about the author: storyboarding workshop

The key to making storyboards is to see it as a sequence rather than one image. There has to be a strict order to things.

* Sound is not just an add-on at the end!* Sound can alter an animation's atmosphere entirely, and if the sounds don't fit it will ruin the effect. The sound can dictate the work, and sometimes has more effect than the visuals.

Types of movement:

* POSITIONAL

* TRACK

* PAN 

* ZOOM

Especially in After Effects, but also in the context of us being illustrators rather than animators it is key to keep the work simple. Using pan and zoom can create an interesting effect with a smaller amount of frames or assets.

I didn't really keep this in mind whilst making my storyboards! But it's definitely something I need to consider, considering my skill level.

The storyboarding task was quite difficult!

• putting the original image in the middle frame meant we had to think both backwards and forwards. I found this difficult but as an exercise it makes sense, and would be a good way to not get too carried away with an animation (just going forward might lead to something that will last forever!)
• I'm struggling to get my head around timing. My storyboards had lots of different cut scenes and I don't think this would be possible in a 15 second animation or rather it would look very choppy and strange, especially when I think of Murakami as slow paced. It was suggested that scenes should be between five and ten seconds long.

I was a bit concerned about the animation and was reminded to look at Saul Bass's work. I could even do something similar with my shape driven pieces. What I like about Bass's work as well as the simplicity is the textures, and I'm starting to wonder if I could scan hand painted elements in to move or if digital is more recommended.

about the author: shape paintings

I was feeling at a loss of ideas, so took this image which had been previously well received:

and painted it with gouache. Just to make something!

This style was mostly a mistake. I wasn't sure how to blend gouache in the right way to mimic screen printing inks so tried to create an overlay by creating an almost negative effect when the black and the white (stock) met. I had arranged some shapes but was careless and accidentally painted over some, so turned them into even more shapes to cover this up!

Concerned about the flatness I added some brushstrokes to the image too. In the above one I felt they looked a little too static so in the next followed the curvature of the figures.

I'm trying to not just draw moody faces all the time, even if that is what Murakami says to me! I want to push myself. I suppose this style is different to what I usually do but it's still been a lot about sad faces. I don't think I can be better until I am different.

I think they would be ideal for screen printing, or even lino, but they could also be animated. Being in the workshop about the animated sting made me realise that this is more about simplicity and moving images rather than something suited to a feature length animation. After seeing these Ben suggested I take another look at the Saul Bass film openings and how effective simple movement could be.

As I continued this project in an evening I got tired and smudged some paint. I decided that as it was already 'bad' I may as well experiment with it or just go a little looser! I do enjoy this style, the texture adds another dimension and I think it would still be screen-printable. But I wonder if these textures would upset the way I construct these shape images.

So far they have been good and I may make a few more but all in all I don't think I should get too caught up in this too soon, and maybe return to it later.  

digital print workshops

Overall these workshops have been quite helpful! The second week introduced me to how Pantone works (I think I mostly understand them now) and reminded me how useful and not as complicated as I had once thought Channels in Photoshop are. All of these should prove helpful at one point or another as an illustrator potentially working for print, but probably quite soon as I think I would like to screen print my project.

notes:

part one: 

part two:

access pantone colours through the colour picker

if the mode of the image is CMYK every colour will be produced with CMYK process colours- not good for spot colours SO:

using channels for spot colours:

make a new spot channel with the colour you would like to work with. the colour doesn't matter too much as when printed it will be a black positive but gives the idea of what the print will look like

colour it in

double click the layer to edit  its properties (the colour)

 

converting CMYK to spot colour

select colour range and make a new spot channel whilst the selection is selected

it looks weird because the spot channel and the CMYK channels are visible and merging together

when selecting the colour range make sure you have selected the CMYK layer again! if it's on a spot colour layer Photoshop can't see the colour 

check positives for specks and clean up!

printing is the same as CMYK separations!

.tiff or .psd

it looks like this because all of the channels are showing

separations preview can assure you of the real result!

make CMYK invisible

untick the printer icon next to the CMYK separations and it's good to go

FOR LARGE FORMAT PRINTS: SPLIT THE CHANNELS IN PHOTOSHOP AND PRINT THE SEPARATE FILES !

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making separations with tints:

for this image there isn't any point splitting it into three spots when two of them are tints of the same colour!

make a new spot channel, select the lighter colour from the CMYK channel (colour range)

go back to the spot channel

choose a light / corresponding grey

edit > fill

and fill the darkest colour with black

go to print in Illustrator, it is pretty similar to before, BUT

change the frequency to 50-60lpi, or for a lo-fi effect go lower

15 degrees is a good angle for one colour

FOR A LARGE FORMAT PRINT: SPLIT CHANNELS IN PHOTOSHOP AND ADD HALF TONES

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overprinting / knocking out:

separations mimic the transparency of screen printing

solidity at 0% mimics transparent inks

solidity at 100% mimics opaque inks (mostly used for fabric printing)

it still looks mixed because the order of channels works in the opposite way to the order of layers

knocking out: is when the separations do not touch! you must be careful when registering these prints. editing a print so that there is some overprinting with a slight tint/ hue change may look better than white/ paper gaps. 

Thoughtbubble Zine: Newt Musical Express

After having my concerns that it wouldn't be appropriate or skilled enough to do the animal album art pun zine I set to work on making and construction of the images.

Working in monochrome was a concern because of the sometimes colourful nature of the albums but actually became an interesting exercise in trying to balance an image through values. Doing it this way has made me more considerate of coloured images and their values too.

Type is not something I'm familiar with or particularly skilled with so I stuck to what I know with Futura font. The square format of the images was difficult to place on a rectangular page but also gave me some freedom to have combinations of images on a page or vary the layout to hopefully give the book a more varied pace and interesting look. I'm wondering if the non-ruler-drawn edges add to the charm or make it look messy. I'd like to think the former.

After realising that almost all of the albums were set in the 80s or 00s I decided that this could work as a miniature narrrative, with interluding pages suggesting the progression of time between two significant periods. It also reminded me of the interesting debate of if album art is relevant any more in a time of tiny ipod screens, although I didn't really touch on that in the zine. I quite like the first image, and although the perspective is a little wonky I think it suits the style (not entirely an excuse however). 

The second image is simple and I noticed once printed that because the grey shape is so big it is a little distracting to the eye compared to its opposing page. A double spread interlude would have been nice to avoid this / give more of a sense of story or just a break to the pace of the book but due to economical reasons (only 12 pages) I decided not to sacrifice more of the puns (the main point of the book) for that)