Dice Rolling illustrations

From now until April break, we will be running exercises to polish our skills on story structure, perspective drawing, human proportions, developing personal anime styles and "remixing" our previous interests and influences.

In an attempt to increase our "visual vocabulary", today we will be play a dice rolling drawing game. If you are completing a previous animation, illustration or comic book, you may continue this project at this time.

Nouns:
20 sided dice
1. Pirate
2. Picachu
3. Chef
4. Egyptian God
5. Master chief
6. Barney the Dinosaur
7. Blake Griffin
8. mr. Turnbull
9. Viking
10. Godzilla
11. Zombie
12. Samurai
13. Motorcyle Dude
14. Annoying roommate
15. Wizard
16. Dwarf
17. Spaceman
18. Football Player
19. Octopus
20. Flying Monster

VERBS
12 sided dice
1. Running
2. Slicing
3. Learning
4. Crying
5. Laughing
6. Biting
7. Listening
8. Flying
9. Eating
10. Destroying
11. Creating
12. Vanishing

If you are not working on an independent project, please roll a 20 sided dice and a 12 sided dice and then ILLUSTRATE the following NOUN and VERB. If you finish, continue this until the end of class.

If you do not already have an independent project and have finished 3-5 illustrations with significant effort, please begin writing 1 PERSUASIVE paragraph as to what you'd like to do for a final project that we will start after the April break in two weeks. Your choices for a final project are:

* Developing a series of GIF animations of complexity and length
* Your own feature comic book
* A series of ILLUSTRATIONS
* A role playing game: you are the DUNGEON MASTER!

Please write what you'd like to focus on; story structure? Perspective drawing? Realistic drawing? Iconic drawing? The more information, the better!

GREAT work on the remix project! It went very well.

Kenneth Animation

Great job Kenneth on his animation. Notice how even slight movements in animation make a big difference.

Today in class I will project on the wall various figures and references from perspective. For the first half of the class I'd like us all to work on our figure drawing and perspective drawing. Do not feel the pressure of doing a "good" drawing. See this as a relaxing exercise similar to shooting free throws or doing jumping jacks. What this exercise is doing is getting your eyeballs and hands "warmed up" so you can take on personal projects. Make these drawings YOURS. Have them be something you enjoy. I will show a few examples.







After our figure drawing, you will have the option to further continue or drawing or finish an outstanding project. While this occuring, I will be showing an educational video about adaptation called "Everything is a Remix". We will watch this for the remaining time in class.

Thanks
Mr. Turnbull

Monday

* 3:15 - 3:30 - figure drawings

* mini lesson on good manga title: focus on adaptations/remixes

* Finish up buddy project/begin long term project/Finishing Boston Celtics competition

Same project - B day group

B day animation list

Jian Liang/Wei Lian
Steven/Kenneth
Wassem/Danilo
Daivd/Kelvin
Jordy/Erik
Luis/Christine
Charles/Juan/Shemar

Animation with envirornment

Today we will start a two to three class partner project. Above is an animation drawn by Kevin Flores. Notice how the addition of a background with perspective drawing adds a completely new element or realism to this animation. The background comes from a basic perspective drawing handbook that was supplied to me by Mrs. Malgeri.


The background is a interior perspective drawing. the above illustration shows how the horizon line, the vanishing point and perspective grid lines set up the entire living room.




Far too often we forget about the lush environments in anime. We have focused a lot of time on character development, but environment development is just as important to making fantastic animations. Above are three screen shots from the anime adaptation of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". A large part of what makes this a wonderful movie is its attention to environment.

Notice how there is more detail in backgrounds. This is because backgrounds are usually static. They do not move. As a result, the animators do not have to make multiples of backgrounds. They are like paintings.


If we observe the above animation still from the 1959 Disney movie "Sleeping Beauty", the figure in the front is blocky and has an emphisis on shape. The background has lots of gradient and tone ... which is more labor intensive.

Today, I would like you to work in pairs. I have made the pairs for you. One of you will work on a background. The other will work on a series of animation stills (a minimum of 8).

The background needs to showcase a knowledge of:

* Perspective
* Gradient/tone or shading
* Have at least 3 objects in which the animation character can interact with.
* Full color

The animation needs:

* At least 8 stills
* A knowledge of human proportions OR CONSISTENT proportions
* Animating an action (not just 8 drawings of a character doing the same thing).
* You do not have to do a human ... (can be an animal, an object, etc.)

This is an assignment that will last TWO classes so please discuss with your partners. Come up with something clever. We will brainstorm backgrounds. Make this something you will be EXCITED to make.

EVERYONE MUST BE SUPPORTIVE OF YOUR CLASSMATES! No making fun of others drawing abilities.

PARTNERS:

DAMION/GEO WEI
SIHUA/KEVIN
JONATHAN/MIO RONG
JING QIA/MATHEUS
RENPING/NATHAN
MARCOS/TIAN DIAN
SHEMAR/YUN LONG
MICHAEL/WEN
JUAN/WEN JIAN
JAIYU/DAVID
CHRISTOPHER/SHUTING

Please decide who will do the background and who will do the animation. The assignment is due at the end of class on March 26th. The best 3 will be animated on the website :-).

Danilo Animation

Illustration

Thus far in this class we have made comic books (or manga), animation and in the B day class we have designed role playing games.

Today we are going to be talking about illustration.

Illustration is visual communication and narrative. It is the building block and principle language behind the sequential art forms listed above. Having strong illustration skills is vital to comics, anime, manga, etc.

Today you are being given Fortune Cookies. Please read the fortune and attempt to illustrate your fortune.

D+D game

Your characters are on their way back to the T station from the Edwards Middle School after fighting the disadvantaged robots. While walking down the street, they are approached by what looks like a gigantic monster



The monster knows of the infamous heroes. He stares at the group. How should the group react, if at all?

a) Attack the monster
b) Ignore the monster
c) confront the monster
d) wave to the monster
e) other

a) get ready for dice rolling.

b) the group gets on the T. Unfortunately, the group of heroes is getting another call. Hero business is booming ever since the recall of cleaning robots gone berserk. They are called into Wei Lian's map to deal with more robots.

c) ... upon confronting the monster, it is learned that the monster is a huge fan of your super group! He gives you a spell.

d) the monster waves back. Return to the question.

TODAY: Play with wei lian's map with Shemar's spells and monsters.

Miao Rong, Wen and Moebius

Great job to Miao Rong and Wen for their very creative and inventive animations. The next step is to take these "SPRITES" and put them in contact. Notice how fluid Wen's rocket ship is with proportions.


Over the weekend, a legend in anime, graphic novels and illustration passed away; his pen name was Moebius. He was 73 years old.

The following drawings come from the graphic novel by Moebius "30 days in the Desert".

Moebius was very significant internationally. He illustrated the manga version of "Naurcisca: In the valley of the wind". He did lots of concept work for movies like "Alien". He made a fantastic western comic called "Lieutenant Blueberry".

I am showing you these pictures because they showcase EVERY type of cartooning. These drawings use:

1. Perspective
2. Realistic drawing
3. Abstract drawing
4. Iconic drawing.

In class today, I will break down one of these illustrations and show you tricks to doing a drawing very similar to it! Today's assignment is to do a "DESERT DRAWING".

Extra credit: Do a desert drawing and animate a "sprite" in it!

Animation Lecture on PHOTOSHOP

In today's market, the vast majority of professional advertising is completed with the assistance of a computer. The software company, Adobe, is a leading brand in online drawing software. The program photoshop is a cornerstone of their products and is used for photo documenting to illustration and anime creation. It offer a variety of filters and auto scripts that transform your 2 dimensional image visually.

In today's class, I will demonstrate with your drawings how a drawing can be animated using photoshop. In doing this, you will learn the principles of animation and film. In making animations you study the act of making your drawings consistent; by learning specific principles about anatomy, drawing consistently will feel like less of a challenge.

B Day Enemies, Animations and review of illustrations

Great job to students developing D & D characters to battle. The idea in the class is to create a class created INVENTORY of enemies to beat via dice rolling in a role playing game. Wei Lian has a fantastic sense of iconic drawing which occurs even in character development. He is attracted to structure; for a long time I desired his figures to seem more elastic, but I am beginning to become keen to their straight forward, or in the above case, twirling postures.

Shemar took the demonstration game enemies and REALLY took it to the next level. All these enemies will be great for a dungeon master.

Steven is developing very well in this class. His Solider illustration is fantastic because you can really observe the time and effort he put into the drawing. He is really LOOKING at his subject. He is using his eyes just as much as he is using his hands. Remember: drawing from observation is just as much about SEEING as it is about drawing. Steven always employs a variety of MARK MAKING when he draws; this means he is holding his pencil in a variety of different ways to make different types of "MARKS". Notice how the neck brace lines look differently than the weird magical ghost who seems to be absorbing the figure.

Steven could benefit from a lesson on realistic human proportions. While there is a charm to the soldiers figure, it is difficult for me as an audience member to determine if the wrong arm length proportions are intentional or if Steven simply does not know basic human proportions.

I will review this today.

I have animated Juan's faces but they did not come out online ... will work on this!

EMOTION ANIMATIONS AND FIGURE DRAWING

Good job Marcos for focusing on an anatomic figure study. Marcos emphasizes the realistic form of his character's figure. For example, look at the attention to detail in the neck.

Danilo from the B class has put together an impressive first character animation. I strongly urge him to color this in. I took the liberty of using a photoshop filter to have the sword look "mystical".

Great job Shemar for 3 quick emotion studies. Juan also did a great job but I couldn't find his in time. I think I left them in class over the weekend.


Today, once again consider a situation, a transition, in which emotions shift. The classic example is somebodies snack being stolen. When your snack is stolen, you go through an array of emotions.

1. Shock: Who would do such a thing?
2. Sincere desire to reclaim what has been lost.
3. Anger.
4. Retaliation
5. The desire to regain a lost pride.

What was a time your emotions transitioned? Attempt to do a 5 face emotional switch.

You can fictionalize your emotional transition meaning you can draw a self created character.

WHAT HAPPENED TO AESTHETICS?


Observe the above Sailor Moon illustration; observe the attention to COMPOSITION and AESTHETICS. Remember our talks about abstraction? The above anime illustration is similar to mannerism because the figures form beautiful abstract shapes. Very few figures are standing still. Most of the character's figures suggest motion.