I see faces - Storyboarding

After Ive have designed a range of characters the idea is to then develop a specific character, object or action into a storyboard through the process of roughs. Roughs and storyboarding is a very important part of this task. The roughs help me vaguely visualise the character and the storyboards help me imagine the character in an animated gif.

'

Here are some rough story boards I have sketched out so I can imagine the gif as a frame by frame animation. I really like the zombie idea and the process of decay on a human face. Zombies has aways been one of my favourite things to draw and I've always wanted to include a zombie in some form of animation so now is my chance to do so. I also like the idea of making the meditating character out of cut card as my 3D gif. The previous projects has influenced me to create more pieces of illustration with cut out shapes and textures.

I like the idea of having my digital gif as a person made from simple shapes walking to work in the morning looking very sad and tired. The gif will be on a constant loop so its asif he is getting nowhere and constantly repeating this pattern. I do like the apple idea but for the sake of a gif i think the meditating character will work better as it is more figurative and relatable instead of being just an object.

I see faces - Character design

The aim for this project is to design and create three individual gifs using three different types of media. One being hand drawn, one being digital and one 3D. For the first week of this project I must design and sketch out a range of characters and objects that could be animated into some form of gif.

To get things going I've drawn some simple shapes without really thinking about what shape I was creating and just letting my hand flow. I then added a few simple features like an eye, teeth or hair and it instantly turns the blob shape into a character. These are very simple characters but could have the potential to work well as a gif. I like the idea for this as my digital gif as photoshop isn't my strongest trait and working with simple shapes will make it much easier for me to do. Plus simple can always be just as effective.

 Over this double spread I have taken a step back into the previous project (Vis Narrative) and I'm re designing the character we created for the group task. I am doing this because I really liked the design of this character and I thought it would be good to flesh out some different possibilities of how he could look, changing little parts of his body each time to get a different outcome. My favourite is the one with that is meditating with the third eye opening. I think this will work really well as a gif and I would like to have a go at creating this guy out of plastercean as one of my 3D gifs. 

I had the thought of creating a gif where different characters would build up frame by frame until the entire frame is consumed with random characters that are all from the same universe so they look similar. I drew out a possible outcome above. This would work well with the hand drawn gif. I also had the idea for a hand drawn gif where a persons face slowly becomes a zombie. Frame by frame the face decomposes until there is no recognisable feature of the original face. This will represent the decay of life. 

This is another character I designed as a possible hand drawn gif. The page on the left is all drawings of the same same alien character, but separate individual body parts. Ive done this because when drawing complex shaped characters it can be difficult to replicate the same shape, so drawing them out individually helps image the entire object. The page on the right is the full shape of the character. As a gif I could just do a short animation of it just walking and then turing its head so its looking right at the viewer.

This is an idea I had for the digital gif. There would be a human shaped character, possibly a video of me doing some simple movement, but each frame has a completely random design and texture ranging from the zombie style characters from visual narrative to having intricate shape and textures. I could even have a frame of the V for Vendetta mask in there as a subtle hint of context of practice being filtered in. Although it doesn't really communicate an idea and is more of a random selection of ideas, I still think this would work really well for a digital gif.

This is a double spread of random faces. I was trying to play around with different expressions and how a few simple lines in the right places can change the entire expression on a character and therefore can change the entire meaning of the image or in this case a gif. These ideas could be used as either the digital or hand drawn gif. Getting an expression accurate can be a crucial part of the character. Especially if the characters face is the focal point of the image or gif.

I had an idea that I think could work quite effectively as a 3D gif. It would be a full healthy apple but frame by frame it slowly gets eaten and decomposes until it is noting but a core. I think this will work really nicely with the zombie face gif and they both represent the idea of decay.