[Project 3] I Belong

"I Belong" is a piece the address the issue of not fitting in. It deals with the exclusion of several "color" groups before finally finding a place where they fit in. The main issue I had with this project was trying to get the idea to translate. It honestly no longer felt like a piece that addressed the issue of mixed races, but of someone who doesn't seem to conform with everyone else. I also had an issue with making sure that my station was clean. I mean, not the station where everything was, but the area where the camera was taking pictures. Little particles can be seen (and are amplified) on the screen. Another downer is that there is no sound in this piece. But, I did find other ways to animate faster. I did try to find efficient routes to get the story across. This video was definitely a learning process, and I found out that layering transparent paper PUSHES the depth of the picture. I wish I learned this sooner as it was difficult to see the green figure in front of the yellow figures.

[Project 3] More Tests and Concept Work

CONCEPT

Character designs (primary colors = basic shapes, secondary = more complex)

Title will probably be "Belong"? WIP Title. 

TESTS

 Using different tools

 Oil pastel doesn't work on the glass, but does work really well on the overhead sheets

 Frosting is alright to carve stuff out, but I prefer oil pastels

[Project 3] Concept and Visuals

[Project 2] Self Evaluation

Title: The Knight and the Princess

Initial Main Idea: I wanted to create a fun story with two princesses. It started when I was brainstorming different ideas, but when an 8 bit song started to play, I suddenly had a strong impulse to create a story that involved two princesses. These two princesses were close. They hung out at the garden before the dragon came and burned it down. The tall princess grabs a bucket in order to dose the fire out, but the chubby princess is captured. The tall princess then begins her quest to save the chubby princess from the dragon.

Source of Idea and Importance: The source of the idea came from an 8 bit song. At first, just briefly, I thought of a princess saving a prince, but then I was just enraptured by the idea of two princesses instead (which will later be changed to a feminine knight and a princess). There was something about this story that fueled my very being. Maybe it's a reflection of the people I've been around, maybe it's due to the lack of happy endings with homosexual love stories, maybe it's because of all the different types of people I've seen out in the world, BUT I just couldn't not do it. I feel like it was a combination of things that really pushed this idea out.

Key Emotion/Experience for Audience: Satisfied; thrilled; happy; excited

Brief Synopsis: Golden knight goes on a quest to the mountain to save the princess from a greedy dragon.

Theme Discovered: True love comes in any form? I don't know, that sounds a bit forced. I mean, the way I see it is that it doesn't really matter what gender you could fall in love with. Your savior could be a kickin' ass woman, or maybe you could love someone who doesn't identify with a gender. Maybe you end up liking a non-masculine man, and that's okay. Love isn't restricted to the heterosexual norms.

Strengths of Film: The bucket being used as the weapon. I would also say that the secondary animation was also a strength (such as the fire burning and the panning). I also feel that the story itself (although overused) was really strong. Especially when others were really interested in seeing the end product. 

Problem Areas: One of the problem areas would the consistency of the knight. Switching from gold armor to brown armor probably wasn't the best idea. During production, my main concern was having the character stick out from the environment, but I didn't want brown armor to be against the brown town. But I also didn't want the yellow armor to be lost against the golden background at the end.

Another problem area would be the dragon fight scene. The fight scene was condensed especially because of time. I would also say sound is definitely something that needs to be worked on in this film. (Also the ending, I should make the bucket more apparent around the dragon's snout). 

Process, Discoveries, and Frustrations: There was so much thumbnailing. I just remember drawing and redrawing the characters until I got the right feel for them. I know for the knight (previously known as the tall princess), the inspiration was drawn from tough firewomen. I thought about the types of tools that they could've used (an axe being one of them), but then I thought of a bucket because fire(wo)men put fires out. So, I definitely decided to look for different types of inspiration rather than just pure medieval settings. Also, things on paper may look much better than the end product.

One of the frustrations I had was when I was working on the project, I would accidentally hit the light source and start the whole scene again from scratch because I couldn't get the light back to the way it was. Also finding out that I should've made more assets was also killer. But it really did push me to use the assets I did have and trying to find the right way to use them.

I think this film allowed me to also understand how to condense story plots without losing the main essence of the plot.

[Career Services] "Building a Freelance Client Base Pt 2" Notes

FREELANCE
-using artwork as a communication tool

Non-profits excellence
(communication helps spread message, but it's usually thought of as the last thing. It needs to be the first: in order to spread awareness and gain aid)

Turn your art to serve other purposes

Different non-profit organizations:

• BRIDGES: empower youth to make a change
• ADV MEMPHIS: for adults to acquire knowledge 
• "A human being always want to make honest money"
• MIFA
• OPERA MEMPHIS
• BADDOUR CENTER

Art assets for collateral (prints, etc.)

• infographics (data rich society, visually rich)
• artist illustrations
• keep and use (prints and web)
• concept stock photos that aren't THE WORST

Examples: Pollen (thisispollen)

Overton Park partnership?

Tiers for alumnis and current students?

"doodle with direction"

provide opportunities for teams

[Project 2] The Knight and the Princess

I think the hardest part of this project had to be making the assets. Because once you animate, it's just a ride. You animate, and it becomes a meticulous activity, but you are in the process of making images move. When you're making assets, you don't know if they'll work 100%. I also think that cutting down my storyboards was difficult to do because I loved the beginning. Instead, I had to cut that out in order to save time. It's slightly disappointing, but it still has the same action.

Coming up with a title was also difficult as I was stuck on "Bucket Princess" (because of the original storyline). It wasn't until I spoke with some friends that they told me that it should be simple and a surprise twist at the end.

Skype Interview: Evan Cagle

Art Director of King's Quest

Background

• No school (self-taught)
• parents thought art style wouldn't be unique if he went to art school
• Moved around a lot (journalist dad)
• born in Houston, TX
• went to high school at Austin, TX 
• last two years of high school, did an illustration advertising program
• no desire for advertising
• early days for computer art
• later interned in Oregon for 3 years
• cobble stone digital art

Portfolio = Pen/ink work; watercolor

Moving = GOOD; part of industry?; tied to work better

Art Director

• works with 10 artists (evenly split between new artists and experienced artists)
• when looking at hiring, interested in
• how people do it
• their curiosity and willingness to experiment
• mess around with different softwares
• no committed style
• generic stuff can give you jobs, but how does it make you stand out?
• think of balance
• mix it up; tired to see repetitive art
• wide range
• helps with productivity
• some don't draw, but he dislikes that; he also creates art for games
• leads, don't prevent him from drawing

Interested in stories, not so much puzzles

MODELERS

• low poly work, for game aspect
• what you envision; what you want to see in a game
• reality and functionality

ALSO, when doing art, if you're doing medieval work, don't just look at medieval armor and things related to medieval times; look at the most unlikely source for context and mesh them together

• the contradictions makes the piece interesting

[Career Services] "Internship Orientation" Notes

INTERNSHIP
What do you want to learn? (keep the objective in mind!)
Work environment? (big = single task, small = broader tasks)
Benefits?

• Exploration
• Experience
• Connections
• Professional Skills
• Builds up CONFIDENCE 

Criteria

• 2.5 GPA
• Career Exploration (what do you want to do?)
• Job Manager
• Talk with Advisor
• Faculty Recommendation

Career Connections (Sell yourself)

• still can use as an alumni (recommended to use after 1-2 years after school)

Resume Workshop (2/11)

3-5 Sites 

Social Media Clean up

• Grandmother theory
• engagement and integrity

Ferris Scholarship

• $2500 cover expenses
• 3 hour studio
• High Profile Intern Outside Memphis

[Career Services] "Building a Freelance Client Base" Notes

Licensing - outlet for artwork

"Think of the end in sight" - think of the end goal as you're doing the work

Think about usages for images

• typically think of them for a single purpose
• consider multiple uses
• contracts?
• limit what the image is used for?
• consider the amount of time that it takes to create a piece of work
• can't be a constant machine, can only crank out work by so much
• multiple uses will help get more money to you (i.e. putting stuff on mugs, posters, t-shirts, etc)
• sites like this are RedBubble, Society6, Etsy BUT they're aimed at a small audience

Licensing, selling rights to images

• typically character licensing (Batman, Mickey Mouse, etc.)

SURTEX SHOW

Buyer Market Place

Licensing firm

(Overall, it was discussing the benefits of licensing to the artist as they haven't built up the trust in their consumers as other market brands have. By having the brands redistribute the work, the clients buy the artist's work because they have a trust system with the said brand. It benefits both parties.)

[Project 2] Ideas

I had a couple of ideas jotted down, some more elaborate than others. Some examples would include two musical sounds (techno and swing music) clashing against each other before merging together and making electroswing. However, I got stuck with how I would go about the project since I'm not musically inclined, and it would be difficult to get the music to clash and merge together well.

So, I looked on incompetech.com and based my idea around the songs that I could use. Some ideas I jotted down were stuff like "Fruit Rotting", "Cafe Shop", and "DDR", which looking back, probably made more sense at the time than now.

But the idea that I'm really inclined to do is a side scroll video game. Well, video game inspired.

It begins with a title screen start menu before start is chosen. It continues with two princesses hanging out together before one of them (we'll call them Princess A) gets captured by a dragon! Princess B changes from her dress to armor and goes off to save Princess B. We get to see the side scroll action as Princess B faces off some monsters, but the real danger is the boss fight with the dragon. As Princess B goes for the kill, the screen goes to white. We cut to Princess A trapped in a tower when BAM the dragon's head breaks the wall! Princess B has tamed the dragon as her stead! Princess A swoons and kisses Princess B. It ends with both princesses flying off together into the sunset on their new dragon.

Start around 1:41 for game play

Shovel Knight

Not all side scrolls are limited to pixel art

[Project 2] Artist Influence and Ideas

After reviewing the videos, I have come to the conclusion that... they're really strange! But some are a good kind of strange. Like the "Monty Python - one of the famous cartoons" had some really strange humor, but I did enjoy how the baby stroller was eating grannies or how The Kiss was used as a flute! If anything, it changes what we normally see and transforms it to something else completely. Martha Colburn focuses her animations on important issues, but the way that her animations transform into something else completely is very hands on. Most of the videos just reminded me of "a mistake with the rig on After Effects". But videos like Gain+Loss, it shows how these animations can address important issues (not to say that Martha Colburn didn't) but in a more serious way.

Found images, drawn images, different material all together like puzzle pieces, this type of animation is very open to any flat material.

I was very intrigued by Norman McLaren's "Le Merle" and how he based it off of a verse. But the bird transforms into something else completely. But more so, the bird is made my minimum lines. It's really cool the different forms that this bird can take. It also shows that the animation doesn't need to be super detailed, but it can have simple gestures that can be just as interesting. "Notes on a Triangle" also follows this same pattern, where simple shapes are the main focus in the film. 

As for ideas, I'm thinking about having someone build a robot to be their friend? Or maybe something based more on aesthetic animation. Or maybe having something over the top? Maybe on the ridiculous side. Maybe when the person is making the robot, some odd objects are used to help the robot function. Or maybe the robot sees how many attempts were made (maybe a junkyard to see all the broken stuff). I don't know, but it'll go somewhere. 

[Project 1] Art Statement

          With “I Am Your Mother,” I wanted the video to really show the dynamic between a mother and her child.  I wanted to show the stereotypical nurturing, saint-like mother trope that people have grown accustomed to and “crush” that illusion.  This collage is meant to question the phrase “I am your mother” as it becomes a phrase in order to excuse their misdemeanors.  

          I gathered pictures and videos from multiple sources including a huge stack of magazines, illustrated books, and various sites.  With the use of multiple sources, it helps address a more complex issue than it would with a single medium.  The multiple sources help address the jumbled tones within this film ranging from bliss to extreme uneasiness.

          The layers were a great way to transition from one idea to the next from ink drops to torn paper. Most of the transitions in this film related to paper: how memories can be altered, how viewpoints can shift, how fragile paper can be. It’s hard to erase what’s already been written. The damage has been done; the actions can no longer be taken back.  And everything just crushes down on this child to the point of being overwhelmed by the “I am your mother”s.

          I really dislike the phrase “I am your mother” as I was growing up.  It never made sense to me to listen to someone who was practically a stranger in my life.  Yet, with that phrase, it entitles the mother to her child, even when she may not deserve such respect from their child.  Some moms don’t deserve that respect as they can reject their child’s affections, their ideas, their chance to be… themselves.  But the idea that a child has to listen to their mother purely because of biology doesn’t make sense.