Process

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illustrations

 

 

 

My first illustration is called ‘Ombre Aveuglee’ which is French for ‘Blinded Shadow’. I chose to make the titles of all of my media products in French in order to fit in with my theme of French culture. The name refers to the subject in the centre, who has turned her back on everything important to her. The colourful objects behind her are all symbols of the culture and in her ignorance or isolation, she is blinded to everything positive and important, and is like a shadow of a human being, with no purpose of identity. This is my idea of what happens when we shun culture and art and I really wanted the name to reflect that. Symbolically, each object represents important parts of culture to the subject; the birds are freedom since art provides us with a means of expression and lets us be ourselves, the planes are messages and communication, both important parts of culture, and hold all of the ideologies, values, traditions and stories that make up so much of every culture. The hands are those of friends and family reaching out, again, an important aspect to culture and the stars, clouds and shooting lines are all the wonder, joy and passion that culture and art bring. Because she is neglecting these things, she is sad and alone, and I showed this through her black dress and darker colour palette in general. I also used a gradient on the background to make the colour of the sky match the things in the foreground (lighter on the bottom left, dark towards the top right). This natural flow and fade into darkness reflect the fading away of the character and what awaits her, and us as humans if we forget these important aspects within our lives. There is hope, however, shown through the bright colours and lighter palette which all point in her direction.

 

 

 

‘L’etreinte du Soleil’ is the second illustration, and works as a set with the first. Here, the name means ‘Sun’s Embrace’ because this piece works as part two of the first illustration. We have the same subject, but she looks quite different this time. Firstly, I made sure to have her in the centre, and closer to the front so that she is seen more clearly, and this shows them of transformation. She has changed because in this piece, we see her embracing culture and art, and all those important aspects are surrounding her because she had accepted them. Here, she is no longer a shadow, but rather the light, and we can see this through the added wings, white dress and content expression. I chose to use gold and white as these colours are often associated with angels, thus with enlightenment, transformation and a higher purpose, all of which are themes I want to portray in reference to cultural and artistic significance. I also changed the colour palette slightly, taking all of the previous colours I used and making them brighter to give the piece more life and joy and juxtapose it directly with the Ombre Aveuglee.

These illustrations reflect the journey and change that my character undergoes in the animation. She is a symbol of all of the people who feel connected to a culture and change in a positive way because of it, and these pieces serve as tools to reinforce the message and add to it on another visual level.

Poster

 

 

The poster for the animation/project shows n/a coming out of swirling paint. I chose this composition because it was the most visually appealing idea out of all of the ones I had, and also referenced my original animation idea. As you can see, I used the colours of the French flag for the paint and they work really well with the character, which is what I was planning on when designing her. I didn’t want her to class with the French flag because I knew there was a strong possibility I would be incorporating it in some way. I drew her looking almost longingly in the distance because she is inspired by artworks, hence the swirling paint, and I wanted her to look entranced, as that is how art lovers sometimes feel when looking at a particularly mesmerising painting – one that moves you emotionally as it does for n/a in the museum she visits.

 

Animation

 

 

My final animation was not as good as I hoped, but I suppose I had quite high expectations considering this was my first time using frame by frame in actual animation. Nevertheless, my vision was not met. It follows my animatic almost exactly, from angles to the movement of the character, so I feel that the idea is somewhat clear and the storyline can be understood. The character is seen in several different locations, some of which are actually from her perspective because she is inspired and changed by the first illustration and goes through a transformation regarding French culture. I think the execution was what didn’t go so well – my idea is put across fine in my opinion, but the artwork and quality of animation is not what I wanted for my final media product.

The animation is choppy because I worked at a low frame rate, which I originally did to draw fewer frames, but now regret as it simply isn’t smooth enough. Also, I deleted the origin files for the fbf parts, which I shouldn’t have done, as the exported versions which I had to use didn’t allow me to remove the backgrounds, so parts like the boulevard scenes look a little strange. To combat this, I tried adding a fading white background to the cafe, to make it look like the previous scene was still coming into focus from the museum transition.

One of my favourite parts of the animation is the Eiffel Tower shot, where we see n/a looking at the tower at night time, and the background is inspired by the Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. I used CC Blobilze in After Effects to make it look like it was swirling, and used CC glow on the tower and stars to add ambience. For the fbf character animation, I couldn’t remove the background without erasing parts of the character, so I drew a mask around her and feathered it out to make it look less like it was copy and pasted on top. I did the same with the pond scene, where the background was animated in after effects, and the characters in Animate (and exported wrongly). I have learned that for next time, I need to change the background colour so that I can key it out.

During the assembly of the animation, I should have focused a bit more on transitions, but I was quite focused on getting all of my separate renders together and adding music. I chose the song I wanted beforehand luckily, to save myself time, and it’s a beautiful piece called ‘Enchanted’ by Keys of the Moon. The name is fitting with both the song and my animation, since the gentle piano and lullaby-esque sounds make the character’s transformation more elegant and wonderous, especially at the end, where the little ‘ting’ sound rounds it all off and makes the animation seem more serene to the viewer than it would be without the music.