Week 1: Course Set Up, Website Update, & Write Application Week 2: College Research & Intro to Mixed Media Animation Week 3: Final Mixed Media Animation Week 4: Anatomy Study Week 5: Anatomy Stylization Week 6: Story #1 Development (unique cartoon) Week 7: Story #1 Finalization (&illustration) Week 8: Animation study Week 9: Intro to blender Week 10: Photoshop Week 11: Animation (skit) Week 12: graphic novel world building Week 13: graphic novel digital illustration Week 14: graphic novel Week 15: graphic novel Week 16: graphic novel Week 17: Digital Illustration Focus Week 18: Character Sheet Design & Portfolio Finalization
GOALS
In this independent study, I want to develop my skillset and grow my portfolio in order to attend art school with a focus in motion design and animation. To familiarize myself with these concepts on a professional level, I will be working through the processes needed to create a real motion picture, as well as cultivating my general skills in art on a technical degree to strengthen my abilities.
WEEK 1
Theres not much to write home about the first week. This was mainly just a time period for me to set up the course trajectory, update my website, and start work on my application to Ringlings Pre-College program. I hope that I will be enrolled to it this upcoming summer, as it would be an amazing way to get my foot in the door and begin to earn college credit. The thought of this makes me exhilarated and queasy in all honesty, as Ringling is located in Sarasota Florida which is far away from home and from any family. Never the less, this is something I am very committed to seeing through.
I will have to wait a while for the application form to properly come out with more information. The form opens on November first. I started work on the 240 word statement, but I am not all too jazzed about it. I might restart it or heavily edit it once November rolls around. I guess thats what first drafts are for.
I also started and finished my research for next weeks Mixed Media Animation unit, which I will go more in depth about then.
WEEK 2
Because I finished work early last week, I had some extra time to watch videos and plan out my approach for my mixed media animation. I wanted to incorporate video with rough stylized bits. I've been creating a mental library full of clips and videos other people have made with elements I want to combine along with my own personal ideas. I want to use magazine clippings, crayons and markers to traditionally photo-bash/collage each frame to create a unique grungy look not seen often. Starting off by sketching out some concepts. Because of how much more time consuming going in and editing each frame by hand would be, I wanted to make the clip shorter so I could let the video editing and the animation speak for itself. To familiarize myself with the process, I made a mixed media tester animation, where I went through learning the stop motion like steps, and re-learning Premiere Pro. The result can be found under the mixed media animation tab below. After thinking about my limitations, I settled on a head turn movement with each frame being a different photo of a different person set to music.
WEEK 3
Photos, Photos, Photos. This week was shooting my subjects and editing them to all be the same image height, as well as sequencing the images together. A tedious process this was. If it wasn't finding enough volunteers, it was having to retake, edit, or add more images to the sequence to make the video look cohesive. After formatting the images, I had to format