Happy Halloween! :)

Pumpkin I carved :)  

Maya : Pencil and Eraser (Textured)

Life Drawing 1

In today's life drawing class we had a female model called Jane, (who I have drawn before in my foundation year). I really enjoy the drawing classes, I find them very relaxing and gives me a break from fixing my eyes on the computer screens. The first drawing was a single pose observation which we spent about 20 minutes on, I thought this one was the least successful as I don't think I got the proportions very accurate and just wasn't pleased with the overall appearance of it.
The second time, Jane held six different poses for just a minute each, I really enjoyed this exercise and although I felt a bit rushed, it got me working really quickly and loosely and I was surprised by how well some of them turned out. I especially liked the bottom right one :)
The third piece we drew Jane in two 15 minute sitting poses. I also thought this one was good as we had a lot more time to add some detail and tonal elements and use a medium of our choice, I stuck with the charcoal at first but then worked over the top with some ink so it was a lot bolder.
The final exercise was to draw Jane in 15 poses that were held for 30 seconds each which I found a bit more difficult as the time went so quickly and I was running out of room on my sheet of paper! The idea was to work very loose again with just a few suggestive lines etc and to try and capture the movement of her body and how it changes in the different positions.

Initial Thumbnails

Here's my first set of thumbnails that relate to my character's lair, I tried to use a variety of angles / perspectives to see what works well. At the moment I quite like 6 and 7 but in my next set of thumbnails I'm going to focus more on using tone and colour. Opinions welcomed ! :)

Influence Maps

Here's a couple of influence maps for my 'Atomic Master Criminal' character's lair...

Secret Lair of the...

Pre-Brief Research and Thumbnails

THE CANDY LAND HUNTSMAN

 With Jordan yesterday we practiced getting research and thumbnails done really quickly, not to be scared about having too much detail at this stage ad just trying new ways of working. So we were given three scenes to choose from and research which were;
The Secret Lair of the Candy land Huntsman
The Secret Lair of the Steam-punk Explorer
The Secret Lair of the Gaelic Golem
So first I did the Candy land Huntsman one. We were given roughly 10 mins each time to create a quick kind of influence map based on our characters and then 15 mins to create 'Secret Lair' thumbnails from the information we gathered. Here's my other two....

                                                   THE STEAM-PUNK EXPLORER

                                                              THE GAELIC GOLEM

 I really enjoyed this class and actually learnt a lot about how you can produce some potentially really useful thumbnails in a really short amount of time and not have to worry too much. Even from a few quick lines you can start to tell if the composition is working so then you can work more detail into it later. 

I will be using Jordan's tips when I find out my character / hero prop later on today.

 :)

Still Life

I really enjoyed the still life drawing class last week with Vicky, the installation we had to draw from was so colourful and interesting to draw. I started off with a quick pencil sketch and then used a light wash of brown watercolour for the wooden easel parts of the installation. I then used some of the very vibrant inks that were provided for the bright sheets of plastic / tissue paper that were attached which a gave a really bold and eye-catching effect. We were given cyan, magenta and yellow ink pigments so I mixed some of them to get colours such as orange and purple. Here is a photo-collage I made from the pictures I took and the drawing I made from the structure.
 :)

Project Crit Tomorrow Guys...

:)

Crit Presentation

Crit Presentation.pptx

The Final Three

Final Three Paintings + Corresponding Influence Maps

                                                 

Experimenting with Colour

Last 'Four Grid' experimenting with colour for my final painting... I think I will use either number 2 or 4 :)

Combining

Another quick idea ...

Experimenting with Colour

Colour comps for third final painting. Personally I think 3 would fit in best with my other two but I think there's still something about it that doesn't quite look right ?
Feedback welcome (:  

Submission Disk Artwork

Just had my artwork printed on to the disk for submission on Friday. This was one of my pivotal thumbnails, after playing about with the colours in Photoshop, this then made me decide on my colour scheme that would run throughout my three final paintings.

Perspective Thumbnails

Some quick thumnail sketches to test different perspectives / angles for my last scene. 

@Phil - Final Three Ideas in Colour

So, these are my three ideas for my final paintings, I've decided to take them all from one book (The Red Room) as I feel it has the best atmosphere and potential. If you could let me know what you think of them as a set that would be great :) 

Experimenting with Colour

Again just testing colour combinations to see what works best - thumbnail 1 was the original and the others were edited. This is another idea for one of my final paintings, I think 3 and 4 are the most successful as the colours are most eye-catching and 4 is quite 'toxic' like Phil said in my previous colour  comps.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Film Review

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Film Review.

Although many parts I didn't quite understand, I enjoyed watching this film. As the film didn't have much of a storyline I think it's meant to be very open to interpretation and probably has many different meanings, like George D. DeMet says "When audiences first saw "2001" in the spring of 1968, many were baffled. The film lacked a traditional plot structure, contained almost no dialogue and had an ending that many found confusing." (D. DeMet, George) 
The film starts in a prehistoric time in a canyon-like setting with vast space inhabited by hominid creatures (Figure 1). Kubrick makes great use of perspective filling the screen with foreground, middle ground and background space and there is a monochromatic night time shot using different shades of blue which contrasts effectively against warm setting previously. 

 The scene ends by focusing on one of the apes playing with the bones of a prehistoric corpse (Figure 2); he picks up one and starts smashing it against others whilst the film’s theme tune plays at the moment of his realisation of finding a weapon in which he uses to attack another enemy hominid.  The transition from this beginning of the film to the next section was really well put together. As the ape finally releases the bone-part into the air, the camera follows it as it then cuts into the outer space scene where there is a satellite of similar shape navigating slowly. Within 20 minutes of the film we are at the peak of human evolution.

Whilst the audience watch the futuristic objects floating in space, there is classical music by Johann Strauss playing alongside which gives a sense of peacefulness and grace.

The exterior texture of the spacecraft reminded of a circuit board and once the viewers are introduced to the inside of the spacecraft, they can see how futuristic the interiors are, very white / clinical and the unique shaped red seats stand out against the light walled interior (Figure 3). The ‘too-clean’ looking space and low ceilings that give a cramped and claustrophobic feel might make the audience feel a little uncomfortable – especially at the time of the film’s production as this was a type of world that they were not used to. 

As man hadn't actually been to the moon when this film was made, it was a very accurate portrayal of the moon, surface very open and vast again, very canyon-like and with craters.

In a scene in one of the space cabins there is a very obvious contrast in lighting (complimentary) highlighting the two different compartments the astronauts are in, giving sense of depth / space. Outside of the spacecraft, on the moon’s surface, eerie sound effects are played whilst astronauts are marching down towards the mysterious monolith. The camera is following them directly behind and it’s very intense so that the viewer may feel uneasy. Throughout the film, Kubrick has set up many uncomfortable angles (Dutch angles) which are common in horror genre films so that the audience naturally feels that something is not quite right. He also thought about the robot HAL 9000’s perspective from inside the machine and gave a ‘fish-eye’ lens effect (Figure 5) when looking out from HAL 9000’s point of view on to the other characters (Figure 4).

The use of sound in the film is used very effectively, particularly when one of the main astronaut characters Dave is floating in space and the audience can just hear his very loud, slow and heavy breathing. This represents the total emptiness and silence of space and it makes you feel his fear.

There is strong irony in this film where even though the human race is at it’s absolute peak in evolution and technological development, the astronauts on the journey have to learn to walk again (in the zero-gravity environment), eat food like a baby, and be ‘toilet trained’ (Kubrick2001).

The mysterious appearance of the black monoliths, for me, resemble a similar concept to the remarkable British monument and mystery of Stone Henge in Wiltshire (Figure 6).

Bibliography

Images: 

Figure 1 - Initial Prehistoric Scene
http://neofilm.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/2001-a-space-odyssey/ (Accessed 20/10/13)

Figure 2 - Ape Discovering Bone / Weapon
http://www.domusweb.it/en/design/2012/07/18/do-androids-dream-of-an-electric-aesthetic-.html (Accessed 20/10/13)

Figure 3 - Spacecraft Interior
http://allthehappycreatures.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/mega-therions-promethean-space-odyssey.html (Accessed 20/10/13)

Figure 4 - HAL 9000 Perspective
http://marciokenobi.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/ (Accessed 20/10/13)

Figure 5 - Fish Eye Lens Examples
http://petapixel.com/2010/04/20/make-a-nifty-soda-can-fisheye-lens/ (Accessed 20/10/13)

Figure 6 - Stone Henge
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/ (Accessed 20/10/13)

Quotes:

D. DeMet, George - The Special Effects of "2001: A Space Odyssey"

http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/dfx.html (Accessed 20/10/13) 

Kubrick2001 - The Space Odyssey Explained

http://www.kubrick2001.com/ (Accessed 20/10/13)