gives some of the most nicest lines ive come across, and they're so easy to alter and shape. As time went on I got better at using flash, as can be seen in most of my webcomics, then I bought a tablet and really got going. I stuck to using the same method for a while, only using the tablet now and then I decided to start drawing things fully digitally. I got mixed results at first, but finally found a style of producing work that I liked, usually drawing 2 or 3 layers of "rough" lineart, in several shades of gray, and then on a new layer, of the top, drawing a final, neat layer of the final lineart. Whilst this sped up the process a great deal, by the point I had already given up on my webcomic. I still prefer to work in flash due to the incredible results that you can get and the ease of use with a tablet, however, im also trying to get myself to work in photoshop and illustrator more.
As far as animation goes, its something I really enjoy, though so far I have only really dabled. I've produced quite a few simple, animated .gifs and few animated "cartoons", though nothing longer then 2 minutes really. In the future I hope to produce more interactive animations, maybe even some flash games.
So there you go, I warned you I rambled. This post was originally going to be about why I like animation so much, and some suggestions on some really good animations to watch...oh well, maybe next post.
Cripes...I forgot my old account...
Well, I went to post in my blog today, but I forgot my login for it, and for some reason, no matter how much I tried, couldn't get blogger.com to send me my user name or password. So Im starting a-fresh. I guess I'll "Repost" my first blog under this...
"Today I woke up at 8:53, it was cold, I did not want to get out from under the sheets, but I had to drag my sorry ass into the shower so I could wake up, ready for that damn course im doing at brighton college. Honestly, I hate getting up early, and having to see those damn class mates of mine so early in the morning...jesus wept, sometimes I just want to kill everything that moves...
"Today I woke up at 8:53, it was cold, I did not want to get out from under the sheets, but I had to drag my sorry ass into the shower so I could wake up, ready for that damn course im doing at brighton college. Honestly, I hate getting up early, and having to see those damn class mates of mine so early in the morning...jesus wept, sometimes I just want to kill everything that moves...
Only kidding, this is my first blog, and if I should ever choose to update this thing, which I probably will since I do like to ramble an rant, it'll probably follow my life at Brighton University. I currently live in Phoenix Brewery Halls, where we are suffering from a pigeon epidemic. They "poop" EVERYWHERE. If the kitchen window is left open, you better believe they're going to fly in and crap aaaall over the kitchen table and work top...but I'm going off the matter at hand. I dont actually have the internet at the halls right now, and whole process for setting it up is pretty crappy, what this essentially means is I wont be updating this blog anytime soon...so yeh. More to come? Possibly, but lets hope not eh?"
So yeh, after all that aggro I cant be assed to write about my day now...
So yeh, after all that aggro I cant be assed to write about my day now...
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