Anne's blog

Practice Digital Painting

2011-05-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been practicing digital painting for graduad exhibition website. It is a painful process...however, it is a great pleasure to see something coming out from a blank paper in Photoshop.

I start with human portrait,which is what I am more comfortable in painting.

I fails many time...quite struggling... but somehow work out how. It is pretty much the same as hand painting, but more flexible.

The next one i paint is a celebrity. Lady Gaga. Try to create something like an oil painting.

There are many problems that I have to improve =/

Website that use scroll effects so well

2011-05-17T04:51:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been doing web design. Quite struggling cuz it is done in Javascript and HTML. Since I am not good at javascript. It becomes a problem when I want to do something interactive.

I am inspired by the two website.

http://www.webleeddesign.com/

The first one is brilliant, I guess it used fixed property in CSS to make such wonderful animation. The idea is simple and it is not hard to achieve.

http://lucuma.com.ar/

The second one is also impressive, the navigation sit in the same position. The page scrolls when user click on the buttons.

Moving to my project, I wanna do something like a the style of castle in the sky. The idea is from a Japanese animation. I like the way it depict. Very bright and vibrant colors. Also, the
movement from down to up is what I wanna achieve.

My original idea is to create a castle for Monash University faculty of Multimedia and Digital art.

It has three sections. They are about us, gallery work and contact us. I wanna put gallery work on top of the page. Bcoz it is the most important one to be on the castle. The rest of the section can be put under the sky.

It is still in development. Wish I could finish ontime.

The style will be something like this:

Inspiration from agideas

2011-05-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

After come back from Agideas, I am inspired a lot.

I like the quote saying that "if it looks good, it is good."

In my opinion, it means we have to do our best to achieve a good design. We have to put effort to make it look glamorous.

Here are some artists I found so inspiring from the speech.

His website

He's a very famous stop motion artists. super enthusiastic in making stop motion animation. He produces several amazing master piece I have ever seen in my life.

PRESS + from ducroz on Vimeo.

I guess it is done by water color on color...frame by frame... so amazing.

He likes to create geometric and abstract shapes in animation.

Isn't it a bless for him who finds something interesting in his life?

The second artist I want to introduce to you is Matt Hatton. He is an illustrator who involves in many design industries.
What I like the most about him is his talent in drawing and his attitude toward design. No matter how computer technology occupies design industry , he still believes that every concept starts from a pencil work.

The third one is an interesting guy,Oslo Davis. After seeing his work I tend to believe that Design is attractive when it has humor and meaning inside.

Yes, Humor is so important. Especially for speech and for him as an story telling illustrator. Sometimes a good drawing does not have to be highly skillful.His work is always sketchy, but People can easily catch up on what he wants to conveys because it is just so funny and strait-forward.

The last one, Lain McCaig, who is just so talented in Illustration.

Recently I am practicing my skill in digital painting. I think it is quite different from hand draw.
I like the style he demonstrate. Like an oil painting.

How to achieve a good pixel art

2011-05-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

Pixe art is a old fashion style. Originally,it was used in game for sake of saving file size.

Recently, it becomes a sophisticated style in design.

The most significant feature of pixel art is its jerky outline around the object.

Pixel art is very hard to achieve. It needs patience and practice to achieve the correct jerky outline of the pixel object.

If you just draw it as you draw on the paper, the outline will look awful.

Wrong Example

Correct Example

To achieve good outline, you have to imitate computer generated outline.

There is one good way of doing it. You can scan your sketch to your computer. Some programs such as PS or even micro painter are good tools of producing pixel art. In PS, zoom in the image to see the jerky line first, and then choose the best outline to trace it. It needs some sense and practice, so take your time.

Logic of Game

2011-04-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been studied on Logic of Game. And I played several games which are related to my design.

The book "Rule of Play" defines what a meaningful play is.

Definition from the book:"Meaningful play in a game emerges from the relationship between player action and system outcome; it is the process by which a player takes action within the designed system of a game and the system responds to the action. The meaning of an action in a game resides in the relationship between action and outcome"

It is very important. To achieve a logical game. It needs many things to cooperate, such as interface and integration between user's action and the game system.

It is said that a game can be exaggerative, in terms of character design and so on, but it has to be logical enough for the player to predict and expect what is going to happen next when they do the action.

Here are some sample I have found from the internet. Their logic are similar to my game.

Hobo

It is talking about a prisoner who tried to escape from the prison? anyway. The interaction is violent but fun!

Angel Fighter

simple but effective. Both has blood column and fighting ability, the structure of the game is what I want.

The process of making animation both for 2D and 3D

2011-04-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

Something found from the internet.

The process of making a traditional animation.

This

It is written in Chinese,somehow very useful.

1.Initial Concept(Script,concept art, character design, background design)

2.Pre-production(Storyboard, music, vocals, animatic)

3.Production(animation,compose,color, background)

4.Post Production(cut, edit sound, refinement, release )

If we follow the process, basically we can make a successful animation.

Angel V.S Devils

2011-04-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

After discussing in the lecture, I am requested to develop my second idea-Angels v.s Devils Game.

This game will be done in Flash, so basically, it's time for me to research the suitable codes.

The game is simple to play.

There are 7 angels and 7 Devils. The 7 angels come from bible. They are arch angels. The 7 devils comes from 7 sins.

It is a 2-people-play fighting game. The user can select the wanted character, however, they can't choose the angel to fight against another angel, and vice versa.

In selection menu, the character will be displayed in normal proportion. In the fighting scene, the character will be displayed in small version.

The sample of the game will be looking like this.

Little Street Fighter

Character Sample of my design:

Michael The Arch Angel

Lust the Devil from 7 Sins

Dog animation

2011-03-29T05:04:00.000-07:00

I have come up one of the ideas for my open brief.

If it's possible, I would like to do a frame by frame 2D animation trailer like what Walter Disney does.

The purpose of the animation is to promote animal right and environmental issues. The story is sad but the characters are possitive and full of hope. It will have a happy ending.

Here are the quick note of my storyboard and researcgh data.

Storybaord:

A dog(Border Collie) is risen by his lovely owner. They live in a small village. He takes care and accompanies with the owner everyday. However, one day his parents force the boy to abandon the dog in the wild due to moving house to the apartments in the city. The boy is very sad and cries everyday. The dog suddenly becomes a street dog. Although he is in panic he still believes his owner does not mean to abandon him. He decides to go home...

It is when the adventure begin, the dog meets his partner- a Great Dane and a Beagle. They are street dog and they do not believe human anymore. The border collie now experiences a lot of reality in society, since he starts to beg food and is discriminated by some mean people. However, he is still very positive and tries to find his owner. One day, he sees a merchant selling hunted wolves to sell their skin. He saves one of the wolf and they fall in love with each other. The wolf introduce to his family in the mountain. However, the hatress between wolves and human is always a problem. The struggle between the border collie now begins.

This is completely a new projects for me, I feel excited with a bit nervous...

If Mark lets me to do so... I will start to orgnize my project.

Here are the walk cycle of dog I I found from the internet.

When drawing animation, you have to draw key frame first,such as start frame and end frame, and then insert the in between frames.

The more frame we do the more delicate the animation will be.
The standard frame rate is 24fps. If it's slow motion then we have to draw more than 24 frames in one second.

Some very good online tutorials

2011-03-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I had been experiencing Maya Program, I am struggling in the Model structure due to lack of practice.

Here are some very good tutorials which demonstrates how to model a human's face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xls25e08sSg

How to rig the character?

Sun Flower Fragrance Motion Graphic Design- Research

2011-03-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I am interested in fragrance design. From its smell to its bottle design, I am addicted to the fancy world that only fragrance can represent. I think it can be applied to my project 1.

I would like to do a fragrance commercial advertisng, to begin with I must realize how important the smell of the fragrance is.

A perfume have three notes(Notes refers to its smell), they are top, middle and base note.

The top note is the smell you will encounter first, and then middle to base note.

The Elizabeth Ardan(which trully exist and it's famous) sunflower fragranc is the one I am referencing from.

It basiclly has three notes,

top: osmanthus
Middle: Jasmine
Base: Sun Flower

I would like to visualizing the smell of the fragrance in my motion design. The viwer will explore the smell from top to base note like onion skin.

When talking about onion skin, the most interesting thing that I will emphasize on the project is its elements design. I would like to combine different types of elements from 2D to 3D. By animating them in after affect I believe it will create a well in depth masterpiece(hopefully...)

Here are the style of what I refer to on the youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMEWcPrJlQg&feature=related

Moving to the style of the design, I will create my elements sourced from Art Nouveau and Klimt for his Vienna Secession.

The features of his works are the great use of combination of 2D and 3D illustrations, which are influenced by oriental style. In the work of the women, the body is depicted in 3D perspective whilst the cloth seems to be seperated from the body. It is depicted in 2D perspective with no shadow. The decoration on the cloth is a great inspiration to my work.