Week 5 - Leaf

This week we had to animate a leaf blowing in the wind. I've started my animation with the leaf on the ground because I thought it would be interesting to see it just kind of shuffle on the ground before being picked up by wind. I've coloured one side of the leaf so it's clear that it's turning and twisting because otherwise it might go unnoticed as the leaf moves pretty fast.
Here are some sketches I've made for the trajectory and movement of the leaf.

I've tried to focus on timing and make the leaf speed up/slow down at the right moments. The slowest parts are at the tops of the loops, after those the leaf picks up speed and it almost stops at two points (It was supposed to boil for longer but it looked kind of like the animation got stuck so I've decided shorter boil is better than wrong looking boil).
This was fun even though sometimes I didn't really  know how to twist the leaf the way I want to. I can't say I'm not happy with how this turned out, but I'm sure I could've done better.

Week 5 - Life drawing - subtractive tone

This week we focused on light and shadow. We covered the paper in charcoal and then erased the lightest areas, added the darkest areas, ... I've never done a tonal drawing this way so this was new and challenging for me. I feel like these were definitely some of my weaker works.

 The first obvious problem here is the composition. The figure doesn't fit on the paper and the proportions are all wrong too. I guess I've ignored accuracy while trying to focus on getting the light right. I'm also aware that I wasn't really drawing the figure as a whole which was probably the main reason for the disproportionality. 

 While working on this I felt like it was going pretty well but now I'm not so sure. The shadows could've been darker and there are almost no midtones, making it look flat. 

This was the last, 20min drawing. Aside from the rushed background I think it turned out ok. Still a lot of things to improve, but at least the proportions are better than in the first one. 

Week 4 Homework - The Accountant

This week for homework we had to design a set with the title "The accountant". I knew right away I didn't want to do just a normal office. I've considered several ideas and settled on the hell's accountant office which contrasts Karolina's heaven's accountant. 

I wanted the office to look more luxurious rather than just dark and scary because if someone has golden floor in their office it's definitely demons. 

I really enjoyed this homework, it was fun coming up with a set and even though I'm sure I could  add a lot more details if I spent more time on it I'm quite happy with how it turned out. 

wall candle holders

 the accountant's hellhound

Week 4 Homework - Hands

For this homework we were supposed to draw five hands holding different objects. Hands have always been a nightmare for me, I can never get them quite right, so I was a bit scared of this task. The end results do resemble hands though, so I guess it wasn't as much of a disaster as I'd expected.

Pencil

I've started with a pencil drawing because this is the medium I'm most confident with. 

 Charcoal

For my next drawing I chose a knife and used charcoal because I feel like charcoal can create very dramatic effect which went well with the chosen object. This is probably my favourite drawing from this homework. 

Watercolour

This wasn't the best choice of medium, as the sketchbook doesn't have watercolour paper and I couldn't get as much shading done as I would've liked. It was also pretty challenging working with watercolour while holding sunglasses in my hand. 

 Pen

Looking back at this, I could've done a better job shading this one. 

 Coloured pencils

On this one I've worked with Karolina, to whom the other hand belongs. We thought it might be interesting for the held object to be another hand. This was a very challenging drawing and took me about twice as much time as the other drawings. I'm aware that there are some anatomical mistakes and some parts look really off, but at least I've managed to finish it. 

Week 4 Homework - washing line

This week we talked about cycles in animation and for homework we were supposed to create a cycle of a washing line. I wanted to make it more dynamic so I've tried to make the wind seem quite strong. I like the way the clothes go up but not so much how they return to the first frame. I think maybe if I had added 1-2 more frames where the clothes would swing the other way it would've looked better. I've also tried to make the line itself swing a bit in the wind but the movement is too small to be noticable.
I chose the pose to pose aproach because I knew where I wanted the clothes to end up. I drew the first and the last frame, then one in the middle and added frames inbetween those. 

Week 4 - Cycles

In this lesson we learned about cycles and our task was to create a cycle of a flag in the wind. I'm not very happy with my animation as it's not very smooth and looks like it's just waving back and forth which looks kind of stupid.
The main problem is probably that I've tried to put too much movement into too little frames. Therefor the differences between frames are too big to create a smooth movement. 

Week 4 - Etching and printing

This week we continued working with the collage characters (though we could create new ones). We did drypoint printing, which I've done before, but I've only ever done it with foil and also lino carving. 

The way the parts of characters mixed was definitely interesting and more often than not had very weird results. 

Here is a sketch of my character, from which I only got the legs in the end.

I ended up with this long necked thing with very nice legs. 

I felt like the rest of the body was a bit too casual compared to the legs so I dressed him up, gave him a rose, some bows and a pair of arms to hold his wine glass. 

Week 3 - Sound

This week our task was to create an animation that would fit with a sound. I've chosen a sound of a firework. Animating the rocket was the easier part as it was very similar to the balloon I've animated the week before. The firework itself was a lot harder. I wasn't sure what to do where the fireworks meet so that was a bit chaotic but overall I think it's pretty good. I was also a bit worried the sound wouldn't fit, but it fits just fine so I'm quite happy with how this turned out.
I've used the squash and stretch principle in the beginning to make the rocket apear more dynamic. There's also a very short moment of anticipation when the rocket disappears in the distance before exploding into fireworks.

I have later decided to try how it would look with a dark background and white lines so I've inverted the pictures and here is the result.

At this point I figured I might as well add colour so I've played with it in photoshop a bit.

Week 4 - Life drawing - foreshortening

Even though I still struggle a bit with planning I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of things. Sometimes I forget to measure some things and I often have to fix a lot of things which I wouldn't have to do if I'd measured it properly. The first three drawings seem pretty good to me but the last one is a disaster. I don't know what I was doing for the first 30 minutes but I've finished most of it in the last 10 minutes and it's a mess. Distances, sizes and angles are all off. Maybe I wasn't focused enough. 

Week3 Homework - Collage characters

These are the 3 members of tribe based on my character from last lesson. They are the "Man-eating plants with fishnet tights" tribe. I didn't like all parts of the character, but I took what I liked and made...these. I like how they seem like they might be dancing to All the single Ladies while cooking the dinner. 

Week 3 Homework - still life self portrait

I've left most of the things I would've liked to use for this at home, but this is what I've managed to put together.

Book: This one is simple, I love to read. I didn't draw the title so it could be any book but I did draw the cover, because it's a Welcome to Night Vale book, which is somethig I like too and this way I got two things in one drawing. 

Flower crown, crystal: These are just some things I like. They are pretty. 

Shoes: This only really shows in the coloured pencils drawing, but they have space painted on them and it seemed like the best way to express my love for space.

Mug: I like tea and coffee... and nice mugs.

Four-leaf clover: I actually collect four-leafs and I usually have a lot of good luck.

Devil's trap: I like the tv show Supernatural. 

Lollipop with scorpio: I don't know if I can explain why I chose this, but I feel like it kind of fits my personality. 

Horalka: Horalka is a traditioal Slovak wafer which relates to me being from Slovakia and I also really like sweets.

MUSE T-shirt: I like music and Muse is one of my favourite bands.

Both the Muse t-shirt and the space shoes also represent my love for art as they're both hand-painted. 

I don't usually draw with pen so I wasn't sure how the continuous line drawing would turn out, but it's ok. In my opinion the flower crown is best in the first drawing, I also like the shoelaces, but it's obvious pen is not my strongest point. At first I wanted to do the other two drawings as kind of sketches, but then I got carried away a bit. Pencil is medium I'm most confident with, so I had high expectations of myself with that one. My favourite part in that one is probably the lollipop. The third drawing turned out surprisingly good as I don't have much experience with coloured pencils. I've also decided to remove the t-shirt because it just didn't look good. It was ok in the line drawing but shaded it was just a dark mess that ruined the composition. 

This was fun to do even though it took me more time than it probably should have. 

 continuous line drawing, liner

 tonal drawing, pencils

colour drawing, coloured pencils

Week 3 Homework - Colours

For this task I have chosen the stop-motion film Coraline by Laika because I really liked the colours in it and how important they were to the story. Throughout the film the two worlds, the real world and the other world, are clearly distinguishable just by the colours as the real world is very desaturated, dull and devoid of colour (except for Coraline who in contrast has bright blue hair and is wearing either red or yellow) and the other world is very colourful, sometimes maybe even too colourful. 

In the beginning of the film we see Coraline in her bright yellow raincoat against a very dark and monochromatic background. This not only sets the mood but also directs the attention towards her, making it clear she is the main character. When she is not wearing the raincoat she still has blue hair and usually red clothes or at least a bag so no matter the setting she always stands out in her bleak surroundings. 

In this scene from the other world we see a nice analogous palette of blues and (yellowish) greens. The whole scene is dark with the only light being pointed at the door through which Coraline will enter. Once she appears her clothes immediately make her stand out but without her even the other world is monochromatic.

The triadic colour palette of red, blue and yellow is used in many scenes, especially from the other world, the colours usually very saturated. I like this particular scene because of how harmonious the colours look here, it's all very dream like and even though Coraline is very small we still easily see her as the colours progress from dark to light, directing our attention to where it needs to be. 

The green colouring in this scene makes it look very dramatic. Even though it is a monochromatic palette, it doesn't look calming or harmonious because of the brightness and saturation of the colours. It's also quite dark so even though green usually looks hopeful and cheerful here it creates a feeling of danger, a feeling of something bad about to happen.