S.W.O.T - Live Brief Convention

S.W.O.T - Live Brief Convention

Following the completion of my live brief project i have evaluated the outcome based on my strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and the threats that came with them.

the strength for my live brief was defiantly in my knowledge of my target audience. to complete my task i had to develop artwork and print them out to take to an animation convention and to try and sell them to attendees at this convention. by knowing my target audience i was able to successfully select a certain category of artwork that i should spend my time developing to sell. i think that this was the most important strength to have as my entire stall could have failed if i created something unsuitable that nobody would buy.

my weaknesses would fall into pricing my prints. i find difficulty putting a lot of value onto my pieces because i critique my own work very harshly and had complains from people thinking mywork was too cheap. to combat this at my next convention i will try placing my prices slightly higher then what i normally do. i think this is related to my past problem of being too harsh on my own work generally not just as a product.

opportunities were to gain publicity and get interest in my work. this was notable when people asked for my web address or email. secondary oppourtunities to this was to make some sales on prints and gain profit in money. due to the size of the event i was lucky to break even.

threats to this project was cost of printing, not getting enough work completed and any external threats to the event out of my control that could of ended up with it being cancelled or delayed.

Weekly Reflection - Enhancing Old Artwork - Convention Oppourtunity

Weekly Reflection - Enhancing Old Artwork

Convention Opportunity

After completing my live brief project of the convention artwork creation stall i decided to reflect upon the opportunity i took towards my personal work. The first image below is an old watercolour painting i done last year for a convention in march. the painting is very old and outside my current stylisation of work. taking this as an opportunity to review and test the effects of digital manipulation i created two filter altered editions of my painting. the reason i created two was because i could not decide which eventual over casting colour i wanted on my piece.

To compare the differences between these two pieces, though very minutes, i think they vastly change the image when viewed from after. the image to the left contains a stronger magenta overlay cast over the image whereas the image to the right contains more speckled effect on the dragon's mane and has an overall yellow overlay cast onto the image. i couldn't decide which version of the image look better so to gather an outside view upon the image i took all three version to the convention. 

after gathering a response at the convention and seeing which edition people bought the over all winner was the far right yellow cast digitally modified painting. however i was surprised that any people at all picked up the original edition but someone commented that they liked the darker tones and it gave the image a stronger edge in contrast.

Although at this event the Yellow cast was the more popular edition i plan to test this again in June at my stall at sunny con 3.

Module 5 - Live Brief - Convention Evaluation

After completion of my live brief project i reviewed my task that i had to complete and evaluated if i completed it successfully. the criteria for success was to have created enough artwork, to create the correct theme of artwork that targeted the right audience, to have made profit on top of my expenditure and to gain experience as a seller.

for the first criteria i completed all of the artwork that i set myself to do. i made sure that i achieved this by not breaking off for rests on my artwork and leaving them for another day. i completed my digital paintings in one sitting so that i knew that they were done and did not later scrap them or  forget about them. in these digital paintings i experimented a lot with my digital painting style. i was used to painting in grey scale and layering up the color on top but for these works i decided to work straight away in one color. i found that i really enjoyed using this style and have seen a huge improvement in my work and i think this is a new style i want to take on into further works.

my secondary criteria was instantaneously met. i knew that my target audience enjoyed anime, manga and comics as it was the theme of the convention. to create artwork aimed at all different variants of fans i made two artworks based on recent new animes, 1 based on an old loved classic and lastly a redesign of a classical style Disney animation. 

due to the small size of the convention i was very lucky to break even or make any profit. however over the two days i did eventually break even and enter a profit margin even tohugh it was really small. these has learned me to evaluate the size of a convention before hand and re-estimate my expenditures so that i don't make a loss at future events.

lastly getting more experience was really good. i talked to a broad range of ages and got to see who generally liked different artworks based on aesthetics and content. i found that people were more concerned about the content of the painting rather then the quality. my newer more skilled digital paintings were left in place for older artwork that contained more popular images and characters. knowing this even more now i will research more into current trends in animation to make my drawings more appealing to potential customers.

in conclusion to this live brief set out by myself i feel that although i could o improved on some aspects and approached this convention differently, i think it still has been a great success and i have fulfilled all o the criteria that would make this project a success.

convention work

5 Week - Time Plan

5 Week timeplan

in the next five weeks i will complete the following

week one

• Update blog on recent work
• Create and complete variation of artwork for my live brief
• Refine portfolio

week two

• Create more artwork on convention pieces. Find out more about my venue and research possible opportunities and plan out setting my work out. 
• Research artists relevant to my convention work
• Create and finish my creative CV
• Attend convention

week three

• Look into more possible career paths
• Evaluate convention for experience and outcome
• Research universities relevant on my possible career paths

week four

• Update my blog on recent work
• write a commentary on my portfolio of work. This should highlight different uses of methods and media and explain how i do my work. This should also reflect upon not only my strengths but also my weaknesses and how i will improve upon these.
• Collect and finish my work based learning module.
• After collecting this work i will then evaluate my work based module.

week five

• finish uploading my creative CV to my blog
•  evaluate my portfolio based on my personal and professional development and collect videos to compose a show reel.
• creates a show reel which will be presented in my final show.
• create a copy of my final animation to suppliment my work based learnign module.
• check that all my blog work is up to date, after this has been done i will then create a final evaluation of the year.
• after i have handed in all of my modules i will then begin to plan my final show and how that will be presented.

S.M.A.R.T Targets - Convention/ Live brief

S.M.A.R.T TARGETS

To combat this project I have set out a work and time plan to complete all of the required work in the amount of time I have.

The convention is taking lace on the 29^th and 30^th of may and I need to leave two days before hand for printing. So I have created a deadline for the 27^th of may to have all my work printed out and presented in display books. 

This means I have two weeks to create my four pieces of artwork. I will spend the first two days researching content that I can base my images on. 

Then I will divide the remaining 12 days amongst the four images I have to create giving around 23 days for each one. Sticking to this deadline I should be able to complete all my work in due time for the convention.

Artist Research - Concept art - IronStylus

Artist Research - IronStylus

Looking toward future career choices i decided to look at artists that work for companies that i have researched upon and am interested in. since my skills lye in being a draftsman and illustrator i looked at Riot Games concept artist who deal with the initial designs and ideas of characters for their game League of Legends. IronStylus is the senior concept artist at Riot Games character development. The reason I'm specifically looking at the character design concept artist compared to the general concept artist is because i am enthusiastic and keen on developing characters and i really enjoy it and it would be a field I'm interested in getting into.

another reason i looked at this artist is because of his illustration style. I feel it is closely related to my own style and i feel i recognize a lot of my working methods in ironstylus's drawings. Ironstylus also uses the method of layering up colors in digital pieces using a grey scale illustration and using overlay and screen layer option. i have also been using this method in the past two years since starting this course. i did not know about this method until then and have found it to be very useful when sorting out lighting and shading in characters but also for editing characters and i can keep the layers separate and revise my design at a later date without create editing complications in the colors.

Its confidence building seeing this method used in a professional setting to let me know that these skills and techniques are used in a job setting where i want to be. this lets me know I've learned something relevant to my career path that will aid me in future success towards a job role.

as for the stylization of Ironstylus's characters and their design i would say that his work is very shape based and outfits are centered around a theme or shape. looking at his following design for Riot Game's Diana we can see around the outfit there are numeric segments to the outfit that are circular. this relates to the characters theme of the Luna. Circles can be seen as the Moon in certain stages and i think it's very creative that hes drawn segments of a circle in her outfit fashioned in such a way that it represents the Lunar cycle. also the presentation and visuals of the shapes in the armor are very fluid and flow into each other. By using this sort of style to it what looks to be simple from far away is actually really complicated in design close up. I can appreciate this level of detail and intricacy and care to detail. Personally i feel its important to make your character unique and take care to build on their design and i feel this shows in his work a lot. This level of care to character design can be seen in him Tumblr or Twitter page where he continuously updates daily sketches on his characters trying them in different variants to see if her can improve or alter the design any.

Further more reading into IronStylus's work repertoire and how he develops his own skills personally i have seen how he combats his own work issues and problems in designs. For example, previous to Diana's character design IronStylus's main habit in illustrating was to draw lines in a very harsh pointy design which can be seen at the bottom in Leona's character design. to combat this habit IronStylus created Diana and took on the designing task when he heard she was themed on the moon. This meant he had to come out of his comfort zone and create a more rounded curved illustration design. This inspires me to combat my own design issues and seek out my own flaws in design that may hinder my work and actively work against it to further improve my level in designing.

Module 6 - Contextual Essay Evaluation

For my contextual studies essay i based the theme of my essay on something very relevant and important to me and my work. i done this because not only can i write about it on a personal and professional level but also research into the context of this essay will help with my own knowledge and understanding of the subject area. for the topic of my essay i decided to choose the development and progression of digital painting. the main focus and point of this was to compare it to traditional painting and how they both influence one another and how it impacts the artist world today.

i feel like this was a very important subject for me to write about as all of this impacts on my own work and progression through animation and as a personal work artist. whilst writing my essay i realized how much digital painting had impacted the artist industry and how we see digital art now. i felt that a lot of controversial points came up throughout this essay and i had to see both sides of the arguments even if i felt as if i supported one more.

an interesting point that came up in my essay was the skill level of digital artists and future technological advances.technology in development may allow those who cant draw use their minds and imaginations to influence digital painting mediums to create artwork from eye and nerve responders. if this was the case then would the artist world collapse with a huge influx of new artists using these devices. so i feel that this module has defiantly made me think about the industry i aspire to work in more and has opened my eyes to both sides of an on going argument.

writing is not my strongest attribute so throughout the essay i did feel slight frustration when trying to create the balanced argument without putting too much of my own feelings about the subject. to combat this i kept the content of the essay mostly based on the comparison of artists and techniques. i feel that this module has improved my abilities in writing and keeping a non bias argument, also having a mix of factual arguments and opinionated argument. i enjoyed writing about some of my favorite digital painters and i felt that this helped a lot when writing about techniques used by this artist because i was so enthusiastic about how they worked as an artist. 

overall im happy with my essay and i believe that i pointed out all of the relevant points that i wanted to make and argued all of the appropriate issues that i wanted to address.  

Module 4 -compositing Evaluation

Final outcome evaluation

Using the skills and techniques that I have learned and developed in cinema 4D and adobe aftereffects and using skills I already know I created three final Idents that adhere to the prerequisites of the DCM project brief. To complete this project we had to create three abstract Idents that correlated and expressed emotions and feelings that we worked upon. For my idents I chose happiness, excitement and enlightenment. However due to the nature of the emotions actually felt during the recording of some of the footage I changed the emotional focus because of how the footage actually affected me. Due to this happiness in my recordings actually became fear because I felt a strong sense of fear when recording the footage because it was the first time I had ever been on a plane.

1. Fear

The footage for this shot was taken inside of a plane out of the window seat. At first I thought the footage would represent happiness because of how bright and sunny it was and how the clouds created a happy storybook type of scene. However all I felt was a great sense of dread in the recording. This couldn’t be ignored and I felt that I was wrongly using the footage if I tried to represent happiness because it wouldn’t be true to itself for me. I felt much better about working on what it actually was instead of something else.

When creating this Ident I wanted to create a looming feeling in the background forage because of how bright and sunny it was and I felt that this gave the wrong interpretation that I was tying to send out. To do this I created a gradient that started in the edges and became clear as it got to the center. I then set this layer to overlay. This created a gradual cast of color that grew weaker as it got to the center. I think that this helped in my creation of a darker, gloomier scene that helped set the tone and atmosphere of this ident.

After sorting out how my background would work and setting the theme of the scene I then proceeded to create my abstract for the ident. After researching how to create sharp 3d abstract shapes I began to alter the size of these shapes and the polygon count. Once I was happy with the shape and the look of these 3D objects I then created various materials that I thought could work. Here I learned what a lot of the variation options done to materials. I learned how reflection in materials affected objects and what patterns and effects they created.

I also gained experience using the blending modes. These modes are similar to photoshop but instead of separate layers they work on separate materials, also there is far fewer options with only a selection of normal, subtraction, add and multiply.

In this 3D object I created a very sharp and spiky objects to represent the growing feeling of dread. At the beginning of the ident we can only see some of it, this is to represent the creepy and growing sensation. The object is small fractals in the beginning, however they soon begin to build and grow out of controls and fall around the screen. Then in what seems to be growing distress in the object, it begins to change color, which is a sign on confusion and loss of control. Reflection effects are also then added to the materials to create a greater variation of shapes and colors. This also makes it seem as if the shape is then made out of glass and fragile and is breaking apart.

Importing this shape into after effects I then used a masking tool to cut out the 3D animation and place it in accordance the DCM logo guidelines. This means that my work will fit the criteria set by the brief. I think that the movement of the 3D object against the clouds is a good representation of the feelings I’m trying to convey. When someone feels dread they don’t necessarily show it but keep a calm exterior and the feelings build up internally. The calm clouds surrounding can see this panicking shape and shrouding what it really feels like.

Issues that arose in the creation of this ident was the background. Originally the lighting in the background was far to bright and did not convey the feeling of dread that I was trying to create. To combat this I set an overcast of purple onto my background, this cast imposed the color onto all of the objects in the scene and helped dim down the bright sun shine that was originally there. By picking the color purple it counteracted with the yellow shine of the sun, by doing this I was left with a rather cold looking visual that maybe suggested a storm looming over the scene. I think that this helped alter the mood completely and steer the message of the ident in the direction I was aiming for.

If I could change anything about these visuals I would have maybe liked to add more effects onto the background. I would have liked to emphasize on the different colors and shades in the background and outline these more, next time that I have a chance to go back on this I will look into sharpen effects for footage. I’m knowledgeable that in still images sharpen effects can cause a distortion effect where two colors meet, I will find out if this can also be applied to footage and how it interacts with my work.

As for the 3D abstract in my footage I think that the direction of the movement of the object is very well situated and flows nicely with the movement of the clouds in the background footage. However one criticism of my 3D object that I have realized is that the green tone added to the destruction of the object doesn’t work that well. I think that instead of being a complimentary contrast of the red it just sticks out to much. I don’t know weather I like how this works. In one respect it shows confusion really well by jumping from one color to another however I think it winds up too messy with all the different colors. If I go back on this 3D abstract I will work with different color compositions to see if I can find a more suitable reflection of the feeling of fear.

2. Excitement

For my second ident I decided to focus on the feeling of excitement. I chose this one because excitement can be both a positive and negative thing. We can get excited about happy things such as presents and events, but we can also get excited about negative thins such as fights. So for this ident I wanted to create a display that showed mixed feelings, mainly through the use of color and shapes. To emulate these feelings I used a sharp contrast between the visuals in the background footage and the visuals in the foreground logo. To do this I chose the color base first. For the background I chose light, saturated bright colors. This is because when using the overlay effects I knew that the sky in the backgrounds would turn out very light. By choosing a light pastel color I knew that the sky would be left in a bright cast that would allow for me to create a sharp contrast with my logo mask. To develop a high contrast visual that would stand out against my background I immediately chose a black background for the 3D visual. To create a sharp contrast in colors to make my logo stand out I selected a harsh bright color to place onto my 3D object. Creating flat gradual gradient in photoshop I imported in the image as a material in cinema 4D and overlayed it on top of the objects and it took on the color of the gradient. This makes for an interesting visual when the object moves because the gradient stays stationary so the more the object moves the more variation you get in area space covered by the gradient and how sections move into colors.

To create a variation in my idents I not only added a 3D abstract visual to the foreground but I also added one to the background. To emphasize the mixed feelings and representation of excitement I create these objects so as that to two were opposites of each other. One of the objects is very sharp and spiky, resembling smashing glass in ways with a reflective surface texture making it seem even more glass like and sharp. To combat this is contrasting visuals the foreground object has a hyperNurbs tag on it. This smoothens down and joins all the polygons in such a way that it looks rounded off. Also as the sharp 3D visuals explode outwards in a dangerous manner, flat, hemoglobin shaped like objects fall downwards from the sky creating a mix of atmosphere and emotion as they both clash together.

I believe that this ident is very successful in what I want it to achieve and conveys my own personal feelings on the emotion topic of excitement. I feel that it achieves this because by using different gradients on my foreground and background I create two emotions. I feel that the pastels colors surrounding the abstract represent a happy exited feeling that surrounds you and envelops you in its happiness. However in contract feeling to this we have this imploding feeling of excitement shown in the slime green color which I feel maybe represents the emotion of hate or envy, so maybe this displays the feeling of when you encounter someone and you get this intense excitement because they have upset you in one way or another. I feel that this ident creates a very intense contrast in messages and some will understand it in one way and then others will get the other side of the message.

Aspects that I would change about this ident would immediately be the gradient overlayed onto the background of the scene. I feel that to enhance the feeling of happy excitement that it represents that I need to lighten the gradient as there is to many dark tones in it that meld too much into the central logo. Otherwise I still feel that it completes its job in conveying that feeling, however it could be improved upon to better represent that.

3. Enlightenment

For my final ident I chose the theme of the emotion enlightenment. For me enlightenment is a stat of calm feelings underlined with a feeling of progression and happiness. Also that it is a slow building feeling that happens over time. To best represent this I recorded footage of a turning feeris wheel. I chose this footage because mainly we associate ferris wheels with fairgrounds and happiness, but also a calm trip. A ferris wheel slowly turns around and around and you start at the bottom, which can represent the starting stage of enlightenment, then when you get to the top you are happy because you can see and understand more which can be compared to the last stage of enlightenment. To accompany and build towards the conveying of these visuals I created complimentary visuals that supported the background. In cinema 4D I used a variation of what I believe to be soothing but bright and inspiring colors on my 3D object, which I modified to have shorter rage of movement. This makes it appear as if instead of moving around wildly, that instead the shape is pulsing and growing.

I think that this overall visual is a good interpretation of the feeling of enlightenment. I feel this way just because of watching it back over myself. I think that the 3D visual abstract is place well and moves in time to the rotation of the ferris wheel. This seems to develop a calming like feeling and atmosphere. I would describe these as soothing aesthetics that you don’t expect to do anything really your just happy to watch them.

Looking back on this ident has made me see that there is a lot of black empty space I did not work with. I’m not to sure about all of the effects I can use in aftereffects but if I had time to go back onto it I would have researched into lighting effects that can be placed in footage. In the background I would have liked to maybe create a light rain effect to make it look magical, like out of a film. Or also I would have like to impose stars onto the scene since there is quite a lot of black space and I think that it was not used to its full potential and leaves the ident very empty. For further revision of this ident I would like to combat this visual issue and make use of the space with simple composite stars or some sort of glitter effect.

After placing all of my idents together I think I have an interesting variation of visuals and themes, however I have also been able to keep a consecutive theme going which helps them all support each other visually as a edited piece together making transitions from one ident to another visually flow. I believe that my idents visually represent their chosen emotions successfully and work together well as a composition. They all adhere to the guidelines and show development ad progress in my understanding of 3D visuals. I am a lot more confident experimenting and using cinema 4D to create abstract visuals, which I would actively avoid doing before hand, I feel that this project has help progress and move forwards my confidence in using such programs in future work. Having this new insight in on these programs I feel that my next progression in 3D work will be aided by the abilities I have learned in this project.

Live Brief Convention

Live brief project

 The brief

For my live brief project I have applied for a position at an anime and manga convention based in the north east of England, Newcastle, called NCLCON.  At this venue I will be selling reprints of my artwork, both digital and traditional, at a table stall inside of the convention. To fully apply myself for this position and achieve the maximum amount of potential from it I will need to create new artwork relate to current trends and popularity in anime and manga culture.

The position that I have applied for at the convention is as an independent artist. During my attendance at the actual convention on the day of the event I will be required to manage and maintain my own sales table that will display my artwork for people to view. This will require an appropriate level of presentation and planned positioning of products for customers to be able to view and browse artwork with ease. Also display prices will have to be created to readily inform the audience with greater ease, this will make my stall far more productive.

My action plan towards completing my preparation for the convention is based in three different sections. Firstly is research, to complete this I will look at recent popularity rises in certain anime series. This is to target recent joiners of the anime scene. People who have just gotten into anime usually pick the most recent and most popular series ro introduce themselves into the community. After doing some research I picked a series called Kill la Kill to create fan artwork of. The artwork for this series also targets the fan service markets, as the characters in this TV series are very underdressed. I feel that by picking this sort of artwork I can target the male audience because official posters are not available and also the keen anime fans who watch all the new series.

For my second piece of artwork created for this event I chose a classic anime film to create artwork of. For this I selected studio ghiblis princess mononoke. This is because it’s a renowned film and those who aren’t even anime fans know of it. Majorly studio ghibli films receive a good reception amongst viewers. Ghibli films are usually more female orientated with stories of love and friendship however princess mononoke has that violent edge that appeals it towards the male audience. Knowing this I evaluated it as a good choice to try and sell and maximize my artworks appeal to the target audience.

My last piece of artwork I decided to make none anime related. This was to cater to those who might just be interested and curious about the event or attending with friends and family. I kept this piece related to animation but not to anime and manga. My last piece of artwork was based on Disney’s the little mermaid. Again I chose this because of its renowned visuals that anyone who has seen this film can recognize. All of this artwork will be created digitally as to minimize cost on materials.

The reason I have created different categories of artwork is so that I can complete my task of selling my artwork to the convention attendees and make enough money to break even or gain profit. Success will be determined by how much money I actually make, this will be influenced on the choices I have made in artwork and how popular they are.