[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

A reflection once more

Alright so this term was an absolute mess.

The project’s development:

For a long time I had no clue what I wanted to do and had a lot of trouble coming up with a subject that I found interesting enough to tackle. I really don’t like journalism and to be frank I don’t have a lot of interest in my elders’ wants and needs either. Most of the subjects that I could think up didn’t grab my attention and I, knowing myself, knew that I’d have trouble keeping working if I didn’t find anything interesting. Which is just stupid.

Nonetheless, I did as I promised myself last term and kept making work. On and on even if I had no clue what I was doing or where I was going. So that at the very least I’d be able to mash everything together and see if I’d get something usable out of it. After being asked what I find interesting I settled on the subject of change and living through all that. Considering everything that happened the past 90 years it seemed interesting to me. Then for whatever reason I dragged the subject on further and made it hard on myself again by starting about old people and space travel. Which was too far from the journalism aspect and dragged the focus away from the people and more towards space travel in general.

Now you might be wondering “But wait wasn’t this project about journalism? Did you do any interviews?” and yes, I did. Just not enough, but I was reluctant to do more of them because I felt like I was already lagging behind. Eventually I took a step back again to the subject of change and settled on a story my grandpa told me for my animation. By now I’m sure you can tell that the amount of time I lost being indecisive is immense. While I did keep working and making things, none of them had much thought or substance behind them.

The results:

I started working on the final products earlier than last time, but I still had way too much to do within the allotted time left. The turnaround timelapse and animation managed to get a good amount of time stuffed into making them but I couldn’t have made it in time without a little help from others. The series of images got incredibly rushed and ended up looking totally like ass. The concept isn’t bad, everything links to the main subject and has a goal. But those are it’s only saving graces. Only some of the designs actually look decent in my opinion and every single piece is still rushed.

Reflection:

I fell for the same trap as I did last time. I saw it coming and I tried various things to avoid making the same mistakes, which is good. But ultimately it wasn’t enough. I had to rush my final works, I was indecisive, I had trouble coming up with a concept and the imagery could be better. My art is still relatively flat and doesn’t change a lot in perspective, but the animation does show a bit more promise for storytelling and composition. I’ve also tried out a bunch of different techniques way sooner in during the project and I made some very interesting experiments.

All in all I can’t say I’m happy with this project. This term was an absolute mess but I did try some new things. For now all I can do is keep making and creating new things and draw a ton to get better. Practice practice practice.

Let’s see how it goes next time.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

And here’s the alternative version without voice-over!

The original can be found here.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Here’s the final result for my animation of this term’s project.

The voice-over speaks for itself but for people who don’t speak english; it’s a story my grandpa used to tell me about when his grandpa was young him and his entire class all go outside to watch the first bicycle ride through the street. Then when he himself was young a similar thing happened where they all went outside to watch the first car pass by.

I’m quite satisfied how it turned out, seeing as it was an experiment to make something like a moving / animated collage. Still, there’s also plenty I’d want to improve or have done differently.

I’ve also made an alternate version where the story is told without a voice-over which can be found here.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Turnaround of the timelapse!

Making of can be found here.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Here’s the making of of a timelapse loop I made. It’s a little malformed due to the glue but I think it works fine because the paper is warped anyway to get a bit of texture to it.

The design is a little basic but I’m happy with how it turned out.

The turnaround video can be found here.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Since the subject of my project is change and the elderly, naturally a struggle to keep up also pops up. So I asked around for which things they have the most trouble with and made these pieces with the idea of printing them out as postcards and putting them in care homes. That way the elderly can pick them out and seek help for the things they have trouble with and also make the young people aware again that there’s these struggles.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Here’s some of the assets I used in my animation!

The colours of the walls don’t quite match the style I’ve got in the final video, but that’s fine. That’s what makes it a moving collage after all. I also have a lot of alternate versions for some of these where I’ve just cut out the sky or floor or what have you.

The bottom one is actually the opposite. Since the paper was larger than A3 and my scanner is only large enough for A4 I had to scan it like 6 times and then cut and glue it all back together in photoshop. Luckily the most obvious lines just look like folds in the paper!

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Alright, so if you have a simple animation but don’t want to have blank coloured background this works pretty well. I just mixed up a few basic colours and started plastering them half-mixed across paper and it works quite well for a basic texture-like background.

I did the same thing with some coloured paper: just get a little watered down paint in whichever colour you want and put it all over the surface of the coloured paper. With the yellow paper it looks and feels similar to parchment which just makes it a bit more lively than if you did nothing with it.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Here’s the 1st version of my moving storyboard. (No audio yet though :( )

It’s a story based on an interview with my grandpa. He told me that back when his grandfather was young their entire class headed out to watch the first bicycle ride through the street. And later when he himself was young they all also headed out to see the first car passing by.

I found it to be such an interesting story that I decided to use it directly for my animation. Still, a lack of audio in a moving storyboard and the enlarged imagery makes it hard to see what the heck is going on. I’m planning to turn this into sort of a ‘moving collage’ and use a lot of assets made in different media.

Still a lot of work to be done!

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Visit Original Link

He returns

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

And here’s even more things where I just tried to make something I thought looked nice with indian ink and coloured paper!

You can really tell I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I just started to make plants. Plants are always nice.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

At some point during a project about journalism and old people I decided to pick the subject of change, how many there have been and how it must be to experience so many within a lifetime..... Then from that I segwayed into old people and space travel... I’m sure you can see how easy it is to tackle a weird subject like that.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

A little test I made from various images to try and match the voice-over.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

For one of our subjects we had to explore Krita more, so I tried finding my way around it by making some silly doodles, a character sheet and trying out the perspective tool to see how that’d work out. Then in a seperate lesson we experimented with the puppet pin tool in After Effects, which is actually one of the few big tools I’ve never actually used before. So I figured it’d be a fun challenge to make a table walk like a horse.

.... His back is a little messed up but other than that he seems to be walking on steadily.

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

Some practice in portraying models through paint and collages. I really like experimenting with colours on different coloured backdrops. With both the male and female model the last works look the most interesting to me, so I definitely want to use those kind of techniques and combinations more!

[cyberpunkonionenthusiast]

More works and tests from throughout the project. I finally got a story I wanted to work with. And here’s some of the first tries and tests for that, from before I actually knew which direction to head in.

Out of these the abstract works and the bottom one speak to me the most. For the bottom one I simply drew scenery straight from my thoughts and tried working in colours to make it look like a sepia filter. Then I made an actual frame for it with a bit of chalkpaper in front.