May 2020 – Ellie James illustrations

Rhino character design

Ellie James on May 18, 2020June 14, 2020

Before doing my rhino character drawings on photoshop, I designed them on paper and drew them out properly. when I put them on photoshop I separated the line art from the background.

these are turnarounds of a rhino body that I created, I have done the front view, back view and side view. the front view looks odd without the head but its made like that so that I could easily place a rhino head from other drawings on top. each image is made of lots of different layers. the side view has the most layers, it has a layer for each leg, a layer for the belly and then a layer for the neck. this is done in preparation for adobe character animator. I’ve spent hours on tutorials watching the programs so that I could experiment with another way to animate so that I don’t have to draw everything out. by making each limb, etc as different layers on photoshop it means they will be independent in adobe character animator and therefore able to move. this would allow me to create a walk etc.

this is an example of adding a rhino head onto the body layer. as can be seen it needs a little more work, mainly in terms of the colouring and a little bit with the shape. But this can be re-drawn easily enough on photoshop.

these are to different views of the head. there is two of each as one is with eyes closed and the other is with eyes open. the eyes are on different layers so that when using face-sync or a keyboard trigger in adobe character animator i can make the character blink.

this drawing has lots more layers. it has two different layers for the eyes; closed and open. and four layers for the ears, each forward or back facing ear is on a different layer so that i could have one ear facing back and one facing forward if I want. there is also 2 different mouths for the rhino, it has a closed mouth and a slightly open mouth. the horns are 1 layer, an the bloody stumps where the horns are gone are another layer. At this point I still haven’t created my script, so this helps me with having an idea of what the characters will look like. at this point I also need to learn to use the program first to see what adobe character animate is capable of doing, and what it can offer me. I may decided it would be better to draw all the frames for my animation out.

Lion photoshop drawings and animation research

Ellie James on May 18, 2020June 14, 2020

research and quick drawings of a cat jumping. thinking about the frames.

read through parts of the animators survival kit by Richard Williams.

lion drawings, different angles and experimenting with ways of drawing. I started with drawing on paper which I took photos of and then drew on top of it on photoshop to create the line art. I put the line art for each animal on different layer. I then experimented with ways to colour the line art in, I tried using the brush tool and the pen tool. I’ve labelled the drawings on the right so you can see the different techniques I tried. I tried to make these drawings simple. I’m used to doing more detailed work, and as I’m thinking of doing an animation I needed to experiment with simplifying the drawings down. The different angles of the lion I found looked good, and keeping the colours minimal made the work a lot quicker. I did two drawings of the paw, one has no black outline. I’ve decided the drawings look better with the outline. i drew the more detailed paw with the brush tool, but again only used 3 tones on the fur, and 4 on the paws. however this still took to look and is therefore not practical for animation.

attempts and failures with character animator

Ellie James on May 18, 2020June 14, 2020

I started off with research to try and find out how character animator works. as i was thinking of doing an animation and wanted to try the program. i watched u=youtube videos and followed some of the tutorials on the adobe website.

after much research and consideration I have discovered that character animator is very difficult(annoying) to use.

I’m actually being dramatic, its not that difficult. however it is a pain in the arse to try and rig a rhino character to do a simple walk cycle. It’s very difficult to do as the program isn’t yet adapted to a walk cycle for four legged animals. But it is still possible to do it.

it is currently 8 30 pm. I have been trying to make this rhino walk since 4:30pm. Before that I had spent 2 hours, from 12:30 to 2:30pm trying to get my photoshop puppet into character animator in the first place. it kept coming up with some weird error message that it couldn’t render or something warped etc. I found this bloody annoying. eventually I thought the size of the file of the puppet might be too big. I then spent awhile trying to figure out how to decrease the file size. I looked through exporting the file, seeing if I could somehow change the file size when I saved it. nope. I tried going through the preferences on the edit tab. just confusing. eventually I realised I had to go to image then image size. I had spent a very long time trying to do something very simple. so when I finally decreased the size and could get the file into character animator it was 2:30 pm and time for a nap as I was very annoyed by this point.

Now I have got to a point in character animator where the legs are able to make a walking motion, the trunk of the body moves slightly up and down with this movement which is good. however, the rhino head does not move. I’ve placed a walking behaviour and placed handles on the neck and head but its still not moving, I tried making and unmaking the head layer independent. still don’t work. the legs also bend a little funny, and the front arms move a little too far forward from the body.

currently I have decided to leave this for today and email my tutor.

however with the project being so difficult to animate an animal, a human could be easier. So if I do a quick design of a hunter, I could draw it out in pen and separate the line art on photoshop to create a simple puppet of just line work. hopefully if I got this done in a day, I can see if the a human shaped puppet would be easier to animate. If this is the case, it means I could draw out the animals and they’re backgrounds and then use character animator for the hunters which could save me drawing time. however i could look at drawing the backgrounds on photoshop and placing those on animator so that the background moves around the animal puppet.

Until I have some more information from tutor to help with the program, I will begin to write a storyboard and a script. then ill move onto the designs for the characters and begin to draw out some of the frames.

this is a video of the rhino walking. i almost got there. its only the head not bobbing along to the walk of the body that is not working. it was good to learn how to use this program, i spent lots of time making notes and trying to figure out how to use. this is good for the future if i find i ever do need to use it. however i do not feel it is suitable for this project.

self directed project research

Ellie James on May 18, 2020June 14, 2020

i began this project by doing research. Originally I was looking to twins as I am an identical twin. however i did a project on this last year and so wasn’t all that interested. so I changed to do my project on animal poaching. I began by looking into animals that have gone extinct through hunting from humans. I then began to look into animals that are currently endangered, threatened or near endangered. There are so many different species that have suffered because of us, through so many different ways. At this I decided to look into different forms of cruelty, I began to look at animal testing, ivory trade, factory farming, bullfighting etc. at this i realised that the subject was so broad i need to narrow it down. I chose to look at extinct and endangered animals from other causes such as deforestation, fishing and global warming, and more. I started off by making lists, trying to get a bit of knowledge on the subject of endangered animals, as well as extinct. i then thought about what i would want to communicate.

Tell me about it project- final outcome

Ellie James on May 2, 2020June 14, 2020

for the book cover I painted acrylic on the hardcover. I named the book Chiroptera as this is the name for the order of the bats, therefore this term includes every different specie of bat. The book doesn’t look quite that dark in person, however I feel that if I had planned this a little better I would have made the cover lighter.

the inside cover I wanted to be simple but interesting so I did quicker pen drawings as I wanted these to be kind of bold. I also thought I would like all the pages to have a simple layout of a drawing and text so it was visually interesting and informative. I used watercolour and pen for the drawing. I also used pen for the text which I chose to do in a simple text style so it could be read easily.

i used the first few pages to show some information about bats. explaining their different diets, anatomy of parts of the body. I kept these parts simple so that the information was universal for all the species of bat I would talk about in the book. I used watercolour as this was quick to get areas of colour down. I used pen a lot throughout the book as this was quick to create structure in a painting, as well as achieving detail. After this I went into the species of different bats, following a similar structure of imagery and text. I would always start off by doing the drawing/painting to make sure the visual was the most important part of the page. in some pages i put the drawings to the side if their was lots of information, but I still tried to make sure they took up as significant part of the page spread.

This is a total of 62 pages. At the start I did pen and not a lot of colour for the first few pages, I wanted to change this and put colour on almost every page as I found this to be more interesting visually.

the last two pages I decided to do a little information on coronavirus. I did this because of the virus becoming a worldwide pandemic. coronavirus is commonly found in different species. But when bats get it their immune systems are able to fight it off very easily. bats have often been killed in the past out of fear for diseases like rabies, as well as being pests. I put this section in the end to try and stop this, its unfair to kill animals for something that wasn’t their fault. Many bats are already endangered, but they are important to our ecosystem and so should not be harmed. I drew a sad bat in a bowl of noodle soup to add a little comedy, but also because I found that idea quite sad.

Overall I am really happy with this project as I haven’t made a book before it was a big job to fill out 62 pages. however this was a big job and i did end up going over on the time we had to do this project by over a week. if i was going back to do this now i would of made the book about half the size and do the drawings on paper before scanning them and adding the text so I could ensure the final product would be a little more refined. However I do really like that the final outcome is all hand drawn and written.

Tell me about it project- sketchbook research

Ellie James on May 2, 2020June 14, 2020

these are some drawing I did at the booth museum. There were lots of different stuffed animals and skeletons there but I found I really liked the bats and so spent a few hours there drawing them. i played around with the size and angle, choosing to try and them look a little more interesting. the pen drawing of the face was actually from a very small bat that I wanted to make look creepy. I then did a pencil drawing of the bat with its wings out, I did this at an angle so that it would look a little more menacing, a but like a phantom rising. I then went into this drawing with watercolour and pen later on. I really enjoyed drawing these bats and so decided to use them as the subject for the tell me about it project.

These pictures are for my starting research on bats. i did this before my visual research to create a bit more interest for me, this would also give me an idea of what i would like to communicate as i go through my project doing more research.

i then went to do a little visual research, trying to do quicker pen drawings. i wanted to do quick drawings to encourage me to look at a few species of bats quickly and recognise a few differences between species. this also allowed me to begin learning the names of a few different types.

i then began to combine the drawing and research to compile some information of particular species and get an idea of what species I wanted to look into and possibly include in my outcome.

here I looked into a bats wing doing a work a little more detailed using a dip pen and ink.

I still wanted to do more research at this point, but also still wanted to look at bats visually. i also wanted to experiment with media a little bit being unsure with what I was going to do with my outcome. at this point I was thinking of a book with text so that it would be informative. i looked into water colour paint with pen and then looked at markers and fineliners. i really enjoyed doing that but felt it did take a long time, so may not be suitable considering the time frame for the final outcome.

I did some more research into bats, beginning to think what I would want to include in the final outcome. From doing this research I also found my drawing more interesting as I was beginning to think about the bats I was drawing and their behaviours. I had spent a long time researching by this point and was able to call a lot of facts about the different species, echolocation and mythology from memory.

here I wanted to d more quick visual research. The aim of this was to get me looking at bats and their structure in simple ways, creating an understanding of their form.

I then began to look into a few different medias. I looked at using dip and ink pen, this was fun but took a very long time. i then began to look into using coffee, which I found really nice as you could make a very pale pigment but it was a good colour for the fur or the wings. I was very sad the drawing didn’t smell like coffee though. coffee was also easy to mix with watercolour which is what I did for the background so that red wasn’t so bright. I then looked at watercolour and ink to create a silhouette, I use the wooden end of the paintbrush to experiment with the mark making a little bit to get thicker lines. i then experiment with an ink wash which was surprisingly difficult as it was easy to get the colouring way too dark.

i then went onto ding the planning for my final outcome. at this point I knew I was going to do a book. I had been to book arts and made a hardback with 4 sections. However I did miscalculate the amount of pages in the book. I had thought there were only 32, so I planned for that many. when I realised I had lots of extra pages to fill I just added more information of different species. i was rather pressed for time at this point to get everything done. in hindsight i would have planned the book out on in design just using sketches for different layouts. i also would have typed the information put this onto the bat drawings on photoshop rather than writing it all out by hand. though I was very glad that I had such good notes in my book that most of the information came straight from my sketchbook.

Vinegar Valentine project

Ellie James on May 2, 2020June 14, 2020

The vinegar valentine project was over 5 days. I did it over a week and a half due to being busy with work commitments.
I began the project by thinking of people I resented. I chose Gerry Ford, the CEO of Caffe Nero. I chose him because I work for this company. I have seen colleagues in tears, endured racism, and genuine malice from customers. these customers have put in a complaint and received free coffee cards. this demonstrates a lack o care for the company. when my holiday hours were not calculated properly I had 5 hours reduced from 3 pay checks. the company does not check the holiday every time it is put forward. it is checked annually. yet when holiday is underused, the days do not role over to the new financial year, and we lose out on this money. I have been shouted and sworn at by customers, cleaned piss off the floor multiple times, as well as finding needles from heroine addicts in the toilets. I do not think we receive adequate respect from the company for the things we have to deal with. For this reason I chose to do the project on Gerry Ford.

I started by doing a more detailed drawing of him in pencil. I did this because I really really really enjoy doing detailed drawings. It also allows me to get familiar with what I’m drawing. This allowed me to get familiar with Gerry Fords face, making it easier to distort the features when I went to do the caricature. I began to look at individual features, working on distorting them independently before doing portraits. This allowed me to get familiar with the caricature style. I then worked on doing a few caricature portraits, the first one looked nothing like Gerry Ford. I was thinking of changing the public figure to Marilyn Monroe as she is a bit easier to caricature. I then decided to persevere with Gerry Ford as I was more passionate about making him into a caricature.

I started thinking about cupid, as I did want the outcome for this project to be related to valentines day. I also wanted this outcome to be funny. I found the idea of putting my mean bosses head on a fat baby wearing a diaper very funny. i started by doing little drawings of cupid, thinking about composition for how I wanted my cupid to look.

I played around with writing a little poem to go on my caricature.

‘ you are fuelled by greed,

your face turns green,

showing you to be mean,

because your are keen,

to take our money,

you big fat dummy’

I’m not a very good poet, so it wasn’t amazing, but I did like the ending as I do feel it got that humour I wanted. I then began to have another few attempts at turning Gerry ford’s face into a caricature. The drawings did get better and i managed to achieve a small likeness. I do feel a little like a lost that likeness when I created the Gerry Ford cupid caricature. but at the same team, I feel that since I do still work for this company, maybe that’s a good thing. The work does still show a likeness to a capitalist CEO by the angry expression, double chins and receding hairline. This is helped by the poem. I also added little devil horns, tail and black wigs to make it into a devilish cupid, trying to get across that idea of greed.

In the final outcome I decided I wanted it look very pink and pretty and shiny as I associated this with cupid and valentines day. I also felt this would make the piece a little more satirical. I chose to use Pebeo inks and acrylic inks to make the colours vivid. I used glitter to make it a little shinier and eye catching. I added the poem in using black acrylic paint. I feel that it is very hard to read and would have been better done by scanning the image and adding the text on photoshop.

overall the piece is not that clear, I should have added some money imagery into the outcome. While money was mentioned in the poem, I do not feel that this s enough to communicate the message f the work of greed of Large company CEO’s. despite this, I do still like the outcome as I find it quite funny to have my bosses head on a cupid baby with devil horns, combined with the BIG DUMMY text.

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