Fig 1. 2001: A Space Odyssey Poster (1968) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is one of the many classics brought to life by Stanley Kubrick. The film stands out in the world of cinema nowadays for the way it was produced but at the time of its release it didn’t receive that many good reviews from the critics, however, it inspired future film makers such as Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott. Like with most of his films Kubrick frames or centres most of the shots using the rule of thirds a technique that he learned from his days as a photojournalist for Look magazine. As shown in Fig 2 the rule of thirds involves placing a 3x3 grid over the image and lining up the key subjects within it so that everything is not cluttered on one side, in Kubrick’s case he places key subjects in the middle of the grid with other subjects on both sides of it so that the audience’s eye is drawn to what is being shown in the middle. As show in the example Dave Bowman and Frank Poole are on ever
OGR 09/02/2017
ReplyDeleteHey Rhia,
Well done on pushing to get these elements in place. My BIG issue is simply that I cannot yet determine any kind of 'visual concept' or art direction basis for anything that you're drawing here. I don't know why both your male and female characters should have enormous eyes and perfectly round heads; the tone of your story is not 'super cartoony' - you're dealing with some mature, poetic themes, and I do think your art direction should reflect that. I don't think you're actually designing anything yet - you're drawing and designing without a brief, and it shows. You need a strong visual concept - something to guide your designing of characters, environments and props:
Some ideas of what I mean by BOLD stylisation and a more 'adult' tone:
http://ucarochester-cgartsandanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/caa-one-day-lighthouse.html
http://ucarochester-cgartsandanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/caa-one-day-geist.html
http://ucarochester-cgartsandanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/caa-one-day-sea-is-blue.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkDrIacHJM
I think it's really important that you react to the emotional tone of your story - it's not big-eyed child-humans - it's a bit more grown-up than that, and I think that's exciting and challenging. There are some really practical things you need to do; 1) you need to go to myUCA and access the 'character design resources' folder under story & commission, and look at some of the methods for working up characters. in the first instance, just do as they say until you find your confidence a bit more. 2) Decide where and when your story is taking place, and ensure you research the nuts and bolts in terms of clothing, beards, architecture, colour palette and location. You've started doing this already, but I want to see the process. 3) Make a decision to stop drawing those big eyes (which have the effect of making your two characters look exactly the same - apply some of the principles you've learned in Justin's class. You're not going to find this easy or comfortable to begin with, but you've got to push yourself to become a better character designer - and that means changing habits and learning a few new foundational skills.
In summary then, I want to see a much greater connection between the tone of your story and the tone of your art direction/character design etc. At the moment, they're worlds apart. Onwards!
I'll try.
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