a motion wip and other things

Hello! Long time no see! :D
I am absolutely still alive- just a bit inactive on this blog. I wish I had more to put up about what I did last term but I felt that a lot of the work could have been done a lot better. It's the kind of work that you'll have to return to in about...a year haha.  However, this term, I'll be tackling story a lot (which is something my school lacks emphasis on) and I'm hopping to post things with more narrative and not just static backgrounds with boring characters.

I'm currently taking a motion design class and here are three rough frames out of the ten/eleven that I have. I really love how in the Amazing World of Gumball, they mesh 2d characters along with real/photographed backgrounds by applying natural lighting to the characters. So I thought I'd try it out myself. I went out and took a few photos of this tree by the road in Pasadena. I'm not a photographer but with a little photoshop magic, I was able to get something close to the desired look.

the assignment is to create some kind of narrative with 5-10 pictures or illustrations. There should be an exposition, climax, and resolution. This short story is about a little nerdy boy scout who really enjoys nature and most of all, insects. He walks by a leaf with a little caterpillar inching along the edge of it and stops to appreciate it. Without warning, this moment of admiration is disturbed by a size 10 sneaker harpooning itself at the leaf. The rest is to be continued!
--update 1/19/14
finally finished-just added some music. I'm seriously falling in love with this medium. I feel like they're just this much closer to really feeling like real/animated characters. It might sound foolish but the slow pans and close ups really give the illusion of real animation or movement going on haha. I apologize for the lack of creativity on the title. I really couldn't think of a good name. Besides that, I love after effects! There are too many possibilities-more than my brain can handle!

Caterpillar from Snow Cinder on Vimeo.
The wonderful harmonica music is by Benoist Busson. You can find more of his music on jamendo. I highly recommend that you go give the full version of "Believe" a listen.
This is just for a class project and not for distribution or public advertising.

So here are a few beat boards for storyboarding. There was a prompt and then we had to create a story around that prompt. I wish I made a story that wasn't so complex. It is about four characters, Nadine (a young 12 year old girl who cannot walk and is confined to a wheelchair), her father, Odis (who is a clock maker/ repairer), and Inga who is a mysterious old woman, and Nyx-the fairy living inside of the clock. Inga takes this old clock to be repaired at Odis' shop. The clock is supposed to be the most amazing clock ever designed so Nadine pleads to her father to put it in her room temporarily. Nadine is a very talented violinist and through her music, summons a clock fairy, Nyx to emerge from the clock.  Clock fairies will grant you three wishes and you must, in return, give three things up that are equal in value. The fairies use the clock to make a sort of trade. At this point, it already sounds very complicated so I'll just stop there haha.

Lastly, here is the late christmas/new year card I made for the family this year. I thought it would be interesting to create a ninja santa and krampus (japanese style).

Asami Sato cosplay for Halloween

           

I have to thank my mom for helping me finish it- otherwise I wouldn't have any costume for Halloween! I cut out and sewed the skirt, disassembled the inner red shirt, the cuffs, and blazer thing together. My mom hand sewed the collar to the blazer, fitted the inner red shirt, hemmed the skirt, and made the belt. She also mentored me through the entire process so that I didn't waste any time (because she's a pro at sewing). I bought the black long sleeved shirt and inner red shirt from goodwill :D. The wig was so cheap! only $13 from amazon! Although it's not really high quality, it still looks pretty natural from the photos. Leggings are from target- $12 (a little pricey but the color is a bit difficult to find). The boots are just something I got from Italy when I was 14. 

one thing I would definitely do next time is to wear a slip or put some kind of lining on the skirt. It kept getting caught between my legs so I had to keep holding it down. 

on another note, I finally got my business cards! :D

 in real life, the colors a little less saturated (because I used an instagram filter on this one). It came out just great though! I would have liked for it to be thicker but perhaps I'll do that for when I graduate.

I used this great little place called lecards.com - I ordered it on saturday, got a proof the same day and received it this thursday! :3 I live close to el monte so the wait time might be different for other people but I'm really impressed :)

Creepy Castaway

this is a little poster that I would give out for free advertising an excerpt of this 'travel' app. However, I do think it would be cool to change direction and make an app that e

Business 101

Hello!
yes updates are slowing down-- I've just been busy at school and actually having a social life this term!

I am currently taking this class called Business 101 and this is the promo assignment. Which is a continuation of the last assignment we had about what kind of business we wanted to run. So~ in some alternate universe or some time in the near future, I'm hoping to travel the world and compile my experiences in a bunch of journals that I will eventually publish.

I delved even further into the idea and thought that it would be cool to make traveling more fun for kids. Happy kids= good and memorable trips. So that the next road trip or visiting family on the other side of the country wouldn't be so boring. Since a lot of families are upgrading to the digital age, so are a lot of magazines and books. I thought making an animated kids travel magazine would be fun to do. It would be both informative but also interactive.

So since it's currently the month of October, I've decided to do a Halloween edition of this magazine and since families usually don't travel to other countries for the holidays (unless their entire family lives in another country) I've decided to do one about the Queen Mary which is more local and well known. Here's an image of what it would look like on the phone because the video couldn't really capture it as well.

I did not make the iphone template, I downloaded it from 365psd.com . I did make the images on the screens though. I created the digital magazine using MagPlus which is an add on to your InDesign. This thing is amazing! I've only been using it for two or three days but it is so much fun when you get the hang of it...I'm so hooked. Anyhow, on the left is just a sneak peak at what it would look like and on the right is what happens when you tap one of the words colored in yellow- a box pops up giving a short definition of the word. I tried to stick with an art deco feel for the scrolling and pop up assets because the Queen Mary interior was built with Art Deco sense of design.

I animated quite a few little tidbits of each illustration but found that it overloaded the program so I just stuck with one or two little animations per page. Here it is in action!
I would have just recorded the screen using some kind of app but apparently you have to jailbreak your iphone for that. So excuse this grainy video-I will find a way to make a better recording once I'm done with this :)

Thanks for reading guys! I'll post more progress later on.

It lives!

this is something I made for business 101 but just animated!-- there are definitely a few kinks...actually a lot of them but I was just so inspired by Robin Davey's work, I had to give it a go!

Poison Kitchen

wip of Zuzanna and Karou's corner at Poison kitchen. The Pestillence statue would be placed to the right of the coffin and church pew.

Karou and Hasma stamp

Just finished up Karou :) I was kind of feeling a little stuck on this project so I made a side list of small design projects to help keep me moving forward. So I designed Karou's Hasma tattoos and carved it into a stamp. I've only done this once before but it's actually really therapeutic to carve a stamp and really rewarding when you see the results!