Minor Project- New Post in Collaborative Blog

See more by following us.

Link: http://tsyganproduction.blogspot.co.uk/

Experimenting in Photoshop: Grey Scale to Colour

I came across a tutorial on how to colour black and white drawings. I wanted to try it as I had never tried rendering a drawing like this and I like the look it creates as it reminds me of book illustrations. 

The link to the tutorial is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zurMZ97uLKM

I really like how this image has turned out and hope to use this technique in the future.

Sketch 

Clean up lines 

Grey scale (longest part, took around 7-8 hours for me)

Soft light colour layer with out grey scale underneath

Final image

Animating in Photoshop- Test Shot

I wanted to try out more animation in Photoshop, so I made this very quick test shot. I'd like to do more with hand drawn animation, and I feel I know where I need to improve from making this quick test. I feel I need to improve on animating shadows, and clean up lines. Also feel I could do with some more drawing exercises to help me improve with drawing anatomy.

                       

Sketching from Google Earth

There were times when I'd waste hours away on Google Earth, and just looking at random countries. I find Google Earth to be slightly addictive, but I thought it could benefit me if I drew sketches from it. As the street view cameras are panoramic, it makes it more interesting to draw from instead of drawing from a photograph. Having panoramic images allow me to look around the landscape as I was sketching. These drawings are speed paintings done in Photoshop and I didn't spend much time on them, and kept them quite rough. I focused on natural landscapes this time, but I'd like to tackle city landscapes next.

Life Drawing Class- Photoshop Enhancement

I joined the first year's life drawing class briefly last week, and did some rough sketches of the model. However the drawings were rushed and I also photographed the sketches poorly. So I took the images into Photoshop to enhance the brightness and contrast of the drawings and then decided to paint over the sketched in selected parts using the magic tool.

Prophecy Bird Animation Test for Adaptation B

This is a test animation for the prophecy birds in the astrologer animation. This was made in Adobe Animate (Flash) and composed in After Effects, where the two matte paintings were added to create a background and texture. Once it was composed I noticed I had missed colouring a frame and so there's a slight blink in the colours. Big thank you to Julien for helping me in after effects! 

Matte painting for the peacock 

Matte painting of the night sky

                             

The Astrologer- Concept Art and Expression Sheet for Adaptation B

Been working on a couple of final concept pieces for the character and the environment. Also drew a rough expression sheet, to reference from when creating the face rig and the blend shapes of the astrologer character.

The Astrologer's House- Interior Concept Art for Adaptation B

This is a concept painting of the interior of the astrologers house. I hope to model and texture this set for the project. I understand it'll be difficult and time consuming, but I'll do as much as I can and hope to have it finished at some point before the end of Easter. For now I'll begin modelling the set, then move onto UVs. I want this environment to look compact and busy, also in a bit of a mess. Hopefully that will reflect the astrologer character well.

Mountain Thumbnails and Studies for Adaptation B

So far I've pictured the Astrologer's home seated on top of a mountain over looking a civilisation. It's his way of placing himself above his neighbours, and into the sky to see the prophecies. I'm trying to experiment with different shapes for the mountains. I made a few silhouettes to narrow down what I want. 

YPGTTO: Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #3 The Woodwind City / The Oboe District

The Astrologer- Prop and Environment Research for Adaptation B

I was lucky enough to visit the R.A.S in London, the Royal Astronomical Society, to go see and photograph some antique telescopes. I needed to have something to reference my own telescope design for the adaptation project. I took a lot of photos, and tried a couple of sketches whilst I was there, but I mainly stuck with taking photographs.

I'd like my telescope to look slightly unusual and since there is a bird watcher theme to my astrologer, I'd like the telescope to resemble giant binoculars. 

The R.A.S had an incredible looking library, which I may use to reference from when designing the interior of the astrologer's home.

Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #2 In The Woodwind City - The Flute District

YPGTTO: Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #1 'The Map' - First Concept

My first attempt at the speed paint challenge. I've only done one so far, as listening to one piece of music repeatedly for a good twenty minutes was getting slightly annoying.

The Astrologer- Prophecy Birds Design Development for Adaptation B

I like the idea of having different nebulas for each type of prophecy. The peacock symbolizes wealth, the vulture symbolizes impending death, and the swan symbolizes love. So for each prophecy I want to create different colour schemes to help portray their meanings.

The Astrologer- Bird Thumbnails and Backdrop Concept for Adaptation B

In my animation I imagine the astrologer acting as a kind of bird watcher, scouting the night sky for prophecies of the future, as if they were rare birds he wants to document. Whilst drawing thumbnails, I realize that different species of birds could represent different types of prophecy. For example the swan could represent love, the peacock could represent wealth and the vulture could represent death. In terms of drawing style, I feel that using sharp, angular shapes make the birds resemble star charts. I also plan on using 2D animation for these as it creates a new dimension that separates the astrologer's world from the world of the stars. It also may save some time as I wouldn't have to model, UV and rig bird characters for the animation.

Below is a concept painting of the sky for the animation. I looked at images taken from the Hubble telescope, which depicted vast and colourful nebulas in space. I really want to use a nebula as the backdrop for the animation, as it introduces a new idea for the narrative. I can imagine the astrologer coming outside to look at the sky at night. He waits for a moment in the night where the sky suddenly bursts into the colours of the nebula and the prophecy birds appear. However after the thumbnails of the birds I realize that they may be drowned out in the bright background of the nebula, so I need to make them stand out more.

Below is an animation test done by an independent animator. Their account on YouTube is 'FiddleGriff Animation' and they are currently working on an animation about aliens. In this animation test, they show the alien fully coloured and animated with the backdrop behind. What I really like and want to know is how this animator got the texture for the alien creature. It seems to be some kind of mask that is used in After Effects, but I'm not sure. So if anyone knows how this is made, I'd really like to know as I'd like to test out a similar effect with the prophecy birds.

                            

If I can replicate the effect in this animation test then hopefully I can get a similar effect for the prophecy birds. 

The Astrologer- Character Modelling Progress

I have started modelling the head of my character for adaptation B. I need to get modelling finished and out of the way quickly as I'm likely to struggle with rigging, skinning and animating. For my adaptation B project I aim to make a short animation. I know that this is ambitious but I feel like I'm really behind with the technical side of this course and to attempt at making a short animation is the best way of learning.

I've been going back to the character modelling tutorials from last term to guide me in making this character. I tried to model it on my own at first, but I found it difficult and it caused the model to be more complicated than it needed to be. That's why I deleted the first model and started again with the tutorials helping me.

To start modelling this character has actually helped me draw him as well. I now have a much clearer image of what he looks like and this will benefit me for when I'm working on concept art and the animatic.

The Habits of the Single Lady- Infographic: Adaptation A Submission

                        

My submission for the adaptation A project. My infographic listing the habits of the single lady, with the art of included. 

Adaptation A- Infographic Assets

I've made the assets I need to make the infographic. There may be a couple more to make, but I want to start animating the ones I have so far before making any more assets.