This week, I started to create my loop animation in Krita. I already had the storyboard down, so this part was pretty easy.
I started off by drawing some simple shapes to create the space my shadow would move around in. It’s a simple pair of walls with a ceiling. I wanted to work with a corner, because I thought it would look cool for the shadow to move between the corners of the room. I aimed for the light to look like the viewer themself was casting it on to the wall, following the bodiless shadow as it moved around. I lowered my frame rate from 25 to 17, as I felt I wouldn’t need that many frames per second for this animation and I didn’t want it to take me too long to complete.Next, I added in my rough sketch for Sulli , my shadow character (which I have unfortunately deleted at the time of writing this post, so what you’re seeing now is the clean line art). I simplified his eyes a little from the original design, as I felt like I was able to be more flexible with his face by simplifying it. I completed this animation using one of the methods I learned in paper animation; I drew in the key poses and then drew in betweens for them. I didn’t plan my timings in detail as I was able to move frames around, so I kind of just held them for as long as I thought they needed to be held. I drew my in betweens in the way you’d draw smear frames; very quick and non detailed. I did this because the character’s changes in shape were supposed to look fast and drastic, so I wanted him to look somewhat shapeless between forms. The frame above is the in between for him changing from his regular form to a smaller rabbit. For frames where he passed between walls, I distorted the shadow’s shape so that it would look like he was on two different surfaces. I did this by using the selection tool and then pressing ctrl, which gave me the ability to move the drawing around as if it was a 3D object. (I put a picture in because I think I described it a bit weirdly)For scenes where the light wasn’t on Sulli, I didn’t draw him in, since shadows only exist where light is. The point of the animation was him trying to escape visibility, so I tried making him use the darkness to his advantage.After finishing the sketches and line art, I added some colour to the piece. I chose to keep a simple dark palette for Sulli, since he’s a shadow so it just makes sense. I made him dark grey instead of full on black so that you could see his facial details well; I contemplated making him fully black and changing the line art to white, but I didn’t really like how this looked (I’ll attach it below). I gave him blue eyes so that he had a feature that was somewhat recognisable in any form that he took.
All in all, this process took me about a week. I think if my work ethic was a little better, I could’ve finished it sooner, but I failed to stay on schedule this week and I wasn’t very well focused. I’ll try to improve on that with the following week.
As for the animation, I’m happy with how it turned out for the most part. I feel like maybe my project isn’t looking so experimental at the moment, but I’m not really sure what I can do to bring it forward. I’m thinking of adding a background (just some simple colours and some more minor details), but I don’t know if I want any colour in this piece as of now because I kind of like the simplistic look of the animation.
With my research done, I now have the basis of my project; shadows and their ability to move around and change shape. I researched myths about the sun and moon, and while I ended up going with shadows thematically instead of them, the myths I read about did give me some ideas on how to portray things that aren’t actually living beings; each myth considered the qualities of the sun and moon and their relationship to each other, and built characteristics and personalities for them based on that. For example in the Mayan myth, the portrayal was more comical, with the moon always chasing the sun out of jealousy/anger, while in the Japanese myth, the sun avoided the moon due to a betrayal of her trust. I started to consider the qualities of shadows, so that I could build a character based on them;
Shadows only show up in the light, and are 2D.
Shadows can change shape and size, appearing a bit different from the thing casting the shadow.
Shadows always follow the light.
Shadows can’t exist on their own without something casting the shadow.
Shadows can’t escape the light.
Considering all of these things, along with looking at personified shadows from my moodboard, there were two ways i thought of portraying a shadow; as a lonely being desiring more than it has, or a mischievous being that takes advantage of it’s ability to change forms. I also considered the shadow’s relationship with the light; does it chase the light, wanting to be visible to humans, or does it avoid the light, valuing it’s privacy? I came up with two character concepts for two different types of shadows, and went from there.
On the left, I designed a more comical shadow; a playful one that would take advantage of his abilities and be complacent with his position as a shadow. I used an art style more reminiscent of western cartoons to give him a somewhat juvenile, playful look, and I posed him in a way that made him look confident and happy. On the right I came up with a concept for a shadow who felt more empty, a lonely being that wants more than what he has. I gave him more of a blank expression, so that he looked melancholy and a little sad. I also posed him in a more neutral position, to display that he doesn’t really have an identity or a personality of his own.
To choose between these two shadow portrayals, I considered some things; which of these would be easier to animate? which would allow for a more flexible and interesting loop? which do i personally like better?
In the end, I decided to go with the one on the left. I think the concept of a mischievous shadow is a lot more entertaining, and would allow for a fun loop. I also think I’d be able to draw more drastic movements and distortions of the shadow in a more cartoony style. As a side note I also want the shadow to exist on it’s own, with nothing in particular casting it onto the wall/ the surface it’s on.
Now that I had some basics for what would happen in my loop, I needed to come up with the actual story/scene that would happen in it. As I said, I prefer things that are less abstract and hint more at an existing story, whether that be a comical one or a more in depth one, so I aim to create something with a clear story. To come up with my story, I wanted to get to know my shadow character a little better, so I wrote a little profile for him to flesh him out, and drew some pictures of him that would display his personality well. I named him Sulli, short for the name ‘Sullivan’ which means ‘dark/black eyed’.
Sulli is a shadow kid, from the world of shadows. While some shadows like to be seen in the light and take on the shapes of living beings, little Sulli is a free spiri- um, shadow; he would rather stay in the darkness, doing normal shadow kid stuff like playing games or eating shadow snacks. Whenever a light is shone on Sulli he hurries away, not because he’s shy, but because he’s a lazy little guy who would rather not be seen or bothered. He’ll try to escape the light by taking on other forms, scaring it away or attempting to run away from it, but as a shadow he naturally shows up wherever the light is no matter how hard he tries to escape.
I made Sulli a personality; a lazy little shadow who avoids light so that he can act as he wants to. This gave me a basic concept for a loop; Sulli trying to escape from a light, but being followed around by it and growing irritated eventually. I drew out a storyboard of a loop that could work with this idea;
I like this storyboard as it manages to stay short and as a loop, while communicating sulli’s personality to the viewer through his movements, facial expressions and actions. One thing I noticed after finishing this storyboard is that there isn’t much movement or much of a background; one thing I find cool about shadows it their ability to travel along surfaces, so I’ll re-draft this storyboard to make Sulli move around a little more. For a background, I’ll come up with a basic wall, ceiling and floor design that Sulli can be casted onto. I like the way Sulli interacts with the viewer here, and that’s an element I’ll definitely keep; it’s as if you yourself are casting the light onto Sulli, and he’s trying to escape from your attention. Another thing I think could be cool is if the light interacts with him differently; when he turns into a monster it could appear bigger because the shadow is further away from the ‘source’, and the light could shake a bit, making it look like the monster scared you.
I have the basics for my loop now, but i want to look at some other things, such as videos and images, that will provide me with some inspiration for other things; how long will you see each of Sulli’s forms? how will I incorporate sound into my loop? there’s still some things I’m not sure about, so I want to look into them so that I’m ready to start animating as soon as possible.
I started with secondary research; I looked into mythology first, because I have an interest in it and I know there are a lot of myths concerning the day and night. While I know I don’t want to make a loops based on a myth (I want to be more imaginative than that), I think it’s useful to look into them to see what kinds of stories are already formed about the transition between the day and night.
Secondary research on day and night
I first looked at a myth from Japan; the story of the goddess Amaterasu and her brother, Tsukuyomi. I know this myth well since I studied it previously for a project before University, so I thought it would be a good starting point. Amaterasu is the goddess of the sun, and Tsukuyomi the god of the moon; they once ruled the skies together, but after Tsukuyomi kills another goddess in disgust, Amaterasu becomes disgusted by him and runs away every time he’s around, refusing to be with him. This is why day and night exist separately; Amaterasu doesn’t want to see Tsukuyomi. I find the concept of the sun and the moon avoiding each other interesting; I never envisioned their relationship as a hostile one. Without personifying the sun and moon i think an interesting concept would be two things that can’t exist together; one must exist in the day and one in the night alone, or it could cause some sort of a conflict. A quick idea I thought of was some kind of secret agent, villain or hero; their daytime persona couldn’t exist at the same time as their night time persona, or their privacy wouldn’t be protected. I think it could also be funny to have the sun personified as some form of a sun god who has a crush on a moon goddess, but she doesn’t like him back, so she always avoids him and leaves when he confesses his love. Nonetheless he tries every day, resulting in both a loop and the change between day and night.
In Aztec mythology, there were actually 4 different gods who became the sun god, and there was no moon at first. The 4 sun gods all ended up dead as a result of feuds between the gods, and so when the forth one died, other deities were afraid of becoming the sun god because they could suffer the same fate. The world was plunged into darkness; the gods knew they couldn’t leave the world like this, so they held a vote for who would be the next sun god. Two deities were chosen; Tecciztecatl and Nanauatl. One of these two would have to sacrifice himself by jumping into a pot of fire and becoming the sun. Tecciztecatl was too afraid of the heat from the flame, so he hesitated jumping in; Nanauatl, however, didn’t mind, and jumped in with no hesitation. Tecciztecatl, with his pride hurt, jumped into the flame right after, leaving the world with two suns. The gods didn’t like this, and threw a rabbit at Tecciztecatl, dimming him and causing him to become the moon. He grew angry at Nanauatl, and began chasing him every day, creating the cycle between day and night. I thought this myth had a playful air to it, and could be the base of a funny story; something about the sun chasing the moon, or attempting to catch up to it somehow but never being successful, while the sun taunts and mocks him. Picturing the sun and moon as two beings with a rivalry could spiral into an interesting animation.
The last myth I’ll look at is from Mesopotamia; it’s about the sun god Shamash. During daytimes in our world, he travels through the sky, illuminating the world, but when he disappears at night he travels to the underworld, serving as the sun there before returning to our world the next day. I found this myth interesting because of the concept of travelling between worlds; although I’m looking at day and night, I don’t want to confine myself to just that, I want to stay open to other ideas. I think a loop that visits two separate worlds or places, possibly through a character, would be an interesting one. A character travelling through portals also sounds fun; maybe to a different destination or just instantly jumping through portals.
Next, I want to look a bit into things that happen in both day and night; either occurrences that oppose each other or the way both times of day affect one individual thing. An obvious one is we as people; some of us are active during the day and go to sleep at night, while some of us live mundane days and are more active at night, whether that be through clubbing and partying or scrolling through your phone at 3AM. Another small example of time affecting one object is plants; they open up in the day and face the sun, but they curl up and close at night. Something simple like this could be made into a loop, but it sounds a little boring in all honesty.
There are different animals around in the day and night too; people, birds and dogs are all around during the day, taking advantage of the daylight, while things like owls, foxes and cats (somewhat) are out at night, sneaking around and using the darkness as a disguise. I think this could be something fun to explore in a loop, but I really hate drawing animals in all honesty, so I probably won’t go with that, at least not for now. a cool idea would be someone being active and productive in the day, getting progressively more tired and eventually slowing down at night, recharging for the next day.
Exclusive to night time, I think dreams would also be fun as a concept; sometimes people have reoccurring dreams, which could be presented through a loop, and sometimes people have odd and nonsensical dreams. There are also nightmares, or sleep paralysis; more sinister happenings at night.
Something I wanted to connect to day and night is shadows; whether they play a minor role in whatever I choose to do or not, I think they’d be a cool addition to it. There’s obviously already the connection that shadows are casted during the day when it’s light and distort as days progressively grow older, so if I don’t want shadows to take centre stage in my project then they can be an after thought. However after looking in a bit deeper, I think I’ll probably end up forgetting about shadows in the long run unless they und up a focal point in the loop.
Going back to shadows, i think secondary research on shadows would be kind of boring; we all know what they are, and there hasn’t really been much mythology surrounding them outside of tales of creepy disappearing shadows, and i don’t like reading scary things. Instead I’ll do some primary research, looking at how I can manipulate shadows and make them more interesting.
I started off by manipulating a shadow of my hand to make a rabbit. I think the way shadows can take any form is pretty cool and it could work well as a loop concept.
i also find it interesting how shadows are able to follow the light no matter where it goes; light can’t exist without shadows, just as the sun can’t exist without the moon and day can’t exist without night.
I looked lastly at how shadows can be distorted and change in shape. Shadows closer to the light source will appear bigger and sometimes more blurry, while shadows that are closer to the surface they’re casted on to will appear smaller and more clear.
All in all, I think shadows are a cool concept because they can travel and morph to a seemingly endless degree. They also tie into fate, which I was looking at; they’re fated to always follow the light, existing only where light does. I think they’d be cool to work with, but I don’t know if I’ll go with them as an exclusive final concept; in all honesty I don’t know how much fun I’d have drawing only silhouettes, but I think I could take some creative liberties and make them more detailed, so that I could produce some more fun and imaginative pieces of art.
With the basic fragments of my idea down (light, darkness and shadows) I’m ready to make a moodboard for my project. I hope to gain some visual inspiration through this moodboard, as I think it will be easier for me to connect my themes visually; by the end of it’s creation, I want to have more of a solid understanding of what it is that I want to create.
This was the moodboard I made. I tried to make it half day and half night with intersections between the two placed more into the middle, such as eclipses and shadows. I stopped with this moodboard (which is why it looks half done) because I felt like while it was a good start, it didn’t really communicate everything visually that I wanted it to; I want to include more shadows, because I’ll probably end up going with them as a main theme, possibly not even doing night and day. I added more images to this moodboard to make it more interesting, and this was the result;
This was my final, more fleshed out moodboard. Seeing some of these images led me to new ideas and inspiration; I looked at ways people have personified shadows, and they range from quite sad, wanting more than they have, to more mischievous beings taking advantage of their ability to travel, to malicious and evil beings with more power than shadows in the real world have. These finding helped me to form some more quick ideas, like a shadow repeatedly changing in shape, or a sad and lonely shadow attempting to interact with humans. I also looked at some things that I hadn’t already considered as themes in my moodboard, straying away a little bit from my light and dark theme; I looked at some fantasy and magic images, as I liked the aesthetic commonly used for these things. I also looked at cosmic bodies such as planets and stars, as these things can often be linked to light and darkness in some way, orbiting suns and having one or more moons.
On this elective (loops), the goal is to create an interesting 40-60 second loop animation, including sound. To get to what will eventually be the final concept of the loop, we must first go through a process of research, exploring ideas and coming up with a body of visual references that we can take inspiration from, and learning to connect quick ideas and develop them.
I said in my appraisal for the last project that i want to try going through the process properly before coming up with a final idea right off the bat, which is something I usually do. I’m going into this project with no idea what I want the end result to be; I’ll come to that conclusion through research and progression on the project.
To begin this project, we had to come up with what is described as a 3D mind map; a detailed mind map with many branches, where we could get potential ideas down and eventually choose some concepts we’re interested in and think of ways to connect them.
This was my initial mind map. To begin with, I just spit balled some quick ideas in relation to loops; things that happen/occur infinitely, with the end connecting to the beginning. I put the definitions for what loops are in the middle, so that I didn’t go too far off the rails with my research. I looked into some things I’m interested in, such as existing stories containing loops and mythology.
Some concepts i especially liked from this mind map were the idea that day and night are an existing loop that we all experience, as they’re destined to repeat, and the idea of fate or destiny, as anything existing on a loop would inevitably reach the beginning again, fated to keep on repeating it’s life story. I like things that tell a story, or at least hint towards the existence of a story leaving it’s plot to the viewer’s interpretation, so right off the bat these things appealed to me. They also allowed me to think of some quick imagery; the sun and moon, light and darkness and another branch I found interest in; shadows. I felt that I wanted to build more branches off of what I had, so I extended the mind map;
In this mind map, I tried building off of the concepts of day & night and destiny. I asked myself; what happens during the day and during the night? what separates them? how do they relate to each other? i drew more branches and explored these things in a little more research.
One thing i found particularly interesting, as mentioned before, was shadows; they’re fated to change in position, shape and size throughout the day, somewhat existing on a loop. They have also been very important in the past, being used to tell what time of day it is before we had a better way of figuring it out.
From this mind map I found 3 themes I want to work with; shadows, light and day and destiny. I have a few cool ideas that could stem from this; someone changing identities between the day and the night, shadows coming to life or travelling in interesting ways, gods of the sun and moon, etc, but these are just initial ideas and I’m not committing to them much because something more interesting can and probably will come up in my mind when I research further than just a mind map.
I finished creating my book, so now it was time to create a 30 second video, capturing the book.
I noticed that i didn’t give my book a front cover. I didn’t make one because i didn’t know if it would be included as a page, and i didn’t want to go over 12 pages. I created a short video in place of the front cover; it’s me floating around in a void, with some underwater audio and some audio from the Apollo 11 mission (i can’t include the video here, but you’ll see it at the beginning of each of my final videos, which will be further down in this post).
I knew nobody would be able to read a whole book in 30 seconds, so instead of trying to leave the viewer enough time to do the impossible, i wanted to create a video that captured the atmosphere of my book well. I had my washing line idea, so i took my book into the garden and put it up on the line. The second half of the video was just me turning the pages, giving the viewer a taste of each page in the book.
I ended up not liking this final video much. As well as it being too long, i think it’s just a little bit boring; not much happens, and i didn’t think the washing line idea was a concept that was strong or clear enough to engage viewers. When i presented it on the 15th, i was asked; ‘do you think it represents you?’ i don’t think this video represents me well at all, and by extension it doesn’t represent the book well.
I spent some time to think of what i didn’t like about the video, and i created a new one. I wanted the new video to be more fun conceptually, and i wanted it to represent the kind of atmosphere that the book has.
I created this video using the same method i used to create the book; i just came up with a rough idea an worked through it without too much planning, to keep it spontaneous and reflective of my mindset at the time of it’s creation.
I think that this video doesn’t look like the kind of thing you’d usually submit at school or uni, but neither does my book. My book is written really informally and kind of has a relaxed and personal atmosphere, and i think that is reflected well through this video. I think this one represents me well; a little bit random, more imaginative and a little silly. This video is what my book would be like if it came to life.
Overall, creating the videos has taught me a few things; that engaging with an audience is important (nobody would read my book, so i had to think of a way to entertain them differently. I had to put myself in the place of the viewer), and that sometimes initial ideas don’t work out but rather than beating myself up about it, i should just try to learn from the problem and change it.
Overall I’ve had fun with this book project. It was a little more easier and more relaxing than my other projects; it required more thinking and planning than it did making. I’m glad i was able to do this task, as it’s slightly changed my approach on creating art pieces; sometimes being spontaneous is a good thing, you don’t always have to plan things down to a T.
As of this blog post, i have finished the pages of my book and bounded it together. I’ll talk here about what my process behind creating the book was, and what i think of the book now that it’s finished.
As i said in my last blog post, i wanted to work on each page spontaneously, capturing my ideas and thought processes as i worked to give each panel a sense of my current mindset at it’s time of creation. It took me a total of 3 days to complete the book; i did 4 pages each day. I didn’t want to do too many pages on the same day, as i wanted to give my brain some time to refresh and come up with new ideas. I also didn’t want my panels to begin looking the same, and i think taking short breaks helped me to not overload my mind. I also made an effort to work on each of the pages at different times of day; when i felt hungry i created pages about food, when i felt angry or sad i created pages reflecting that and when i felt tired i created pages based on dreams, and so on. This worked well with my process of creation, as i was constantly creating pages while in different states of mind, giving the panels some variety.
Here are the 12 pages of my book, with 2 panels each. I’ll include some quick text to summarize what’s happening in the panels;
page 1 top panel- where is ‘here’? bottom panel- a literal interpenetration
page 2 top panel- experiencing the world without vision bottom panel- traveling the world through music
page 3 top panel- ethnicity vs nationality bottom panel- being absorbed in fictional/created worlds
page 4 top panel- here in my dreams bottom panel- not wanting to be ‘here’
page 5 top panel- ‘here’ when you’re unconscious bottom panel- ‘here’ physically vs ‘here’ mentally
page 6 top panel ‘here’ on earth bottom panel- ‘here’ is universal, but it’s not
page 7 top panel- ‘here’ online bottom panel- ‘here’ alone vs ‘here’ with others
page 8 top panel- ‘here’ inside your brain bottom panel- ‘here’ in the past (there?)
page 9 top panel- ‘here’ completely physically bottom panel- ‘here’ doing uni work
Page 10- here emotionally, here eating
page 11 top panel- drawing to conclusion bottom panel- self explanatory
page 12 top panel- my conclusion, where ‘here’ is bottom panel- an ending question
Overall, i feel i achieved what i set out to through this book; a colourful piece, heavily reliant on imagery that communicates who i am, my identity, my experiences and some of my ideas and opinions to the viewer. Although there isn’t much of a connection between the pages (or even the panels to some extent), i think that the book is oddly coherent, possibly due to using similar styles and colours on each page. I’m happy with my end result as i feel like i challenged myself a bit, and i was able to learn more about my own ways of thinking through this project.
The hardest part for me was coming up with things to write about on each page. With the book being only 12 pages long i couldn’t cover everything i would have wanted to, so i had to only speak about things that i thought would be interesting or entertaining to share. I admittedly think that some of the drawings look slightly off (mostly proportionately), so i’ll work to improve on that, mostly through my live drawing classes. i also feel that i could’ve made the composition of the panels a bit more interesting, which is something i didn’t consider much while creating them.
At first, i couldn’t see how this task related to animation very much, but i think it did help me to explore my ideas, apply relevant research and ask myself questions. While objectively i didn’t learn anything about animation, i think i sharpened my thinking and exploration abilities, and although i still have a long way to go, i’d say i was able to create something that represents me well.
I’m ready to start generating ideas for my book, so i’ll document my process here on this blog post, as one does.
i want to create a comic book, as my research shows. I want to do this mainly for two reasons; firstly, i want to challenge myself to communicate with the reader/viewer of my book more through image than language, as i have a tendency to write a lot, and secondly because i personally prefer reading comics and manga to books, and since the book is meant to be somewhat personal, i think this will make it reflect my interests well. As Julie chen does, i want the actual build of my book to be relevant to the meaning and contents, so i figured i should make it like a comic since that’s one of my interests.
I couldn’t figure out whether to make my book more like a manga or a comic, so i decided to find a middle ground; it will more or less be like a comic, but it will be backwards like a manga. it’s like a hybrid of the two things i like to read.
Aesthetically i want to use my own art style, while taking influence from both anime and cartoons from the early to current 2000s. These are the cartoons that have had the most influence on me, and i want to reflect that through my work.
One cartoon i’ll take influence from is ed edd n eddy. I feel like the style encompasses early 2000s/ late 90s cartoon styles well; exaggerated expressions, bold colour palettes and some slightly crude imagery. I would like my book to be entertaining and personal, and personally i find things that are less formal and more crude more engaging and entertaining. I want to adopt these elements into my book, maybe more through the dialogue than the imagery.Another cartoon i want to take influence from is my favorite childhood cartoon; the power-puff girls. Aesthetically it shares a lot of similarities with ed edd n eddy; a boldly coloured and somewhat simplistic style with bold lines and simple shapes (which i forgot to mention for ed edd n eddy), but it leans more toward cute than crude or slightly grotesque. I think i’ll try to achieve this with my book, as it’s an aesthetic I’ve always been fond of, and it has had influence on my own style and ways of drawing.
I’m going to use my own handwriting for my book rather than printing out a typed font or working digitally, as i think this will help to give the book some of my personality, while also giving it a nice hand-made look.
The theme of the book is ‘you are here’; i was puzzled by this theme at first, and i want to reflect that in my book. where is ‘here’? when you truly think of it, what does ‘here’ even mean? rather than writing a coherent story, in each panel i want to explore how the meaning of ‘here’ can change, using my own personal experiences, opinions and viewpoints as examples. For example, ‘here’ in my dreams is a lot different than ‘here’ in real life; i’ll try to look into what makes these two ‘here’s so different from each other, while linking them to either something about me or something that i think/feel. In the end, i want the book to seem like a bunch of brightly coloured panels, all different in theme, coming together to somewhat communicate who i am and how i think to the reader.
As stated before, i’ll work traditionally for this book. I’d like to use pro markers (a cheaper alternative to copic markers, bold alcohol based markers) to colour my book; i used these for my animatic, so along with saving time and money, i’m familiar with these pens and i like how they make my work look. They look bold and bright, similarly to digital colouring, which would’ve been my chosen method of creation if i didn’t want the book to give off more of a hand made look. To put the book together i’ll do something simple, like stapling it or hole punching it.
For generating page ideas, i want to work kind of loosely and spontaneously. I won’t plan how each page looks, or even what content will be on all of them; i’ll come up with rough ideas of things i might want to talk about in relation to the theme, and i’ll just draw whatever pops into my mind. I want the panels to represent my mindset, thoughts and feelings at the exact moment i’m creating them, and i think this way of working is the best way to achieve that.
Lastly, we have to capture our books in 30 second videos. My concept for this video is to put the book on a washing line; the book will contain some personal information that i’ll have to share with others, whether i like it or not. One of my first thoughts was that it’s a bit like having your clothes on a washing line for all to see; a normal thing, but it’s a bit embarrassing to have everyone be able to see something somewhat personal like your underwear or fashion choices, and to have them make judgments on you solely based on that. I think it would be a cool little add on to the book, and hopefully people will understand why i chose to do it.
With a process in mind and a head full of ideas, i think i’m ready to start drawing out the pages of my book. In the next blog i’ll document how my book is going, and my methods of working without falling behind.
Every good project starts with some solid research, so i want to look at some artist’s works (more specifically artist books) as well as exploring and citing other influences before i start to plan my own. I’m hoping i’ll be influenced aesthetically from this research, and that it will help me to generate some ideas.
Artist 1- little thunder
Little thunder is a famous comic artist from Hong Kong, born on April 17th 1984. She has been illustrating and working on comics since 2002, and has also expanded into commercial illustration and video game art. She was able to get her comic strips published in newspapers in Hong Kong as a teenager, and has worked for big companies such as Nike and Dior.
Thunder sites one of her childhood influences as Japanese anime. She says that drawings make her happy, and she also loves storytelling, which makes comics a perfect middle ground between the two. Her comics range in themes from a bit surreal to relatable, with one of her comics being titled ‘me’ because of how many people tell her they relate to her work. She generally communicates her ideas on topics and phases of her life through her comics, allowing her readers to look into her mind a little and see things from her point of view. In her own words, she says that comics allow her to express herself without words.
Thunder’s work for me is characterized by her illustration style, which is somewhere between slightly more realistic and anime, and her use of colour; her work has a consistent aesthetic because of her colour usage, coming across as soft looking. Her colour palettes seem to generally use a lot of pastel colours, and a lot of her works include soft pinks. My guess on the materials she uses for her work are watercolors, and maybe some markers too.
In my opinion, Thunder’s art is successful not only because it’s beautiful to look at, but also because she puts some of herself into whatever she creates. Everyone’s point of view and experiences are unique, so her using her own thought processes as themes in her work is interesting as it allows us to see things from her perspective. There is also a sense of familiarity to her work, offering the readers/viewers of her pieces some relatability which keeps you engaged and somewhat comforted.
I’ll take some influence from Thunder’s thought process above all else; she creates her work from a personal point of view, but it’s not so abstract that the reader is left confused or disengaged by the end of reading one of her comics. She seems to work from her heart, using styles influenced by things she was fond of in her childhood to work in, and speaking truthfully to the reader. I think this makes for refreshing art pieces as they aren’t too formal or far fetched (art tends to be a little bit too abstract for non artist’s tastes sometimes), making her pieces suitable for almost all audiences. They’re deep enough without having too much of a profound message. I’ll try to incorporate things like these into my own work.
Artist 2- Julie Chen
Julie Chen is a book artist from California, born in 1963. She underwent a print making course at the university of California in 1984, before going on to become interested in book arts. She went on to get a degree in book arts at mill’s college in 1989, and has since created a variety of artist’s books and worked at her former university.
Chen’s art books are created using a range of traditional book making techniques, such as binding, laser cutting and letterpress printing. Similarly to little thunder, Chen’s books are made with some of her personality put into them; they often have themes of her own ideas and opinions, as well as her personal opinions and interests.
Of all of Chen’s works, there’s one that caught my eye in particular; ‘The first seven days, my very first artist book’. I like the aesthetic of the book and the colours she used, but i’m also interested by the structure of the book. It isn’t shaped like a traditional book, which begs the question; what is a book? what criteria does something have to meet to be considered a book? Although i don’t think i’ll go down the path of crafting a more artistic and abstract book, i found her way of thinking interesting. She thought outside the box to create something different, something that would stand out in a crowd of other books.
Chen says herself that the physical structure of her books is a crucial part in their perception. She plans the shapes of the books based on their content. In the accordion-esque book above, the themes are of her identity; as a woman, as an Asian american, all things that make up who she is. Through my interpretation, the book’s structure contributes to this; all of the pages are connected and flow into each other, much like how every aspect of a person connects to form their identity and who they are. I like this approach of making books as it’s very imaginative; i want to challenge my imagination and come up with something that communicates who i am well enough to my reader.
My own influences
This is one book i like and own; Scott pilgrim vs the world (specifically volume 2) by Brian lee o’malley. There are a lot of things i like about this book; firstly, although i can see that the author is influenced by Japanese manga through the general set up and aesthetic of these pages, he has a unique style that can’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. I aim to achieve this somewhat through my book; i want it to be recognizable as something that i, jahiem, created, as it’s meant to reflect some of my own identity.
Another thing i like about Scott pilgrim is the dialogue and fonts. Sometimes, things are boring to read when they’re just long walls of formal text in an ordinary font (yes, this is a self call out), But the font in Scott pilgrim looks a little self written, which ads a personal and unique element to the book; it adds character even to the writing. Dialogue wise, i like how every character has their own way of speaking; they all have their own tone. I want to do something like this in my book; i want it to be something where anyone who knows me and recognizes my speaking pattern would definitely know i wrote it. I want to use my own way of communicating, letting go of any formalities, as i think this also will add a personal touch to the book.
This is another book i like and own; volume 4 of the dragon ball manga by Toriyama Akira. In my opinion, Toriyama is very successful at setting tones and communicating ideas visually alone; in comics you cant be as descriptive with language as you can in books, so you have to show more than you tell. Toriyama draws each character with a lot of personality, so even without reading the words, you get a sense of how the character is feeling or what they’re doing in each panel of the manga.
I think this would be a useful element to adopt for an artist book. Truthfully, nobody will be able to read the text in the book because of how fast the video has to be (30 seconds), but i’d like every image to be eye catching and give a sense of what i’m writing about to the reader. I have a tendency to write a lot, but i’ll have to challenge myself to communicate more through my drawings for this project, drawing pictures that are interesting and clear.
Now that i have done some research into themes and processes behind creating books, i’m ready to start planning my own. There are a few ideas I’ve already come up with based on my research, but i’ll save them for the next blog post. i look forward to seeing what i can come up with.
For my last homework task before starting on my book project, i had to make a map. I could challenge myself to create this map in any way i wanted to, and it could be of any place; i chose to do a map of my walk between my house and Brixton, as it’s a route i walk often so i thought it would be suitable.
I had a lot of ideas for this map, which was an advantage at fisrt but it went south eventually. At first i was planning to tke pictures of significant areas, write down what i felt sbout them and create digital drawings of them once i got home, but once i finished doing this, i really did’nt like the end result. I still had the pictures i took, so i decided to draw pictures from them, and my plan was to somehow connect these pictures; however i ran out of time, and i only ended up with 3 seperate drawings.
I think i could’ve avoided having such little work if i had managed my time a little better and changed what i didn’t like about the first piece rather than starting again; in the future, i’ll only look at completely abandoning an idea as a last resort. But nonetheless, our follow up task was to create a video with sound using the maps we had created.
Because i only had 3 drawings, i needed to think of a way to use them in a video without the video being too short. I ended up doing a stop motion piece, using my map as backdrops; i went a little off task by to focusing on the map a lot, but i wanted to make something fun to watch that could make people smile.
Overall i enjoyed this task although it was a little difficult. I think it taught me a lot about managing my time appropriately and the consequences of not doing enough work; it makes future stages and progression harder even if it’s able to pass assessment. In the future i’ll work hard to produce well thought out work, and enough of it.
For this task, we were challenged to take 15 1 second videos with the theme ‘here’, and put them together into one 15 second videos. The theme could be interpreted in whatever way we wanted to interpret it, we just had to explain how it linked to the theme of ‘here’.
This was the first video i made. I went around the area i lived in, and took some short videos. I was unhappy with this video, because again, i feel like i took the task too literally; i just interpreted ‘here’ as an area i see often, and the end result was a little mundane. I wanted to create something with a more personal feeling; something that would reflect my day to day life, and set it apart from other peoples. So, i re-did the video;
I like this video a lot. I wanted to interpret the theme of ‘here’ as a day in my life; something from my perspective that only i experience; to achieve this, i looked for videos that best represented my relationships with who was in them, and videos that i personally was fond of. I think this video communicates the way i feel about everyone in it to the audience, and it has a bit of my personality in it too. I want to work hard to keep on creating more personal and engaging pieces like this, that have some of my own experience and personality behind them.
