Final Project: The Fairies

My final project adapts a short poem, "The Fairies" by William Allingham, into an animated storybook.  All of the images are drawn in Photoshop and animated in Final Cut Pro.  The original designs of the fairies and environments are based on the illustrations of Brian Froud, who specialized in fairies, goblins and trolls.

Originally I was going to use another narrated version of the poem that I found online, but I realized that I would have more control with the pacing of the scenes if I narrated myself (albiet with a slight pitch change).  Also, I added a slow, sad Irish melody in the background, which coincides with some of the imagery in the poem and its source material.

Movie Poster - Zombie Lincoln

Here's my movie poster assignment.  I'm pretty happy with the way the pulp, grindhouse, b-movie look turned out.

Movie Poster Concepts

For my poster idea, I decided to go with the classic "bold hero standing triumphantly on a rock surrounded on all sides by danger" look.  This will be almost immediately offset by the subject matter:  Zombie Abraham Lincoln saving the world from zombie apocalypse.  Now as stupid/awesome as that sounds, I'd like to clarify that it's not completely out of thin air.

A while back, I had to write an argumentative paper about who would with the "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny," a battle involving a huge cast of fictional characters.  Out of a desire to step outside of my comfort zone, I chose Abraham Lincoln who "...popped out of his grave and took an AK-47 out from under his hat..."  

As for why I chose this as my poster subject matter (aside from being completely awesome), I feel that in order for someone to "save the world" there must be a specific crisis to save it from.  Naturally most of our world's problems are too complicated to simply be punched in the face and conquered.  Therefore, I decided to go with one of the fictional classics:  zombie apocalypse.  As an added twist of irony, it is a zombified Abe Lincoln with a gun saving the world from his fellow zombies.  I intend to emulate the postures and dramatic framing that is common to most pulp-zombie/horror movies to imitate a trashy Grindhouse type poster.

Assignment #2: Family History

Here's my version of assignment 2.  Kind of a montage of several generations who all went to the same school and their most noticeable character traits.

Family History

Here's a photo of the West Frankfort High School, which has been around for generations.  I might use it as a unifying factor in the collage.

A tooth logo that sort of looks like a badge.  My grandpa was a military dentist during WW2, so I'd like to represent that with a couple of images.

Logo from my home town high school.

 

A series of wallpaper samples from different generations.

These two would be kind of a play on my grandma's "neat" generation of being clean and proper.

 

Some stock fashions from the 50's and 70's.  I will probably cut and paste the elements I want to represent my family members.

Just a little thing, but my mother had a Doberman Pincher when she was growing up that she was very attached to.

One unifying thing that almost every generation of my family was fond of was simply "dragging maine" on the weekend.  I may use this as the key focus of the collage.

Two possible ideas with an event that happened during my great-grandfather's time: a large tornado passing through the area.

Assignment #2: Final

Here's my final graph assignment.  I ended up using a pie chart for my weekly distribution of time.   The values shown in the face/pie are roughly proportional to the hours, on a 100% scale.  After that, I just started playing with the pen tool and liked the way the chart expanded into concentric swirls.  I ended up changing the primary font to Cooper, mainly because I liked the way it looked alongside my straightforward graph colors.

Project 1: First Draft

Okay, here's my first draft for the diagram/chart assignment.  For some reason or another, I was hitting a brick wall on ideas so I ended up doing a simple pie chart breakdown of my average week this semester.  The colors are meant to reference simple emotions for each task, i.e. blue = calming sleep.

Space and Balance

Right, here's a couple of interesting images playing with space and balance.

First up, a promotional image from Batman: Arkham City.  I really love the art direction for this series of images.  With everything all white except one color, the image really pops out.  Also, the artists made use of the background by not having one, bringing all focus to the character.

On that note, using white in the absence of a foreground element can also draw attention, like with this plane image.  Also, the framing of the black negative space makes for a much more dynamic image.

This one just has a great interplay between the subject and the background.  Both are equally important in establishing the shot and in giving a vast sense of space to the viewer.  Also, the balanced composition makes for a simple yet elegant design.

Logan R: Dynamic Image 1

Logan R: Dynamic Image 2

Here's my second dynamic image and it's source.