Over 100 Posts

Over 100 Posts!! Wow it seems a very long time since I started this blog way back at the end of 2014 when I left the NFTS and started my next journey. Now I've just passed the half way mark for Term 3 at Gnomon!  It's been a pretty crazy term so far but I've been having so much fun with the late nights and crazy workload! Although taking a minute to look back at where I started and where I am now has me totally excited for the next 100 posts, here goes!!!

Character design assignment  - Design 3 characters from a fairy tale (King of the Golden Mountain, by the Brothers Grimm)

I went with the Black Dwarf, Snake Queen and Young King.

For the dwarf I wanted a character who didn't look intimidating, since all the characters that interacted with him seemed very at ease.  Having said that I still wanted to sneak in a little spitefulness into his design to reflect his ultimate goal when bargaining with the merchant character at the beginning of the story.

For the Queen I wanted an older character since she feels like someone who has lived through a lot.  I also wanted to reflect her manipulative side and since she spent 12 years as a snake I figured she would totally have a pet snake now.  The enchanted princess who becomes the snake queen also lives in a far away land so I gave her an oriental feel to contrast with the more western style I picked for the main character to emphasize the distance between the two kingdoms.

Lastly for the prince I felt his naivete and over confidence were characteristics of a much younger hero so even though I gave him the rare items he acquires at the end of the book I still wanted to give him a youthful feel, despite all his trials.

Progressing through Color Theory.  I completed my digital value and color studies, almost ready to put paint to paper.

You may be able to tell but the color pallet for my painting was inspired by a few sequences from Kubo (addressed later)

For Product Design we are progressing to the ideation stage of our final piece!

The brief is to design some piece of gear for your character. I am going with some form of protective item.  The first option is a transforming feathered cape.

The second option is a compass that reflects how in danger you are by opening the iris on the top to reveal a ravens eye.  The more open the aperture the more danger the owner is in.

The last option is a mask, protecting the character from harm but also enhancing the users sight.

I think for next weeks development I will be combining the mask and cape design.

For Storyboarding we were given the task of boarding out a scene between two characters on a rooftop.  One of whom is planning to jump.  I went for a story told using the 'unreliable narrator' mechanic.  This means we see the action in a distorted way but this is later revealed and we the audience are shown the true reality.  I will be adding more boards into this story to flesh out the parts I had to skip over and adding some tone to make them more readable later.

A few of us decided to go to an early showing of Kubo and the Two Strings! It is an amazing animated feature and I totally recommend it to anyone.  The music, visuals and story are enchanting and beautiful.  I was on the edge of my seat through the action, gasped at the dangerous parts and laughed along at all the cute jokes.  A couple of us were so inspired by the film that we took a half day the following day to check out an exhibit of some the models and sets at a local museum in Little Tokyo!

Also for Zoology class some of the Gnomies brought in their pet snakes and a bearded dragon for us to 'study'... well for us to pet!  The snakes were super cute and really affectionate.