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Illustration & Visual Narrative / Task 2: Decisive Moment

23.09.2021 - 28.10.2021 (Week 5 - Week 9)
Lulu Luisa Linardi / 0349358 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Illustration & Visual Narrative
Task 2: Decisive Moment

LECTURES

Fig 1.0: Thumbnail, 05.09.2021


Week 5: Rhythm & Movement

Fig 1.1.1: Rhythm

Basic visual elements to create 'movement' are shapes and lines. Sense of rhythm and movement is created when the composition flows into a direction of a specific point. Mix-matching or zigzagging will create more dynamite scene. Need to establish what are the patterns and rhythms, and lay over different shapes and tones to create rhythm.

Fig 1.1.2: Maximise overlaps

Fig 1.1.3: Establish patterns and rhythms

Play around with positive and negative spaces, and composition theories to create interesting artwork.


Week 5: Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro refers to the use of light and dark to create illusion of 3D volume on flat surface. The word 'chiaro' means bright, while 'scuro' is dark. It is used for balancing the light and dark spaces. Chiaroscuro creates impact. The impact is when yhe character is decisive.

Fig 1.2.1: Example of Chiaroscuro in comics

Chiaroscuro is used as an artistic lighting choice to:
- Increase dramatic tension
- Create sensational effect
- Pull your attention to a subject in an intense way
- Create a tasteful composition of negative vs positive spaces

Fig 1.2.2: Other Chiaroscuro usage


INSTRUCTIONS


Task 2: Decisive Moment

For this task, we need to think of a memorable moment or a scene or a chapter from either movies, animations, video games, books, comics, manga, etc. As a designer, we are to capture those moments and translate them into a single piece of animated artwork. At first, I was thinking of using the "Minions" for it. However, after I made a quick sketch, I felt like it's not that meaningful and doesn't have a strong impact. Thankfully something else came to my mind right after that and I think it has so many memorable moment. So I chose a musical film "The Greatest Showman" for my decisive moment task and will use the main character, Barnum, who was an ambitious showman and businessman, to potray the story.

Fig 2.1.1: Scene from The Greatest Showman (A million dreams), 29.09.2021

Fig 2.1.2: Scene from The Greatest Showman (The Greatest Show), 29.09.2021

I chose "The Greatest Showman" and chose the last scene for the decisive moment. It is when P.T. Barnum, the main character, is doing his circus show with the song "The Greatest Show". This scene came right after Barnum and his friend Philip rebuilt the circus, since the bulding was on fire before. After having his final circus show, Barnum decided to leave the circus to be operated by Philip, and he finally went home spending more time with his little family.

I got the drawing reference from the film main poster. 

Fig 2.1.3: Poster #1

Fig 2.1.4: Poster #2

So here's my first idea exploration outcome. Below here are the rough sketches and my idea attempts. They're sketched in procreate since I haven't moved them into Illustrator. I tried two attempts, one with the audience behind him and the other one without it.

Fig 2.1.5: Rough Sketch #1, 28.09.2021

Fig 2.1.6: Rough Sketch #2, 30.09.2021

Fig 2.1.7: 1st idea exploration (uncolored), 29.09.2021

Fig 2.1.8: 1st idea exploration (colored), 29.09.2021

Fig 2.1.9: 2nd idea exploration, 30.09.2021

After I finished the sketch, I asked for feedback from Ms Anis and she suggested me to emphasize only on the coat sleeve, which has letter B on it. And I was also told to put the flames because I earlier said that I wanted to use the moment when P.T. Barnum decided to perform circus after it got burn down.

Fig 2.1.: Sketch Reference by Ms Anis, 06.10.2021

So the next thing to do is moving my sketch to Illustrator. The first thing I did in Illustrator was creating the title text. I chose the closest typeface to the original one and adjust them as similar as possible.

Fig 2.2.1: Adjusting the title, 07.10.2021

Moving on to the background thing, I changed the background color to dark purple because I think that dark indigo will be collied with the objects color later. I also played with the filters for the background and its goldie frame so it won't look too flat.

Fig 2.2.2: Choosing filter for background, 07.10.2021

Fig 2.2.3: Choosing filter for frame, 07.10.2021

I also tried some fonts for the "B" letter for the coat sleeve and tried different approach for the sleeve pattern. For the letter B, I tried 3 different typefaces, Mattire, Boiling Black, and Second Breakfast. And the chosen one is Second Breakfast.

Fig 2.2.4: Trying brushes and typefaces, 07.10.2021

Fig 2.2.5: The brushes I used (Charcoal), 07.10.2021

Fig 2.2.6: Pattern making process, 07.10.2021

Next, I started completing the whole thing, coloring the sleeve, adding his hand and the circus cane. Then I also tried making the shadow with Gaussian Blur effect (I use 2,5 px).

Fig 2.2.7: Making process, 17.10.2021

Fig 2.2.8: Adding blur effect, 17.10.2021

This is the first outcome of my decisive moment minimalist poster. Since we need to animate it, so I decided to make his hand moving, throwing the cane.

Fig 2.2.9: 1st outcome #1, 17.10.2021

Fig 2.2.10: 1st outcome #2, 17.10.2021

After finishing them, I made an attempt on the animation. However, I realized that it looks very weird and not showing any flow, so I gave another try. I moved up the second hand (the one throwing the cane) a little.

Fig 2.2.11: 1st animation attempt #1, 20.10.2021

Fig 2.2.12: 1st outcome (Revised ver.), 20.10.2021

Fig 2.2.13: 1st animation attempt #2, 20.10.2021

I asked Ms Anis to give her feedback for both the poster and animation, and also asked her whether it will fine if I added flames around his hand. She told me to give it a try. For the flames, I went to google to find references.

Fig 2.3.1: Flame references

Fig 2.3.2: Drawing the flames, 20.10.2021

I gave the flames Radial Blur effect to make it doesn't block the main object and won't steal the attention.

Fig 2.3.3: Giving blur effect to flames, 20.10.2021

I added details for the cane tip and gave gradient to the title text. 

Fig 2.3.4: 2nd 0utcome #1, 20.10.2021

Fig 2.3.5: 2nd outcome #2, 20.10.2021

Then I tried making another animation. I made two animations, for the first one, it shows a hand throwing a cane, while the second one is catching the cane. 

Fig 2.3.6: Animating process #1, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.3.7: Animating process #2, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.3.6: 2nd animation attempt, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.3.7: 3rd animation attempt, 21.10.2021 

Both of the animation were approved by Ms Anis but she told me that she prefer the first one (Fig 2.3.6), so I'll just go with that one. Next, I added the logline. I chose the lyric, "...so tell me do you wanna go?" which is near the reff from the song titled 'The Greatest Show'. I tried so hard to place the logline and color it. Finally I got two outcomes.

Fig 2.4.1: Logline making process #1, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.4.2: Logline making process #2, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.4.3: Logline making process #3, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.4.4: 3rd outcome, 21.10.2021

Fig 2.4.5: 4th outcome, 21.10.2021

At the end, I decided to use the logline style from 4th outcome because it can be seen clearer than the one from 3rd outcome. I then continue to the animating process.

Fig 2.4.6: 4th animation attempt, 26.10.2021

Ms Anis said it is too fast and told me to pause longer at the end, also maintain the logline till the end.

Fig 2.4.9: 5th animation attempt, 26.10.2021

Fig 2.4.8: 6th animation attempt, 26.10.2021

Fig 2.4.9: Animation timeline, 26.10.2021


Final Outcome

Fig 2.5.1: Final Poster in .jpg, 26.10.2021

Fig 2.5.2: Final Animation in .gif, 26.10.2021

FEEDBACK

Week 7

The background is okay, the foreground and midground could be better. Just make a close-up version of his coat, so it shows only the sleeve (has the letter B on it) to indicate the main character. No need to put the audience or the circus members behind the main character, make it as minimalist as possible.


Week 8

Cute and has nice animation flow. Ms Anis told me that I did very well here. And after I added the flames, she said it looks nice, she loves the color combo and the animation.

Week 9

Nice animation but looks too fast, maybe can pause a lil bit longer at the end. Also maintain the logline until the end, or otherwise no one can read it.

REFLECTIONS

Experience
Making animation is very new to me because I haven't done this thing before. I found this task very interesting since I got to learn new things while working on the task. It was so fun but sometimes it was pretty frustating because I did it wrongly. The feedback given by lecturers is very helpful to me since I can learn from my mistakes to get better work.

Observations
It is very important to do many explorations before we start doing the task because we can collect many inspirations and it will at least help us creating our work.

Findings
I realized that we need to master almost all tools in Illustator so it will be easier to us when doing our task. It is also much more better if we remember all the tool shortcuts so we don't have to go back and forth everytime we need those tools.