Scene 1

Here's some snaps of my first scene



In this pic (click it) you can see that the tortoise is sat on a tree stump reading , I made it look 3- D by making the background tree slightly dimmer, I think the tortoise looks quite appealing to kids, veryt un threatning and dosile! I made this scen a front shot so that you can see his face, get to know him. The music starts after the firast click on this scene, its a type of Japanese piano, theres something about this shot to which is slightly comicy , this is the borders (like the website I looked at) it has a kind of brush stroke border which I think makes it look quite compact and neat. The turtle also blinks twice at the begining which makes him look realistic.



At this part the rabbit comes in and then the tortoise turns and looks at him as he speaks , then turns away and answers him as he reads the paper. This corresponds to the text which slides up on the right -m "Rabbit came and asked the tortoise for a race" then "The tortoise said "Yes Tonorrow now go away". The turtle doesn't look at the Hare to portray his grumpiness at being distirbed. I would of liked to add some Bee's that I created flying in the background , but time didn't allocate it. I think this page shows the influence I studied earler , its quite layered , has a 3-D dimension due to the trees and main features size and placement.

After the first sign goes up it pauses and waitts for you to click the tortoise before it moves on , the hint suggests that you do this, I'm hoping people see it as an obvious thing to do!

One thing I realised is that the Rabbit shouldn't be called a rabbit for he is a Hare!!! but I've no time to change it, too busy with the next scene!

Interactive media brief art research

Research, of which I'm very inspired by.

For the story I'm doing, I figured that I'd have to create a maneuverable art style, these artist here are going to be my main influences, this is because I find there styles visualy diverse and iconic. For me they seem to teem with charisma and charisma is what I think all people like to see in characters and artrwork, charisma draws you to the art (like it will to the characters I create). It may well be empathy that I need to create with my characters, I think I can do this for I'v practised similar styles before. The characters can be created by hand and then scanned, imported to photoshop ,saved as a PNG ( to keep the file size small enough for photoshop to manage and be accersible in illustrator.

Here's the art.

First of all Hokusai





You can see from these pictures , Hokusai had a great sense of perspective and characterization. On the rabbits the way the rabbits seem to lay on different layers I think is great , it looks they've been down to there most influencial elements, this is something I intent to do with my characters. The coloured picture is niece too , again it has a kind of layered qaulity which I think I could achieve.


Next artist : Yoji Shinkawa



This is the "Metal Gear Solid" concept artist, I chose to look at this for tI like the qaulity of line in his pieces, he seems to carve out his characters with a free flowing finess. The the thing apart from his skill that gives his art such rapid detail is the "Brush Pen" this is a refillable Brush which takes ink, this makes it really handy as you can practise with it anywhere (if you hadn't guessed I recently acquired a Brush Pen for the brief) - I'v been practising. Some of my sketches with it are at the bottom. I'v tried to capture character and shape like Yoji , Hokusai and me.

Next up : Okami (the traditonal manga video game)



This is a game you may (should) of seen before , its a game based on traditional manga like Hokusai and Hiroshige, the charactersation is slightly "kidified " manga but some of hokusai's work looks just like it. You can see why I'm being inspired by it, for this work is beautifully vibrant and shining with character that many age groups could apprecitate (kids and adults can apreciate it) and this is something I would like to make possible. Each animal is transformed wonderfully to a brush pen sketch and animates as you move it, I think this looks good, I will have a go at a similar technique.

To follow: A Japanese interactive comic site.



This is a snap of an interactive comic site in Japan (the link I got seems to freeze when I repaste it), though if you click it you will see that it is layered and has a good 3-D element , each layer of the backgrounds move independant and the story corresponds as you click things. This seems like a good technique that I could base my animation on, not the art but the movement style, the way that if you click moving items they correspond.

Last but definitely not least : Edward Kastin- my art.



Here they are, this is a good example of how my charactes will look, you can see that I'v taken alot from the art above, I've mixed Hokusai with Shinkawa and Okami to create a cut version that should appeal to kids.

Flash Effect

Here's an effect created in flash (I think), It's just some grass which grows randomy as you click, you can also manouver it round, to look at it from different angles. This would be a good effect to use to display work maybe. It would be sweet to have work in a trather 3-D gallery.

Another niece flash site.

This site has a rather niece style. Rather futuristic, you can navigate by clicking the headings at the home page, or by clicking to the side of the screen. This moves the as though your looking through the eyes of a person turning on the spot. Its a rather niece touch, gives the viewer a good relationship with the site. WIndows come down on each page which you scroll down. This seems a bit dull comp[ared to the moving mechanism, you'd think sqaure-enix may have made something special for it . Though it is still stylishand functional which is the main thing that counts. The main window effect may be a niece one to use in my piece, I also liked the way the scroll boxes came down.

Flash sites

This is a pretty cool sony flash site for a phone. Its amazingly interactive. The site is set in a comic book style and when you click a heading the scene changes (the scenes are like comic sections), they kind of fly into place. Each heading at the begining links to a knew environment which is pretty damn interactive too. I'd like to use this kind of frame system in my piece I think, it may be good if you could drag the windows around though.

My HARE animation.

Today we learnt how to animate a walking figure, I chose to do a hair. I made the hair quite quickly in illustrator, but gave him simple legs so it would be more possible to animate (with it being my first time at this). I think this knew knowledge will be useful in my final feature for though the artwork may be different, the animation principals will be the same. It will be useful when I do the tortoise running from the Hare ( this is the story I will do, I'm 70% certain). We also learnt how to transform characters and animate things along a time scale.

Horrid Henry , interactive game

Here's a picuture of an inaractive, web - based game. You can tell it is aimed at children of a young age because of the animation style and the aim (to get Horrid Henry into trouble). i find it quite boring myself, though I think a kid would have fun seeing the reaction of the parents when Henry gets on their nerves (though I'd rather just annoy my mum). Any way it shows the kind of environment you can create with flash I think.

Although this is really annoying.........

Angela Anaconda:



This is a cartoon made for Carton network. As you can see/hear its aimed at a really childish audience, (in fact I can't see how anyone could stand that voice for twenty minutes)its full of shrieking, giggling and childish jokes. Though the thing I'm interested is the animation style. You can see the makers have cut up photos and used a stock frame technique (placed them down, taken a picture and then moved them, then take another picture, move them etctc.). I'm guessing its very similar to the south park animation but a bit more advanced,for the photographs have a more 3-D element. I'm considering using a style like this for my animation brief as I think Flash could well be capable of achieving a similar effect, the characters could look brilliant if I choose really good pictures to manipulate. I think there could be a lot of room for experimentation to,with the backgrounds eg blurred photo backgrounds for high octane moments. Anyway its a thought!

The main thing I'v been thinking about.

In the games world there seems to have been a decline in the artwork ingame recently, for the PS2 quite a few good games came out that had a different style, but now there seems to have been a decline maybe in games having more inavative and knew styles.This could be a shame I think. As I think I'd much rather work on a game like okami or the old street fighters.

Okami and Street Fighter IV







But now there seems to be a decline, partly the coming of this knew street fighter has brought this to the surface. Games makers keep trying to make the games look more real and real for this is what the audiance demands.

The Knew street Fighter:



Though I think they is a still a high demand for concept art in the making of games, eg if ya take a look at this Metal Gear Solid 4 poster you can see Yoji Shinkawa weaving his magic, graphicaly and illustratively sound.

Metal Gear 4 preview poster:



Though the artist hasn't released any concept art books for two games now and there is no word of any knew books up coming. I find this a shame as I think its an art form that should be recognized. Though they still may be games to come that will push the art boundaries.

okami

here's a game I love,

my uncle bought me it,

I got the art of it imported over from Japan, I'l scan some in.

This is gaming I real like. I like the fact that when you play your stepping into a different world, created by tradition. I'd love to be able to create this kind of thing, maybe with the knew next-gen emphasis . For the time being I can brush up on my art skills!



Some of the ace things are that when you kill something, flowers grow and behinf the wolf is a trail of nature patterns its really gorgeous stuff.

Street Fighter IV- a symbol of how gamings changing?

Here's a preview of the knew Street Fighter game coming out for the 360 and PS3 (I think!)

Knew Street Fighter







Notice how it has been turned into a fully 3D format with everything from tensing muscles to fully expression-ate faces and posturess ( when your fighter is battered his usual cocky posture is subdued and fatigued). This could well be a big step forward for the game or a big step back. This depends on gameplay, it seems to look the part, though if it doesn't have the required depth and sped of the recent "Street Fighter" games it could be in trouble. Though the knew graphics wi;l attract knew fans, if the gameplay is comprimised the old true fans will turn up their noses. I think its a metaphor for what is happening in the game industry at the moment, there is a knew emphasis on super sharp graphics even though street fighter has been about a more traditional manga art form. I hope the fighting system works otherwise a great gaming legacy will be lost.

I still think there loosing that may never come back, I think maybe a cell shaded version or something inivative anyway we'l see.


Old Street Fighter