Sea Animation - Character Inspirations

These are some examples of artists & illustrators that I used as references for styles to combine character ideas & water colours.

I chose the above images due to the loose style using smudges, blurs of paint & the brush stroke detail to add detail & create character within the designs. I also tried to choose images which use a similar colour scheme in order to get a feel of the ambience created in the images.

My favourite of the illustrations is the centre piece of the younger character.  I think it effectively illustrates the benefits of using watercolour, for example the running of colours & the  smudging of colours creating imperfections.

Animation Backgrounds - Layout

I chose to base my animation background adaptation on one of Nathan Aardvark's illustrations, looking at a natural yet surreal world.   Looking at the main details - & my favourite details - of the layers of foreground & background in Aardvark's illustrations, I exaggerated & repeated the forms in order to created separate layers. For example in the foreground I used a collection of mushrooms & fungi in order to create the layer. The layer behind that incorporated the plants & more surreal details in the swirly patterned & shapes plants & flowers. The background layers consist of more simply mountainous regions & a cloud/sky layer.

I created a hand drawn version on tracing paper to give me some kind of idea & concept of how the layers would look like once incorporated - though some layers aren't quite visible.

The image to the left is the layers together in Photoshop. I think the layers work effectively together but it appears slightly busy on the right hand side, so I may need to take out some details. Probably the flower above the mushroom on the right, as most of the flower is lost anyway.

The next stage will be refining the line art & then thinking about a colour scheme for the layout. Taking into consideration the light source & how areas will be illuminated & in shadow.

Foundation FMP - Animation

This is the first animation I created during my foundation course prior to the digital animation course. Created in After Effects its a relatively simplistic animation based on the idea of comic book frames & superheroes.

Sea Animation Experiments

Some examples of rough experimentations for the group animation based around rescue stories of the sea. 

Our group had decided upon using 2D media & a slightly abstract appearance which led us to decide to  experiment with paints, in particularly water colours. These are some examples of ideas I've played with, simply playing with creating shapes & patterns with different shades of colours I'd consider to be related to the sea. 

I think the first set of experiments is more effective using watercolour as the textures are more visible & I think they work in illustrating the movement that would be in relation to the ocean. 

The second experiment was considered less effective mainly as the images were taken less consistently causing what appears as camera shake & less consistent.