He's behind you!

Everyone loves Chelsea, right.
Especially when their goals come in the form of daylight robbery.

Well, you know what they say

...You've got to pick a pocket, Eto'o.

Eto'odinho

Rough Shapes

Finished

An Executive Decision

A little doodle I did coming home from the Earl of Camden, having watched the Manchester United - Arsenal match

Oh, Bendtner is coming on. Our enemies shall be fear stricken.

Update

Director

After a good twenty seconds of trying to come up with a pun-laden title for this post, I thought I might just crack on with it. (The closest I got was some play on words of Gabby Agbonlahor's favourite band, 'One Direction')

I was given the opportunity to animate for The Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS), who are a charitable company that work to enhance the capacity and capability of the social services workforce for the benefit of people who use them, in Scotland, but I'll start with how I came to be involved.

The project commissioned by IRISS was to enhance visibility of a report produced regarding the benefits of the arts in social care. This was assigned to Pen Mendonça, a freelance Artist and Graphic Facilitator, who had works within private, public and third sectors with a history of working with charitable organisations .
I met Pen at an Animation and Graphic Novel symposium held at Central Saint Martins, and enjoyed how she spoke about her practice, and the development of her PhD. Having previously illustrated on a short video that was produced by a small team of creatives, for the New Economics Foundation, Pen asked for an animator to bring her illustrations to life, and create the final video for IRISS.

I received the brief of the project, and a script for the general idea of how it would be produced. With a short time for turnaround I suggested some changes and we met to discuss them at the CSM Kings Cross campus.

While from the outside illustration and animation seems like very similar disciplines there are various differences in the ways that work is produced between the two and different considerations that you encounter during a collaborative process.
Pen has experience of creating graphic novels, and working in a setting where all the action of an image would be told via a singular shot, if necessary, whereas I try to think of how different shot and frames move together, and how to get the best cinematic balance for them. We do, however, share the ability to storyboard and getting the ideas from script to imagery went very quickly over that afternoon. We devised characters and a basic set-up of the shots that we would eventually use for the final film.

After compiling the short animatic above, I began to sketch more detailed designs of the scene and shot layouts and sent them to Pen, so that she could start to design the backgrounds after she worked on designing the characters, and understand the camera angles that I wanted to employ for each particular scene.

Character Development

I broke the film down into five different scenes, and then a range of shots within those scenes. I'm not sure if this is technically correct, but I classified shots as each time the film changed environment regardless on whether it is a repeated environment.
To clarify, I laid the scenes as the care home, the festival street area, the home, the festival performance area, and the care home again.
From here on out it became a case of modifying, compositing and animating the shots given to me. I did most of the animation using After Effects, but found Photoshop to be a multi-purpose software as well.

Most of the shots arrived as JPEG files, meaning that the background colour needed to be erased, so that when given an Alpha channel only the characters remained visible. To cut the jargon, I had to erase the white from the background. In some cases I also cut out elements from a scene to create different layers so that individual body parts could be moved, independent of each other. For example, shot below would have been broken up into Background and Characters, then the animated elements of each character, be it a nodding head, or a moving arm. Furthermore, objects in the background that would be animated would be placed on their own layer, too. Off the top of my head there were roughly eleven moving elements from the still image below.

It's all connected

This process continued for several days and nights, receiving image files, cutting, layering and then animating them. Overall, the detail of the animation wasn't too strenuous when compared to the sheer volume of work there was to do. Regrettably, waiting for the illustrations to be ready meant a lot of my time was spent trying to tighten the development side of the work, such as animatics and considering editing techniques as the length of the film seemed to be spiralling out of control, and the time that I had left to spend animating, was rapidly decreasing.

Pen and I met again to discuss what was essential to the brief, and what elements of the story could be cut, either because they did not lend anything to the story, or were perhaps too ambitious visually, given the time we had left to us. We decided to alter the ending, interns of scaling down the animation we had planned to do for it, and also to involve the use of visual fading transitions to cut from different shots. Once these tough decisions were made we got back to working on the project, meaning even more late nights and early mornings.

How you livin'?

In the final week of the deadline the workload really began to pile up. My social calendar had long since been ditched, and family members knew I was only leaving my room for refreshments. With the illustrations still ongoing at this point, I knew that I could not complete the project without external help. To reiterate again, the volume of the work rather than its complexity was proving to be the issue. Rather than plough on alone, but live with the very real danger of failing to complete my first project as a director, I hired Jamie Kendall,  to work on some shots that I wouldn't have had time to complete, as it turned out and after an arduous weekend of working flat out we completed the animation. We survived the weekend on copious amounts of tea, and cutting sarcasm.

The next stage was to edit and composite the files that we'd finished over that period mainly using Final Cut Pro to finalise the movie, and add them to the files that I had already started to work on in the days prior. Some further changes were made, as per the request of the client, but for the most art they were editorial decisions that needed to be executed rather than having to animate much more work.

To briefly conclude, I think this project taught me the importance of having a long view of a project and being able to see any potential flaws or issues that crop up, and making the correct strides to address them.

I'd like to give special thanks to Ashley Jones and Maliha Basak for their advice during the process.

Now without further ado, here is the finished article.

Modeling Just Sucks

That was a quote from Handsome Boy Modeling School, and this is a bit of a different post from me. Unlike the vast majority of posts I've put out this work wasn't done by me however, it did end up there being a painting of me hung in an exhibition, so I thought I'd fill you in on the details.

On my last post about "We're Better Together" t-shirts I mentioned that I'd got in contact with my secondary school's art department for advice on how to get started with screen prints, and I was kindly allowed to use their facilities. After setting up the screens, and waiting on them to dry out my former teacher, Karen Plummer, mentioned that she was coming to the end of completing her MA in Art Teaching at Goldsmiths, and wanted my opinion on some photographs she'd taken, for one of her final pieces, with a model. She'd not been completely happy with them as the model she'd hired was unable to do the poses she wanted properly, due to being ridiculously HENCH, so in turn a bit less flexible.

For what it was worth, as a bit of a throw away comment I stated that if she wasn't happy with the model then it would affect the overall work and probably shouldn't persevere with him.
It was at this point she turned to me.

"Do you want to do it?"

"Erm. Don't think I'm the modelling type"

"Are you sure, I'd pay you the modelling fee"

"Erm, ok, I suppose I could try"

Let that be a note to all those looking for creative workers... I'm pretty maleable.

So that's how it started off.
Over, roughly, seven weeks, I posed for the painting for between 2-3 hours periods. Anyone who has had their picture drawn, and asked to be still for any length of time knows its very difficult not to be distracted. Fortunately, I was meant to be dead in the painting so it meant that I'd be laying down. While this was a lot easier than, I presume, having to hold a standing pose would be it still had its challenges. The positioning of my arms and, to a lesser extent, my legs meant that my body was at an slightly awkward angle and not fully relaxed. My body weight was held on my left side, and with my shoulder tensed it meant that I had to concentrate on the position, as well as the ability to block out the incremental feelings of pain and numbness in the arm and neck.
I would start off being able to hold the pose for anything from 45 minutes to an hour, but after succumbing to the pain on the first occasion it felt like I had less resistance to it, and could hold the position for much less time.

While the majority of the piece was done from live modelling, there were portions that were done from photographs, mainly due to time constraints on both parts. I can't comment on how that would have affected this piece but, from my own experience, a photograph often gives a distorted view of the forn and tonal scale of the subject matter. This seems somewhat perverse, as a photo is a snapshot from a moment in time but I believe that drawing from life is far more of an informative method of working. One could draw an analogy of watch a sporting event on television as opposed to seeing it live. The visual experience is not the same, and in both cases you can only see what the camera is telling you to see.

So far I've spoken a lot about my own experience, so here is a quote from the artist describing the overall theme of the work:

"My ontological understanding is grounded within my artistic practice in a continual exploration of meaning through the use of visual enquiry, scrutiny and recording. The artwork I create is autobiographical: it concerns looking, viewing, deconstructing and subsequently reconstructing. I perceive this as a becoming creative process, planting affective structures of reference, which are rooted in the process of praxis in order to, identify, develop, highlight, and implement the emergence of change and to transform reality.  My preferred subject matter, which, has continued to be a major preoccupation is the human form and one where difference can be celebrated.   My most recent work, a triptych of paintings, are characteristic of the way in which I work in that they are figuratively drawn from life. The work is realised through the liberation of line and colour and expressed through the language of paint. I view them as an exploratory set of paintings that combine the dialogical tension between self, other, the life of the materials and in their conversation with each other. Identity is a key theme to this body of work, which concerns the notions of self-representation, difference, stereotype and self-discovery. The images were constructed through a process of recording with sensations, mark-making and colour; a lateral mode of creating and. Appearances and sensations were recorded and built up as an intuitive, emotional response to what Bacon referred to as the ‘mystery of appearance’. The brush served as an extension of my hand and arm to my mind’s subconscious imagination in order to unlock and reveal. In this way, I have used my materials as a language vehicle for creating images; ‘trapping’ and ‘unlocking’ in order to ‘draw out’ a  ‘realisation’ that makes sense of the world, to deconstruct and re-territorialise it by using non-linguistic forms of communication." 

Images taken at the Goldsmiths MAAT Private View, 03/09/12.

Once finished the painting was displayed in an exhibition held by Goldsmiths, at St. James Church. There, I was introduced to Graham, who Karen had begun painting at roughly the same time as myself.   In the week leading up to the exhibition I was due to pose for a final time but were unable to schedule a time, so the first time I saw the finished article was hanging in the gallery. Despite having seen it develop over several weeks it was a rather surreal experience to be in a room with the painting, with other people who would have been viewing it for the first time.

On a brief note, this was a rather poignant venue, as I'd attended primary school only metres away from the gallery space and Karen had attended Goldsmiths at undergraduate level, so it was a homecoming of sorts for both of us. 

Overall, it was definitely a new experience that I wouldn't necessarily be adverse to but, I think my forté lies as the creator rather than the subject matter. 

One last Handsome Boy Modeling School reference...

Mumette

Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned...
No wait! ...Neither the time, nor place.

This is a post about my work with Mumette, so pull up a chair, put on your reading glasses and take it all in

The story begins at a mutual friends birthday party, and allowing me near a laptop with WiFi. I was initially tasked with song collection, but decided to show Sundae Afternoon to a new, and captive audience. I ended up Bookmarking the page and the night continued without much further talk of animation.

A few weeks later I received a message from said mutual friend telling me that the owner of the laptop, Emma, had been looking for someone to assist her with some illustrative work for a website, and my name had come up in conversation. This coupled with the blog site being saved on her Macbook made me a pretty accessible option.
A few more weeks followed, and on a late winter evening, over some hot chocolate *standard*, Emma told me what about the Mumette project.
I doubt I can do it justice but essentially, Mumette has been launched to help a demographic that has been overlooked, and possibly even marginalised. This group is young mothers, roughly aged 18-25. She told me how the sites that currently are either targeting the high end "yummy mummy" market, where as others struggle with cluttered website design. What Mumette would do is establish itself as the ideal site where mothers could share experiences and advice, attempt to abolish a negative stereotype around young mums, and also recognise the needs of their particular audience.

Whilst the planning behind the project was very impressive, there was yet to be much visual work done. The feedback I received was that there needed to be a strong visual identity that was integral to the site, with a clean and modern feel. I would be tasked with designing characters that would portray a sense of youth, but overall something different that wasn't very prevalent in other sites. We discussed the "7 Questions of Character", a technique I mentioned in my Sundae Afternoon journal, and the overall view was that it would be a young woman, with a low-income job or possibly unemployed with aspirations to become a good parent, and also embrace their youth. After the meeting we went our separate ways and I got to thinking more about how to design the characters.

I took to the Wacom, and had a bit of a block. I realised I'd never developed any female characters. I suppose you put a bit of yourself into your work, subconsciously or otherwise, which manifests itself in the fact that aside from the mother from Kitchen Kapers all my characters, in my films, have been male.

I took Wesley Louis' advice, and tried experimenting with shapes to get facial features. After a bit of mixing and matching I came up with a set of 5 designs. I wanted the character's to have elements of realism to them, and not be overly stylised which may have hindered the variation in my design, but I felt that they would be easier for an audience to relate to. I'm not saying that people can't relate to cartoons but I assumed that as the character is interacting through movement, unlike animation, the viewer might not want to work as hard to engage with them.

Fab 5?: Early stages of development

From here, we narrowed down the selection initially to three characters, that would be representative of young women from, both,  slightly varying backgrounds and at different stages of motherhood. I began trying to create alternatives and finalised versions of the characters, and came up with the following.

Amy: "... Her long hair will be her security blanket..."

Megan: "... Going to be a stay at home Mum and avid Mumette"

Katie: "She's wearing a big baggy shirt dress to hide and sign of her pregnancy."

 

 

 

Mumettes

After more email discussions, going back and forth, the characters had a bit of a redo. There was a bit of dissatisfaction on both sides that the "Mumettes" didn't feel very energetic, and lacked a bit of a spark. Personally, I think this was due to the nature of the character design, and my focus more on proportion and incorporating the fact the characters should be pregnant, than giving them more personality and vigour.
On realising this, I searched for more reference photos that had the aspirational vibe that we were after, and in addition to the visual information from the graphic designer, came up with a livelier approach.

Megan: A bit more movement

Megan: Smile

Katie: More variation

Katie: Poses

After another briefing, we decided that the first design was all but done, so I started to put more emphasis on the second character. She needed an bit more of a youthful demeanour and to be less frumpy. Focusing on the character's pose made me lose sight of  the colour palette, and while she had a look of her own and was no longer flat on the page, she didn't have a similarly carefree attitude. Fortunately, a quick-fire of emails, and having a couple more reference images led to slight alterations and a finalised look for the character that we were both happy with.

There were changes to the brief at different stages but they were all manageable, such as the reduction in the amount of characters, and the way that they needed to be modified for later use. I think I'll have to spend a bit more time life drawing, but moreover, people watching to get some more doodles done, so that I'm more au fait with creating new characters, or designs. Overall, it was a lengthy process due to my own schedule at the time, but I feel it will put me in good stead for future work. I hope you all check out the site, and that some of you can engage with it as it's a great project, that I'm sure will speak to so many people.

MUMETTE

Feel free to comment below.

Karl

Sundae's child is...

Sundae Afternoon from Karl Lawson on Vimeo.
So this is the long awaited public début of 'Sundae Afternoon'. I completed the film just under a year ago, but this I'm finally making it available for public viewing. For any information on how I put this together, check out the Developmental Journal I put together, but overall I hope you enjoy, and have a lovely Sundae Afternoon.

T is for turtle

While "T" is undoubtedly for turtle, it is also for T-shirt. I've been doodling a couple of things lately that I quite like the look of as stand-alone images, and I'm toying with the idea of making them into T-shirts. I've consulted with a couple of people, namely Tom and Boyce, and it seems screen printing seems to be the way to go.

I've dabbled with the squeegee in my youth but those there back in the days when LCC was known as LCP, so needless to say I have a bit of reading up on the matter to do.

I figure that these illustrations may be a catalyst for some animated stings, and also shameless self-promotion, so I'll keep you all posted.

Till next time,
Stay DENCH or get Frimponged!

The first of many?

I write this piece in the hallway of my house safe in the knowledge that I've finally completed my first illustration job.
I've been working for a website called Mumette, which aims to provide a forum for young mothers. I met the founder, by chance at a friends birthday party and now so not underestimate the power of business cards (or saving your blog on someone else's internet favourites).
The end result should be two characters used for the site.
Good times for the ol' CV, and here's hoping the site takes off as from what I've heard it's found a real gap in the market.

Be Ye Fantastical?

Hello, just a brief post to mention a project I'm looking to start working on in the near future. I've been asked to work on a short film, by created an animated introduction. It's a modern adaptation of King Lear, with a view to interactive learning. Not sure how much more I ought to say before getting started, but I had a meeting with the director, on Monday, and it all seemed positive.
I'll post more about this in due course.
Bye.

Forgetful Intern

Time to update this thing, as promised. I've had 6 days of interning, so far, at Sparkle. I'm working on a 7-minute short film, called 'The Tortoise'. It's an adaptation of a well-known Portuguese story, about a man who finds a tortoise in the forest one day.

The character is fun to work with, which is important in my opinion, especially when inbetweening. We're working with Flash CS5, which hasn't been fiddly at all, for me.

Today has been my best day so far, I've been doing the character's shadow, having inbetweened the keys, and breakdowns.

The hardest thing for me was getting familiar with staring at a computer again. Sounds silly, but especially when its not your own work, you need the discipline to sit, stare and draw for long periods of time.

I'll write a concluding piece on Friday, on my train journey to Southampton. Til then, mi gaan.

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