Final Pieces:
Kernel directed by Olly Skillman-Wilson.
Wife Left Home directed by Tom Gameson
Newgrounds project - London riots animation - Directed by Tom Gameson
Kernel directed by Olly Skillman-Wilson.
My role: Concept Art.
Brief: A concept art piece establishing the Greenhouse in it's city setting. Composition to look down between 2 buildings. There must be a layer of mist caused by the pollution.
At first I was unsure how to go about this - how does one draw a futuristic city with realistic perspectives? To get the ball rolling I went on intuition and made a little futuristic city in my bedroom out of stuff from around the house.
Maya came in very handy for this project.
I printed this screenshot off and worked from it getting the colours, adding in new ideas and more detail inspired by the photos I took of the city I made in my bedroom.
The next 4 images were achieved in one all night session as the deadline was approaching..
These billboard sketches are an important part of the setting. The protagonists character is enhanced and developed through his conflict with the doctrines of the society in which he lives. On a visual level these messages should stand out. Olly states in his script: "...the darkness of the smog and urbanity lit only by its media"
Olly gave me some pics where he caught water droplets on the lens of his camera and took photos of lights at night. I then brought this into Photoshop and applied the linear burn layer style to merge this in.
This last pic is with Olly's additions. He has added a looking-through-window effect which has really enhanced that 'you're there' feeling about it. The flares are a nice touch too. Nice work Olly :-)
My friend Marcel gave me some good feedback suggesting that further improvements could be made by lighting up the front of the skyscrapers at the bottom of the screen. This would help define them a bit more against the background without taking away from the murky misty effect.
Wife Left Home directed by Tom Gameson
My role: Concept Art
Brief: Design a nice morning environment around 'Dim' (the main character.) It is a typical English town.
Some of Tom's inspiration. Artwork from Pixar artists using marker pens and ink.
Using Photoshop I enhanced the colours:
Shell and Paddy directed by Thomas Spettle
My role: Background artist
In this shot we see a chase. Paddy chases Shell but then trips up over this branch-like creature. I reckon it should be quite a funny scene!
I checked with Thomas about not getting this done in time for the pitch - he was cool with it. Unfortuantly I couldn't complete it in time with all the other projects going on. Hopefully I will get it done soon. From now on I will add in 1 contingency day every week into my schedule to allow me to achieve all projects in time.
Newgrounds project - London riots animation - Directed by Tom Gameson
My role: Background artist
Tom did a bit of animation for my CND film. In exchange, I have produced 2 backgrounds for his project that he was working on throughout the Summer at Newgrounds.
For these, I have worked a lot by hand before going into Photoshop. Ralph Steadman has been a big inspiration for Tom so I tried to incorporate elements of his style into my work.
City background
Prior to this I did 4 half hour A5 tests of different styles. Tom picked out the one he liked the best - a bit of collaging with Ralph Steadman style lines. He wanted the buildings to surround and overwhelm the character. For the final piece I worked in A3 using the same method as I did for the test. I then worked these up in Photoshop.
This is where Photoshop came in.
Park background
In this shot we will see the camera pan down on the right, then track to the left (hopefully these are the correct film camera terms I'm using!) Tom specified that the background is a bit run down, tucked away on a hill somewhere in London.
Tom's layout design:
My 20 minute Photoshop sketch just to get the depth values and a bit more definition.
I produced these elements by hand using Ink and pastels. I used pastels purely to get the colour and Ink for everything else. Here are all the different elements brought into Photoshop.
My first real go at Photoshop painting (of the rubbish) - using photographs for direct reference. Halfway through I thought 'Hang on - I can get Adobe Illustrator to do what I'm doing' so I did that for a test. It was a bit quicker doing it using Illustrator (the colour 6 filter) but I was pleased that when I did it myself in Photoshop the result was 10 times better.
The resolution of the full Image is 6344 x 2813 to allow for all the camera movements.
In this close up shot you can see the level of detail with a crisp packet stuck in the tree and plastic bags trodden into the dirt.
That's 4 weeks worth of work crammed into a couple of hours of blogging!
On a side note, I will be going to Bristol this Saturday as I have been invited to the showcase and prize-giving event of the CND film competition at Watershed cinema. I'm quite excited about seeing my work up in front of an audience!
