Personal logo design

Previously before joining, my animation course I studied graphic design at leeds college of art at Vernon Street. I have always had a passion for graphics because I like the look of illustrative images especially in comics and the way they can be arranged, mostly because graphical work is every where and is used in almost everything meaning there are a lot of jobs around for graphic designers like me and the industry is still growing. 

The following designs below are for a Logo design I am creating for a friend who is looking to set up construction company, he has given me a theme, Title, name and colour to focus on when designing because He is looking to create a construction company called "Cyan Build". The main focus has been the words Cyan and Build so I have focused on designing logo that works around the colour blue, followed by a form of construction e.g. a house so far my client is very pleased with the current progress.

I like graphic design work because it is something I have worked for a long time and their is so many ways of communicating using graphics, I consider it as a clean way of creating a form of communication. 

      

Logos

Inking and colouring (strength)

Inking and colouring are skills developed though practicing my drawing, analysing and watching tutorials. I have worked on outline for a long time, it has just come naturally and I never had to work at it I would say that I gained the interest in this technique through reading different comics and analysing the different artists, styles and techniques about used. Practicing and referring to images drawn admired artist like Jim Lee is what developed my understanding in to outlining and helped me develop my own personal fine-lining skills which have now developed even further to day now that I have been working with this skill more and often when I draw anything.

I both use and like Jim Lee as a reference because his work looks very well composed and stands out when you look at it which is based on the way he inks his work, which gives it that depth and detail.

          

Presenting (strength)

Originally I was never really confident with presenting my work based on my lack of belief in my art and feedback that would be given towards my work always stated that my work need a little work because the way I had drawn each piece was very rough. But the more I have entered competitions, asked for peoples opinions and posted my work on social media, I have developed my confidence due to the positive commentary I have received from friends and other people who follow my accounts which opened my eye to receiving criticism and that, it is not for the weak and can help change your work from average to amazing based on the changes given by others which will not always be right but will improve your massively especially when toy receive the same comments from different people which is useful in suggesting there is an obvious major floor in your work. I have also now developed the ability to challenge comments with my own opinions and am able to present my work publicly due to my confidence in my work.

Storyboarding (strength)

Always had this skill, was developed through the love of comics, I have been drawing comics from a very young age and still do so, have entered a few Thought Bubbles in the past to experience competing and artwork produced by others. Studied stories with a personal tutor who help develop my planning skills and would say this is the reason why I can draw up a storyboard today.

I use the storyboarding book developed by Francis Glebas to help me work up scenery and visualise a character to work with based on my type of story, I think this skill have been strengthened and developed through years of practice and understanding. Why I am strong at storyboarding is because I have been working with stories and thumbnails for a long time by entering comic competitions, working up scripts and having my tutor check my story ideas and give me critical feedback to work on to help improve me and strengthen my writing and story development skills for the future which is why I can draw up thumbnails with good narratives.

Sketching (strength)

I think sketching is another skill I have practiced to prefect, through the use of tutorials and how to draw books. I currently practice from a life drawing book to study the human form because I need to work of proportion based on my ability of not being able draw body parts at the right size according to the parts of the human body and my tutors who have told me that this is something I need to practice, I can draw both digital, traditionally and am good with colouring.

I draw everyday Morning, Noon and night, I also draw portraits for people on social media to help my understanding of the human form. I also follow other artist to explore the different styles and people in the same art industry as me through social media and the internet, I ask for feed back and people send me many positive comments; Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, this is what has helped me develop more in drawing and sketching everyday because I can reflect on my previous art pieces and what went right or wrong and why.

I would say my sketching speciality is fine-lining and inking drawing by hand and working them up in colour on the computer, I have developed this skill through the watching of tutorials and analysis of comic books which I read often draw and sketch ideas from and have been doing so for a long time, people have said I am amazing at doing so and they feel it is impossible for them to develop and traditional skill as this.

Sketching is my strength because I practice sketching when I get a opportunity to work up designs on personal Graphic designs projects for clients and have been developing a business plan my self for selling my own clothes which has involved me having to draw often in photoshop and illustrator in order to develop my designs, I would say that working and practicing over the years even when I was doing my graphic design diploma which has helped me strengthen my skills in sketching. I am always observing, drawing and use photographs I have personally taken as reference, hope to keep doing so for many years to come.

This is a strength because I practice drawing day in and out and have been on developing my own drawing style by taking inspiration from other comic book artist.

          

Writing and generating ideas (strength)

Over the start of the course I already had an understanding of how to plan out a piece of narrative and characters. I have been used to studying how to write stories from studying english, watching and analysing films,TV and cartoon shows for their narratives. In my spare time I like to read because I believe it helps with my vocabulary, any words I come across in a book and I don't understand, I search for them through dictionary and write them down in my personal hand book to help remember their meanings. Recently I have been reading a book called Directing The Story written by Francis Glebas an animator, Story-boarder and now lecturer to animation students. This book talks you through the steps of making a story and how to communicate a concept, idea to certain audiences.

I personally feel that this book has helped develop my understanding through explaining what makes a good story and the difference between a good and bad story through illustrations and diagrams. Reading this book has made me understand that different authors write stories differently and that I my self can produce uniques stories through the use of understanding and my own mind.

Over all this is a strength I possess because I practice writing stories and have been for a long time and I  have gotten used to planning alto more because I personally work as a graphic designer and work on planning out certain designs for logos and work up concept for personal clients so planning comes natural to me because I practice it on a daily and know how to work up my own idea from scratch based on research into other ideas created by existing art practitioners, companies and brands.I am used to writting because I constantly read books to help me build my volcaulary and understanding of stories and sketch often so I become better a planning visually.

            

My favourite artist Shepard Fairey

My favourite artist is Shepard Fairey, I like his graphic/graffiti artwork, because he uses shapes to create digital stencil looking artwork influenced by graffiti, this style of digital art is very similar to mine and  the colours used are very used are always the same through out all his work which communicates a feeling or meaning to his viewers. His work originally started off as graffiti in the  and later on developed  into graphical work in the 1990's which is when he started to create posters, murals and stickers, this when is skills as a graphic artist started to develop later on leading to his creation of the Obama Hope voting campaign poster for Obama when he was running for president. The symbol used in his log is always and image of a angry looking character which happens to be André The Giant, a wrestler from 1980's he was developed into a graffiti campaign movement by skaters who worked up a movement revolved around Andre The Giant him self called The Andre the giant posse founded by Shepard Fairey. This is where the logo then developed into Obey Giant which is now the founded brand of Shepard Fairey to day. A lot of Shepard Fairey's work has a purpose and the aim of them is to campaign for positive human rights and world peace through imagery sad imagery purposely used to make people feel sympathetic towards the poster and message provided.

I personally like his work because of his bold type and illustration style because it stands out because of its boldness but also goes with the message of Obey. When I look at any of Shepard Fairey's work it makes me feel a sense of worship towards the images presented but mainly to Andre The Giant because he looks fierce, serious, mesmerising and fearful you look into his eyes, I mainly like his work because it is bold, stands out and makes a statement using both its colour and imagery.

I the future I think I will always come back to researching Shepard Fairey and his work because I feel it is very similar to mine and that I can relate to his style of work, because have a similar style my self which almost follows some aspect of graffiti and involves a lot of graphical printing.

      

S.W.O.T

To day we talked about S.W.O.T which stands for; Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.  This talk was about our knowledge of our selves and the industry we work in, it was all about understanding what advantages and disadvantages I myself possess and how it will effect me working the future, the talks was great and i found it useful because it help me identify things that I did not know about my working practice and what will be required of me in the future I and what employers are looking for in applicants like me. We looked more into S.W.O.T and worked on our own personal S.W.O.T analysis table which was filled in to my personal understanding of my self to later realise after our tutor explained that an artist's perception of themselves is regarded as arrogant by others and that what is seen by others is more important than what you personally see your self as an artist because in your mind it is natural for you to regard everything positively, you don't see beyond the way you work, personal skills or understanding because you regard yourself highly. This later on led to a task, where everyone was given a similar table with the same quotes of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats as they previous ones we personally filled our selves, this was to see what other people thought of one another and how the perception changed in some one else perspective.

I enjoyed this talk over all because it gave me a broad understanding of my self as am artist and has help be identify a lot of my weakness and future threats that could jeopardise my career, so I am happy that I know what I need to work on in the future and will do so.

  

Who am I and what skills I possess

Over the past few months of being on the BA HONS Animation course, I have developed skills in animating and have been given the understanding of the types of animation available, but most of all I have developed in my drawing skills because, there have been many times I have worked on sketching through modules which help me identify and improve my weaknesses. I have researched into different artists and practitioners in my field of art and the art industry in general, this has help me develop my own style because it has allowed me explore a wide range of art work in preparation for analysing my own work and the positives and negatives with the art pieces. Researching has helped me a lot, I personally think it is the key to my development in drawing and style, research opens the mind to my possibilities with the use of information from experienced people in any industry and imagery used to help people in general to understand the idea of a profession and the standard of work produced. That is why I would say research has helped me develop my style of drawing because it has allowed me to explore the different styles world wide and I have been able to question professionals through social media and travelling, which have provided me with valuable advice based on drawing digitally and traditionally.

Personally I have practiced air brushing and colouring on photoshop, never really been good anatomy but going to life drawing classes set up by college has allowed me to understand forms more, I can draw a female body to proportion, because this was something I used to struggle with before starting animation, I think it is the persuasion and the encouragement from my tutors that has pushed me in the direction I am in because I have been told that my strength is drawing, it just needs developing in style previously because I have drawn to messy in the past which is now rectified due to practice.  

This is why I have developed in my drawing because I have practiced drawing and have used learning tutorials to help develop me digitally with drawing physical forms, this is all due to research and introduction to the uses of packages with the ability to draw. Videos like the ones below have provide me with valuable knowledge I never possessed to help me develop in my drawing and presentation skills.

In the future I hope to keep developing, I will ensure this happens through practicing and carrying on with researching into the areas I require as my own personal artist by reading and watching animation tutorials.

    
I watched some how to draw tutorials because I wanted to improve my drawings style reason being is because my drawing style is too inaccurate in proportion and it is also messy in its appearance. The only way I can develop and move on is if I practice my drawing and work on my flaws regularly. From watching these guides I have learnt how to draw and colour neatly on digital format like Photoshop to I apply this method I will work with Photoshop my self and practice and apply this method to my drawings when working on up and coming projects.

How long to developing and animated film or Cartoon

How long does it take to develop and animated movie, why and what process do the animation team or whole company have to go through to ensure that the animation is a successful block buster. I want to understand processes of making a full feature movie animation or cartoon because I am looking to become my own personal freelancer and would want to develop a film and cartoon series later on in my life and will want to know the full process before creating something so big. I need to understand why the animators have to go through so many tests before they get the animated scenes they want, how they release the footage and what processes it then goes through before being released to the cinemas. I mainly want to compare and understand the difference between the animation industry today and in the past what would have had to be done was there more work involved ? These are the questions I ask my self.

Toy story 3

Ghost Stories 

Big O

I have been watching some animation lately because I want to understand the how they create certain effects with in an animation and also because I enjoy watching a lot of animation in my spare time, the main thing I wanted to find out was how long essentially it would take to make a full animation as part of a big company. What I have found out that there is no specific time to the production of an animation because it depends on the amount of work involved in the animation alone which would effect the time frame but there is also a deadline that needs working to.

Voice acting and lip syncing

Lip syncing and voice acting is something that has been on my mind through out the animation course. I want to know how the voice of an actor and how it is processed and synced with a type of character, I most defiantly want to know this because I think it is vital that my characters speak, I don't know how to make them communicate because I have never had an understanding of how to lip sync and think it would be useful if my characters could talk. I need to know more about how this skill is done also the process the animators, directors and voice actors have to go through, so that I have an idea of what I need to do to be able to develop this skill.

This information can be gathered through watching tutorials and documentaries, this is probably the best way to gather information, but I could also ask for advice from my animation tutors with experience in this field.

    
I have been watching a tutorial on lip syncing because I am not very good with lip syncing my self and I am trying to understand how it works according to what is being said. I want to know how the lips work in relation to each word e.g. do you have to animated every pronunciation for each letter.  

Special effects in 3D animated movies

Want to know how special effects are made in 3D animated movies and what packages are used. I want to know how effects are made because I hope to create an animation in 3D that feature special effects using packages like Maya so I would need to understand how they use 3D and maybe how it can be done in Maya as a 3D specialising package. I would like to find out how to create explosion or sometime in the future when I have more of an understanding with Maya, I want to learn so I can practice now. Over all I just really want to know about special effect to help boost my skills in animation 3D animating and hope to learn some effects in the future.

    

I watched a video on effect to do with Maya, reason being is because I want to understand Maya a bit more and the type of effects that can be used with in the package, i want to make an attempt on creating an  animation with in this package. Watching this has made understand a bit about Maya's effects but I would not see my self using my for professional work with in my career because 3D is not a format I want to work with, I prefer both 2D and traditional but I am still wanting to experiment with effects in this package. I am been learning how to create explosions and action effects with in this package which i have now been practising my self.

3D works in Gaming

I have always wondered how 3D works in gaming and how they get games to work how they want. There is not a full grasp of how gaming company like Rockstar manage to get the characters look realistic and move so well. I want to know how the motion capture suits are used for movements and would like to understand how they actually work on the body, why gaming companies use them and how are they are beneficial. My main focus of all is the software, I want to know what software is commonly used in the gaming industry and how does it work, how do the gamers work and what are their requirements, do they need to meet any? These are the quests I ask my self, I have always played games and been fascinated by how the characters move and act, mainly I have wondered what it takes to make a game. I want to find out because, I personally want to understand how games work, so that I have a knowledge of what it takes to be a games designer, games is not my career choice but I would like to understand how they work and what is need to produce a great game. 

Part making of SSX below:

   

I watch videos that talked about the making of  the SSX and the process which has gone into making it what it is now. The reason for watching this was to get a general idea of what the process are that go into making a game from designing to making. This builds me and my understanding so that I am able to progress further in the terms of understanding animation and how big it is as an industry. I have learnt there are so many people who work on different aspects similar to the method of animators with an animation company. 

Professional production of comics

I personally want to know about comics being produce professionally by well know comic artist that work in the industry. The main form of production of a comic I would like to know about is how the artist them selves outline and colour the character so perfect before putting them on a shelf. This is mainly because I my self have tried to colour and outline previous comic strips of my own in the past, but always make a mess of the outline and colouring. I have no idea of how to shade correctly using computer art packages like e.g. photoshop, this package alone is used professionally by the comic artists in the art industry, I need to know how to do this because my dream is to become a comic artist and animator which means it is fundamental that I know how to shade and cool because it will bring the best out of my work, I think not knowing how to tone, shade and colour in photoshop hinders me from demonstrating my full potential in the package because I can colour and produce fine graphic and illustrative images in photoshop but I believe that learning the different brush and tones provided will be key to making a successful comic for people to enjoy.

Must research into various comic artist in the future and tutorial videos to help me learn how to colour and outline professionally, this will help me develop digital colouring skills through practicing and following guidelines, I think this would help more than just drawing my self because I will be receiving information from a professional and practicing comic artist through experience and information they provide.

I have found that tutorials help a lot because they visually show and highlight points there and then. But most of all I feel it would be good to talk to an actual comic artist with experience, that is why I have bought a ticket to attend "Thought bubble festival" in Leeds 14th November to gain an insight in what it takes to be a comic artist.

Recent videos I have watch to help develop my understanding:

          

I have been looking at how to create and produce your own comic book characters and scenes, the reason for this is because I want to work on building my own comic for the future and want to learn some new techniques on how to colour digitally because this is a skill I lack because I am not very good with blending colours and I always seem to clash colours too often. Watching these has improved my understanding of colour digitally and has shown me what brush and to use and what colours blend and work well with one another I will apply these ideas by test these skills my self and will practice daily with the brush and colours I require in order to get better.

Skills I have learned and now possess

Have learned how to develop many skills over the past few months has developed quick since the first years, From learning the basics of key-framing I have gone on to understand the inbetweens for key-framing movement. I have developed skill in hand drawn frame by frame drawing and am now learning how to model in Maya, I am still learning maya but I feel that personally I have fully developed in my but will develop further as I progress on in the future. For the time being I only understand how to model in Maya but I am watching animating tutorials to develop the skills to move my created characters. I would already say I am a great Illustrator, I just need the animation skills to make my art feel complete.

I have also learnt that anyone can animate and that there are many different ways you can animate, 3D, Traditional, Stop motion and many more forms. I have experimented with the different forms and have found out my self that I am feel stronger in animating with 2D but I have developed a passion for animating in 3D and now want to learn how to animate in this form professionally because I feel that the package Maya is complicated but simple to understand in its presentation.

I have developed in planning my ideas and selecting the right one, I have developed this skill through the working briefs provided for me. They have been challenging an have pushed me to think more about creating original and unique animations that work for my target audiences.

3D animation

Stopmotion animation

Traditional animation

I have learnt to use many different process for animation over the years while being at University and I have found that I like using both digital and traditional combined together because I like to draw by hand I feel that doing it traditionally I can draw forms a lot more cleaner and am better with character design. Finding out what I am am good at has helped me move forward in terms of progression because I have identified what style i want to work work with in the future.  

Animation programmes

Learned how to use programmes I have never had any experience until enrolling onto the myself. After effects, Maya, Flash, Premier and adobe bridge. I never really used these packages because I had no interest in them and their functions, but after using them I realise they are unique with animating, editing, illustrating and adding finishing touches to a finished animated piece, personally as an animator I never thought these packages were used professionally in the animating industry until I joined "BA Hons Animation" animated course. Now I use these packages everyday to practice my animation skills in my spare times and for projects, I feel they have given me skills I never possessed and have made me understand the effects they present on screen by experimenting with them, I don't know all the tools used but am still experimenting with these packages to develop my skills and understanding more.

Maya

    Adobe packages  

Here I am just talking about being able to use animation packages, reason being is because I want to understand the animation packages I use in more depth. I have watched a few tutorials on line to help me with the basics of using adobe packages such as; Photoshop, After Effects, Premier and illustrator, because I want to understand theses packages better mainly because these are the packages I want to use primarily because they work well with the type of traditional animation I do and are really good with effects.  

Making of an Animation

I have realised there is a lot of work that goes into animation starting from planning. When first starting animation I did not realise that motion and timeframe was measured in multiple frames and that so many frames equal a second. From reading The Art of Maya I now realise that animation contains a lot of work, there is; modelling, characters, animation, effects, camera, lighting and composing involved. The following points are worked in stages and take long period of time to develop especially when you are working on a large animation for a big company e.g. Pixar and Disney. Rendering can be a really long process and takes valuable time up due to its processing of detailed scenery and characters.

                     
This animation talks you through the steps we first learnt when starting animation called the six steps of focus when creating basic movement and characters and allows you to create and animation with motion and feeling. I never really understood that the character and scenes were developed in stages from process to production.

I watched a video on creating an animation using the 6 basic motions with movement. this was because I wanted to understand how to create a smooth animation because I have always had problems with animating something in full motion my animations have always end up turning out jumpy when they move.This alone has helped me move this project forward because it has opened my eyes to the flaws it have been making in the past in relation to my animating skills, knowing this now will help me progress with developing my work in terms of movement because I will know what needs improving. This guide has been teaching me the steps of how movement is made using the basic stages of animation e.g. bouncing ball technique.  

Who I am as an artist

I would regard my self as a Graphic artist/Animator and Illustrator, my passion is comics and graphical work most recently I have been working on a idea to develop my own clothing wear with screen printed designs, my idea is to start of selling these at a small scale and then later expand once my designs become known to become just as big as e.g. Nike, adidas and so forth. In other words I want to be a freelancer that specialise both in graphic design and animation. when I first started at a young age I never really considered animation, my main focus was Graphic design, it was my dream to become a graphic designer because I like the composition of work done graphically through colour and imagery computer generated. When every I see art work, I always examine it, art always excites because of the people that produce it  and the styles in which they present, I have studied a lot of comic and a the artist that make them, I don't know a lot of comic artist or much about them but the but I do admire; Jamie Hewlett, Jim Lee and Mark Crilley. These artist are admired by me because they have very unique drawing styles that suits the characters in which they present well with colour and narrative.

When hearing about animation, I was not too sure about what was lying ahead for me if I was to pick this specialty, I wanted to do Graphics originally because I preferred to carry on with something I both liked and knew well. But watching animation and both studying graphics helped me to decide, my idea of becoming a freelancer who specialises in animation and graphic desigbased on exploring the different types of animation in the industry and there uses, I have like then. I feel the animated briefs and the drawing practice has helped me come to the decision on my future profession. The work over the past few terms has been challenging but exciting  researching into facts and finding out what it takes to be an animator.

I recently have discovered that I like animating and modelling in 3D, I first considered 3D work as un-exciting and unskilled but from researching into Maya and its uses I have now realised it involves a lot of work and now feel attached to the software and want to use it professionally in the future. Over all I realise that I still want to be a Graphic Illustrator, Animator and Comic artist, so in the future I plan to fuse these practitions together to form something I enjoy most.

Pixars Toy Story

Jim Lee's comic art for DC

I have just been look at both animation, comic art and clothing as options for my future career.These are by future career ideas which I want to peruse, I am thinking about combining these skills to create build my own business, the idea is to specialise in all these areas and use these as points to boost my career e.g. animation for advertising my brand. Doing this alone has made my project move forward because it has provided me with an idea for my future career and has helped me research into the possible routes I could go down when working in my chosen profession.

This has helped me progress because it has allowed me to investigate into my future career and I am now be able to focus on the the specific goals I want to accomplish because I have been able to identify what I want to do in the future.

I have been looking at Jim Lee because I really like his comic art and want to develop my artwork as good as his in the future because I admire his inking and shading technique and want to be able to draw images to the point that they look as good as his in detail and depth.  

History of animation

Animation has been around for a very long time but is the youngest art profession around. Animation first started when Peter Roget presented his documented in formation on the subject of moving objects to the British Royal Society from 1824. I never knew this until I researched into animation last year, but the main artist I feel from researching into animation alone Eadweard Muybridge started his photographic gathering of animals in motion. Never knowing where animation came from I could work out where the idea of motion originated from, when making an animation I have had always had to work in stages by drawing step by step to create a full movement. I have never understood the stages of to create a full motion, I think this is because I don't really reference enough to real motion or the walk cycle enough. personally I think from researching the importance of motion and how it has a big influenced on the creation of animation, has opened my eyes to the importance of motion. Eadweard Muybridge's photography of moving animals captured movement that no one had ever come across or even understood  before his researching took place, his work was later on discovered and used by both scientists and artists for research and understanding, till to this day people in the animation industry learn about Eadweard Muybridge's work as I did. I now know the importance of animtion and the effect it has had on people over the years.

Its amazing how it has just started from a still sequence of photographs, its amazing because something so simple that people don't pay too much attention to has evolved from one aspect to another to become a new skill, then follow on to develop in to a specialism over time that people can use as a profession.

Eadweard Muybridge's photos on motion 

I have been researching into the history of animation and the some of the practitioners which were involved in its movement. Reason being is because I want to understand where animation started out from and what brought on the idea of people wanting to recreate motion, who was the first person to start out the concept of animating and where did the word "animate" come from. This had made my personal project forward because it has help me identify what animation is and who I am as a practitioner by researching into its concept and even understanding the basics of motion in its early stages.

Researching into the history of animation has taught me that there is motion all around us and that the simplest idea of  was developed through a camera lenses and taking photographic snaps in stages while things move.

I looked at Eadweard Muybridge because he is believed to have started of animation through taking photographs and I wanted to understand his idea of motion and what brought him to the idea of capturing motion through his camera.