I explained the premise of this assignment in my previous post on October 18th. Basically we have to tell the story of Hansel and Gretel in an interesting way in 6 frames. I had some other concept ideas that I wasn't really happy with but then one day I was in the shower and it hit me: Hansel is delusional! I'm not sure where it came from, really, I just thought it would be a much cooler way to tell the story. So in this new concept Hansel is actually a young man living in a mental institution who has delusions that he is a little boy getting into mischief with his twin sister (who in reality is a creepy doll).
I was a little bit limited with the pictures I could use: they had to be taken by me. Normally I would jump at the chance to get out my camera and start shooting but all our family and friends live far away and I'm not entirely comfortable asking strangers to pose as a psycho. I decided to use some pictures I had of my little brother when I went to visit my family in Oregon last year. Since I didn't really have any little girl pictures I thought it would be funny to just make them twins and alter Blake's picture a little bit to make him a girl. For the older boy, Hans, I got my incredibly supportive boyfriend to dress up as a crazy person and even got him to wear a little makeup! (Don't tell him I told you that.) His parents were kind enough to send me some pictures of them to use for a the first scene too.
My sister always makes horrible faces when you try to take her picture so I thought it would be funny to use her as the witch. She would kill me if she found out! I had taken some pictures of her a few years ago where I tried to pose her in visually interesting positions but they just turned out to be creepy and unnatural which was PERFECT for this project.
In this first scene Hans is in the mental institution watching his parents cry as he is taken into the hospital's custody. In his delusion, however, Hansel is watching his wicked step mom lead his father away as they leave Hansel and Gretel in the forest.
The second scene has Hans sleeping with his doll on the hospital bed in his room at the institution. In his delusion he and Gretel are curled up together in the forest under a giant tree.
Scene three is Hans walking down the hall holding his doll's hand but in his mind Hansel and Gretel are walking together through the forest trying to find their way back home.
The fourth image is Hans using his doll to push a visitor into one of the hospital rooms because in his delusion Gretel is closing the witch in the oven.
The fifth frame in reality is the visitor glaring at Hans from inside the cell and Hans' creepy reflection smiling back at her. In his delusion the witch is glaring back at Gretel from inside the oven.
The final frame is Hans stuffing "jewels" into his dolls back which in reality is just cafeteria food. In his delusion Gretel is stealing a crown from the witch's jewelry and coin collection.
I know this is just a piece of cloth and the subject matter isn't very interesting but I am really happy with the way this turned out. We darkened our paper with charcoal and then used our kneaded erasers to remove color from the highlights. Then we went back in with charcoal and darkened the shadows. I think it actually turned out better than when I try to shade.
There are parts that I really like that stand out and look real to me which makes me really excited about the kind of work I will be able to do with this technique. It's hard for me to not be overly critical of my work but I really like this one.
We were given a random artist to use for inspiration in designing an advertisement of our choice. I completely lucked out and got one of my favorite artists, Tamara de Lempicka. So I started working with her style and decided to do "What if Tamara de Lempicka Advertised for Family Guy?" I like to be really representational with my drawings so it was difficult for me to get the gradation abstracted the way she does. Overall I'm happy with the outcome but I think it needs a little more work. I had to make up the shading in Lois' body which was pretty difficult considering she's a 2D character. It was fun to try to work with someone else's style though.
The assignment was to creatively display the information of a weather report using only Photoshop tools and no imported images. As I said in my last post I felt the need to go above and beyond to show what I could do in Photoshop since my teacher expected more from me. He specifically told me to play around with the 3D tools since I hadn't had much experience with them before. I came up with the idea to make coins with the important information on a table and then have a calendar on the wall behind to show the date.
This was my first draft but after talking it over with Eric we both agreed it was lacking something and sort of lost the idea of being a weather report. It also seems very static and boring. I decided to use the same elements but rearrange them to make the scene more dynamic.
I decided to make the coins different sizes and colors to give the viewer the sense that it was just loose change thrown on the coffee table on top of a calendar. I think this version is much more dynamic and visually stimulating. It may still be a little different of a design for a weather report but I'm happy with the result.
This week I'm working on quite a few projects.
Computer Based Art
1. Weather Report: Using only the tools in Photoshop, no imported images, I have to create a dynamic and creative image that displays the weather of a given day. Partly Cloudy, High 84, Low 54. It just seemed like a small in-class assignment to me so I was working on a design that was uninspired and simple with a thermometer gauge and a background of the sun coming through clouds. My instructor came by and said my design seemed a little safe for me (curse you over-achievement!) so now I'm working on one that shows off my Photoshop skills and incorporates the elements into gold coins that will sit on a desk with a calendar in the background.
2. Hansel and Gretel Storyboard: This is one of our bigger projects that isn't due until Nov. 5th. We are supposed to take the classic story of Hansel and Gretel and make a photo narrative using Photoshop and images that we take. There will be 6 composite images total, but we don't have to tell the entire story. We can choose a part of the story that we like and use images from that part. We had to come up with 3 concepts to begin with last week. My concepts were:
- Desaturated and dark with hints of red like in the Red Riding Hood movie. I want it to be spooky with lots of fog.
- Super saturated and bright like in Tim Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- A coloring book using real images and manipulating them in Photoshop. Then I will use a brush to create the look of crayon coloring the image in.
After presenting my ideas to the class I decided to do the coloring book concept but I'm still thinking about adding a dark, creepy vibe to it. I also really liked another classmate's idea of doing a post-apocalyptic scene. Her idea had more to do with zombies but I'm thinking it would be really awesome and unexpected to have the forest actually be crumbling buildings.
This week all I have to do is make thumbnails of my 6 scenes which shouldn't be that difficult. The real challenge is going to be in taking the images that I will use.
2D Design
I am working on a project where I have to incorporate an artist's style into an advertisement for a product. We chose artists out of a hat. I was hoping I'd get either MC Escher or Tamara de Lempicka because I am CRAZY about the work they do. I've always wanted to study their styles to learn how they created such cool works. Luckily I got Tamara de Lempicka! The dragonfly drawing that I did in Drawing I will surely help me with the shading in her work.
We got to pick our own product so I had a few ideas.
#1 - Coppertone based on Portrait de Mille by Tamara de Lempicka
#2 - Wonder Woman based on her style
#3 - Lois Griffin based on The Phone II by Tamara de Lempicka
I chose to do concept #3 and started playing around with different mediums to get the gradients right.
Stippling is not my greatest friend! The watercolor seems to be too hard to control but I do like the effect it gives. I think, though, that I'm going to stick with charcoal.
I had to do this assignment at Lake Washington Technical College as well. It's a good introduction to using selection tools and layer masks in Photoshop. At LWTC we started out with a bunch of images of vegetables and had to create a scene with them. Here's what I did for that project:
Since this was my first time EVER working with Photoshop I was really pleased with the outcome. Everything in the image was made from fruits and vegetables except his snorkel tube, the bubbles, and the background.
The assignment at TWU was similar except we used just a few random objects and then a bunch of human facial features.
We didn't spend a lot of time on this one but this is what I came up with:
This assignment was to take an event and design a poster for it using only Adobe Illustrator. I think this is a pretty basic assignment that you would have at any school you go to. The Red Bull Soapbox Race was actually coming to Dallas the weekend after the assignment was handed out, so I thought it would be the perfect even to do my poster on because I could get pretty creative with it. Eric, the love of my life, and I decided to do some good "research" and go to the race. Here's some pictures:
We had a really fun time! Next time we're going to the Flugtog!
So when I got home I started sketching out what I wanted to do with my poster. I don't have my sketches anymore but some of my best ideas were:
1. To play off of the Red Bull logo and put two tricked out Soapbox cars where the bulls should be. I would make the images look like paper cutouts on a handmade sign.
2. Use the first idea but have the horns of a bull poking out through the top corners of the poster as if it had charged the wall behind the poster.
3. Create an image where the bull was chasing a driver down the drag strip. Originally I wanted the driver to be coming in diagonally but I decided later to change that.
I had several other ideas but I ended up deciding on the last one. My first draft was really flat and cartoon looking but that was sort of the style I was going for.
I wasn't really happy with the way this one turned out. The colors were too desaturated and it just looked too flat to me. I played with the shapes a little and added gradients for the second draft.
I had this one printed out and ready to turn in on the due date but then our instructor extended the deadline. Although it was better than the first one I still wasn't 100% happy with the result so I was thankful for the extra time. My instructor suggested I make the eyes look meaner, so I played with that and then chose more saturated colors. I softened up the smoke clouds with a feather and added flames. I'm relatively happy with the final result. If we would have been able to use Photoshop I would have made it awesome.
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