Is this the END?

I do believe I have finished. Going back and looking at my second post, it appears that I have covered most aspects that I was originally going to look at. Which is good, often I am the type who has their idea and goes off on a tangent and then looks back to the brief at the end and realises that their tangent was far too far from the issue. With that in mind, I'd probably better go and look at the brief . . .

"Research and produce a short motion graphics segment for DesignCast about design thinking and creativity."

Well, I did research by starting a new drawing and paying particular attention to all the aspects involved. I produced a shortISH motion graphics segment using Flash, it does cover design elements and creativity, and I think the way I present it is creative too.

Although I am sick of looking at it I am quite pleased with the results, especially considering how stressed I was trying to come up with an initial idea.

I viewed what i thought was my finished piece on the iPod, however, the black text on the pink was a bit hard to read at that size. I have just gone back and made it almost double in size and am quite copnfident that this will suffice, although, I would like to look at it on the iPod again just to make sure (although that is a lengthy process which may involve broken laptops . . .)

As far as completing my initial vision, I would have to say that it's come pretty close (not as smooth as it could have been) but I am proud.

Nearly there . . .

I just need to fix up the little things. Something unfortunate is that one of my "inspirational" photos I cant use - and it was the most important one, because the site I got the pictures from is a site with mostly free images, however, some, such as this particular one you need to send a request to the photographer for permission to use the image. I sent a request, like, two weeks ago but he never got back to me so I'll have to dump that particular photos from the project. But that's OK. The others are still reprasentative of inspired images.



I wrote a design rationale last night, not sure if it's right though:

This motion graphics project was designed to show the process that I personally undertake when designing and creating a pin-up picture. The idea was to make a brief section about the concepts involved before the picture is figured out, then the initial sketches. I always had the idea of a hand with a pencil tracing the shapes of the sketches, with a mask revealing it as the hand moves across it, as though it is actually drawing it. Then the image gets scanned and become digital. Screenshots taken progressively throughout the creation of the digital image help to show different stages, with accompanying text that details the Photoshop elements being used. It is just a brief overview following the progress of one specific drawing, which I created purely for the purpose of this project so that I could pay close attention to the details involved as I went along.

We'll show Robin and see what he thinks.
Better get back to it.

Screenshots

A glimpse of how the project is looking. I dont mind the way it looks, it is a bit clunky and therefore could look more "professional", but I guess I'm proud of the work I have done so far, and more importantly I had the skills to be able to achieve all the effects that I wanted, which is great.

Class presentations

We presented our work-to-date to the class last week. Everyone is doing something different and everyone has done a good job so far.

I got some good feedback, and some good constructive points were bought up. I am going to try and put a box behind the text I have throughout the computer process, and also to keep it in the same spot each time. I am also gong to have some sort of pause in the anmation where people can stop and read so that there arent too many focus points for people to concerntrate on.

Robin also disliked the "preachy" part where I tried to cram in the actual elements of the design process. I was worried that my project was too computer instruction based as it was, but apparently it doesnt seem to matter. Instead, I have cut that text and will try to put it in at places throughout the computer animation so that it links to the visuals on the screen as opposed to just being pure text.

The point about it being in distinct seperate parts was also bought up, some people thought it would be best to have a bigger link between the parts, while others suggested almost the opposite by having it as two seperate movies in it's own right. We shall see.

They didnt seem to mind the jumping between screenshots either which is good because that was one area that was giving me real grief.

I also must not forget to do the 2x 100 word pieces.

I should be able to finish it without any probelms at school tomorrow. I am house sitting at the moment which renders me Flash-less so I would have liked to have finished it before class but it should be OK still.

Only two weeks left ...

We have to show the class what we have done tomorrow. I have done quite a lot (I think, I havent actually seen what everyone else has done though), but it only goes for about 50 seconds so far. It is not perfect, I wasn't paying enough attention when taking my screen shots so they are different sizes and sometimes jump from one frame to the next in a really awful way. I need to go and put more text in but will need to get feedback as to the readability, as in whether the text is up for long enough. It is very much so far about the actual physical process of the creation and less about the actual design process, so I need to work on that. I want to go home and work on it but I still have two hours of school left. I would just go and work on it now in the PC Lab but I forgot to bring my memory stick to school today.

I want to get it mostly finished tonight so I can get as much feedback as I can.

I can now sleep at night

Ahh (a sigh of relief). A couple of weeks of stressing and I finally have an idea for my motion graphics project. As Robin mentioned, the pressure of being face-to-face with the teacher again has possible prompted me to articulate an idea more substantially than if we were given two more weeks off. I formulated my ida this morning, but was unsure of whether it would be good enough, knowing what Robin (Dr Robin, if I was a Doctor I would want everyone calling me Doctor) would possibly say. Obviously I LOVE my pin-up art, and reading the suggestions on the brief, I noticed the one mentioning 'What are design processes'. I decide it might be interesting to do my project revolving around the design process that I personally undertake to do my hobby. Running this by Dr. Robin, he did mention the fact that he would normally be encouraging me away from my hobby, as I thought he might say, but that in doing this project I wasnt actually doing the art, I was infact doing the design process and by studying that process in-depth, I could learn and improve upon my own process. Am very glad I have something to start working on. Have made some notes:
It all starts with an idea, it could possibly start with a client, however, all my work so far has been for me. My idea might be to communicate an emotion or feeling through an image, often it is just eye candy for eye candy's sake, but sometimes I am trying to communicate a certain idea.
Research is then undertaken, study of how other artists may have executed the same idea, rough sketches, photographing the model (the younger sister who can sometimes be a helpful model) or gathering various other photos to base the image on, including scenery ideas.
more sketches then the final line drawing is exectued, scanned, then the photoshop touches which invovle colour, effects, and other techniques.
The finished peice can be used in many ways, hardcopy, web page, desktop etc.

Obviously the end result of the project has to be made in flash. I want to use imported photos, bitmap screenshots of the different stages, vector flash drawings and animation to help visualise the procedure. I want text, but not too much, I want it to be primarily a visual story of the process.

Back to work.