After Effects - Working with Hand Drawn Images

This has to be one of my favourite sessions which sara has ever done with us. Previous to the lesson we were told we needed a minimum of three drawings, which were all in the exact same place on each separate page, this would make it much easier for us when we used them within after effects. Previous to this session I knew that I wanted to link it to my Imminent Self studio brief, therefore I created several drawings of a lip moving, which included scars which were similar to mine.

All of these images were then scanned onto the computer to ensure the quality was the best. They were all imported into Illustrator so that they could be edited and because I drew mine using pencil I needed to change the white and black balance so that they stood out a lot more. 

These images were then imported into after effects. They were sequenced together and a textured background was added. I found that mine moved much too fast for my liking and therefore I changed the composition speed to make it seem more realistic. This was a fairly simple technique which created an interesting piece. I also inverted the colours, along with adding a wiggle effect to my text to make it seem more interactive for the audience.

For my final piece, I added two more different compositions, which included text and movement of the image sequence. I was incredibly happy with the final outcome of my piece and I will look further into these techniques when applying it to my studio project. 

Working with Hand Drawn images from Jessica Mountford on Vimeo.

After Effects - Rotoscoping

The first thing that we were introduced to during this session was the following video. It demonstrates what rotoscoping is and how we are supposed to interpret it. Rotoscoping is an animation technique used by animators to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, when realistic action is required. 
Young The Giant: Something To Believe In from Drew Tyndell on Vimeo.

This video demonstrates professionally how rotoscoping can be used, I personally think it is a very useful technique which can be applied to almost any form of promotional material which uses animation.
To begin this session we had to use footage which we took there and then or had bought in. I chose to film joe in order to work on something straight away.

We then moved the image onto after effects and chose various focal points on each millisecond of the piece, we had to ensure that the clip was only one second long to make sure that we would be able to complete the piece within one session. We had to basically cut around where we wanted the movement to be seen over a timescale, this proved very time consuming and often quite temperamental.

For my final piece I added lemons and moustaches as it was a sarcastic piece and I thought it was highly amusing.


Rotoscoping from Jessica Mountford on Vimeo.

Self Publishing - The Portrait

This has to be one of my favourite sessions we've done so far this year. We focused purely on ourselves in order to create a number of different portraits which had been worked on over and over.
We began by working on our uni card photo, which we deconstructed and made into a completely new image.

We then moved onto photocopying our face there and then, this was particularly amusing seeing what different faces we could pull in order to make a strange looking outcome. I felt particularly insecure about mine and therefore the whole image won't make it to this blog post, but the deconstructed one will as it was part of the workshop. 

We then moved onto drawing one of the deconstructions we had made, I chose to draw the first one which I created, we were only allowed to use black pen in order to produce these drawings to ensure that they were all free hand, quick drawings. 

Our final piece was to create a copy of a piece we had already created using a number of different half tone textures which we had been given, this was my favourite technique which we used as it gave me the opportunity to work with a texture which I haven't worked with before. It was the piece which took the longest and it was extremely interesting to do. 

This was my final piece with the original piece along side it to demonstrate where i had got my ideas from. I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop and I will definitely be experimenting with these techniques in my future work. 

Cinema 4D as a Design Tool - Session 3

During today's lesson we learnt how to use Cinema 4D in order to aid promotional items. To start this session we started the day like any other normal project, by setting up multiple folders in order to organise our materials properly. This makes the entire process much easier to manage in terms of actually completing and managing the work.

We began by analysing a line drawing which Jay had already provided us with, at first this seemed very strange as it was just a flat object which had no form to it, it was also very difficult to figure out what it actually was. Once it was imported into Cinema 4D we extruded the object which meant that the single line was pretty much rotated 360 degrees around which then produced the full object. This step is demonstrated in the image situated below.

After making the bottle, we needed to make the overall texture and appearance of the object as realistic as possible. Therefore we needed to add some form of liquid into the inside of the object, along with the lighting on the exterior being correct and the general texture of the object being correct. The exterior of the object needed to be transparent so that the inside liquid could be visible. 

We then moved onto making the bottle cap, which proved slightly more difficult as there was various things we needed to consider in order to make the cap look as realistic as possible. The process was similar to making the bottle, only this time there was already another object within the canvas so we had to make sure that we placed it in the correct position or else it would interfere with the current piece. 

We then moved onto importing the labels onto the objects, this was done using masks and templates which had been previously made. Jay took us through step by step what we needed to do to ensure that the labels were put on correctly. 

Finally, we rendered the image in order to create the final image. 

We also made cans using the same process, this particular workshop was very interesting for me as I currently work for a brewery and they have asked me to produce promotional material for them. Therefore this will be vital for me in the future when producing these pieces.