Self Publishing: Wall Mural

In this process and production session we experimented with type designs in groups of 7 before agreeing on a favourite and then using it to create a giant wall mural. The activity would help us work with other people as a team and give us ideas on how we would approach a big project for the future.

Each group chose a word from a hat at random and our group got the word "Prend le!" Our first task after this was to generate different typefaces. After each person had an idea we collected them up and voted for a favourite.

This typeface was the winner which was drawn on gridded paper because the plan was to have each grid as an A2 page and then this drawing could be used as a guide. 

Our next task was to copy the type face on to a much larger art board. We had 30 pages of A2 paper which would act as a frame and then we put each frame together like a jigsaw puzzle. When we finished drawing the typeface, again we pulled another word from a hat but this time it would be a colour we had to use to paint our type. The colour we pulled out was yellow and we decided that our type would look good if we painted the inside and outside of our 3D letters, instead of painting the letter itself. When we finished doing this we found we had a problem which was seeing the pencil from our drawing because the yellow was so bright. Our solution to this was to also paint the outline of our word with a thin brush which looked even better than out previous idea.

Now our final task was to put our type up on a wall and use a camera to create a stop motion reveal of our word. As a team we agreed that a transition where every 3 tiles from the left is revealed and continues towards the right would look the best. We began by sticking all our pages to the wall but in a random order and then starting from the left we would put 3 tiles in the correct order and then take a photo. We repeated this process until getting all the way to the right side where by then the whole word was revealed.

What Did I learn?

I mainly learnt how I would approach painting such a big art board without getting any of the positioning of my drawings mixed up and the solution to this was to draw the image in frames and then use each frame as a page. This made the whole process so much easier and gave a sense of organisation because it works as breaking the image down by focusing on one frame at a time only looking at what goes in that space. While you are drawing in each frame you forget about the overall image and then you start to worry about what it will look like at the end but it all falls together and surprisingly works very well.   

Demo Reel Test

In this process and production session we gathered together our best process and production work and created a demo reel to give us a idea of what should go in a demo reel and how it should be made, tips on how to grab companies attention when looking for placement.

As a student I won't have much or any industry work so my demo reel can be aimed at 30 seconds but no longer than a minute because my reel should be short and snappy to grab and maintain my audience's attention without boring them.

I used Illustrator to make my title frames for the start of the reel and the individual projects so there is a little introduction for my work. I made every object it's own layer so I could animate transitions for example making the text slowly appear when its time for them to be revealed.

I was reading a blog written by game developer's Naughty Dog who wrote a post about how to land a job with a AAA games company and there was a video of a demo reel which was submitted to Naughty Dog that got a 3D modeller a job with them. At the end of the reel the artist had his contact details and web address on screen with images of logos from the software he is experienced in which gave me the idea to do the same thing.




My demo reel is just over 1 minute at the moment so I have decided I am going to use less projects to shorten the video. I don't want to use some of the projects in this reel as my main interest is 3D modelling so I plan to include more projects like the mine cart and the t-shirt.

What Have I Learnt? 

This session has given me valuable experience towards making my desired demo reel with dos and don'ts. Keep it simple because over complicating my demo reel could reveal bad work or something companies won't like. Keep it short because I don't want to waste people's time. Aim your demo reel around a specific ability and area so people have an idea of what you want to do.

This demo reel I can use as a template and something to improve on when I come to create my final demo reel for looking for placement.

Self Publishing: Abstract Typography

In this process and production session we made and used stencils to create patterns with paint. We were given three different alphabets each a different font and we analysed them one at a time, drawing part of the characters as shapes on A3 paper. When I filled the A3 page with shapes I cut them out using a craft knife giving me a stencil to use, next I painted over my stencil on A2 paper moving my stencil either rotating it or simply moving it to experiment with mixing shapes and patterns.

Pattern 1

This stencil and pattern uses the shapes from the Baskerville Bold font and I took shapes from many letters from the alphabet including the number "7" and the letter "I".

Pattern 2

My second pattern uses the font Courier Bold and again I used the number "7" because I wanted at least one character I use in all three patterns so I could compare their shape.  

Pattern 3

What Did I Learn?

This session helped me realise that if I want to make something or generate ideas I can get the information from literally anything if I analyse fine detail. Before this session if I saw the fonts I would automatically think "oh different alphabets" but now examining really fine detail and shapes I can see how different they really are and the smallest detail can make great ideas. 

Animation Development

The Words 

I created the words for my animation with the text object combined with the extrude tool to make them a 3D object. To animate the words “Wellness” and “Illness” I changed their position and size through out the timeline so they could squash and stretch when they jumped and were landed on.

Health Care Centre 

The building was simply made from a cube with a brick material applied to it. The

windows and the door were also made with the cube object while the door knob was made from a sphere. Finally the plus above the door was made from two cubes that were stretched and then crossed over each other. 

Medication 

The bottle of pills and their lids were made from the cylinder object with the lids just placed on top of the bottle. The labels on the bottles were made with the plane object that I bent outwards so they could wrap around the object. Finally the pills were created from the pill object which was already the shape I needed.

The Railway

The tracks were also made with cubes. The wood in the middle started from a cube which I flattened down and the metal that connects it together I stretched as long as the tracks needed to be. I only created part of the track and then I duplicated that as a group object adding it at the end of the track until it was the length I needed it to be.