Typography Part Three

The second batch of typography lectures started off with the most utterly pointless workshop ever. All we had to do was come up with an idea for some typography made out of objects. Seriously, had we recieved an email a week before the lesson we could have everything ready and we wouldn't have had to lose more workshop time with this nonsense. It's just silly and really irks me. What's the point of a workshop if we don't make anything, or even get taught anything.

The second workshop of the batch started as the first should have, with everyone having brought in stuff to make text out of. I went with biscuits in order to tie it into my second project and make some neat titles for it. I bought a pack of assorted McVities biscuits as well as a pack of various different types of custard creams. This proved to be a decent enough selection to make some really nice typography. As well as the titles, I decided I would also make the HSBC logo out of them which can be used in my unit two animation. The results are below.

Typography Part Two

As the third week of Nick's Typography workshop dawned. I worried about whether it would be the same as the last workshop: draw the same thing but bigger. I figured it wouldn't be, as it's a bit of a cop-out and would be quite frankly a bit disappointing. I hoped I was just being pessimistic. I was wrong.
After another four hours of my life were dropped down the drain, I left the studio with another set of paper cutouts of letters, even larger than the last. It was probably the least I'd ever produced from a workshop (until three weeks time). And then the rain came and they were utterly destroyed. I wasn't happy.

After a while, when I was producing my CV and was looking for work to include, I stumbled across the I Am Too Tall typography, and decided it might look nice in the portfolio, so I coloured them up. I decided against including them later, but they do look good coloured.

This also reminded me that I would need something else to go with that project, seeing as my last batch of cutouts were ruined. At the time, I was doing a lot of Cinema 4D work, so I thought that I could try making them on that. I started by cutting off the shadows from the original art, then filled everything with black, then inverted it. This formed the template for the vectorizer tool.

 Putting the letters together was trickier that I expected, as the original art had half of each letter cut off. All those extra details were constructed by slicing, flipping, and hacking apart the originals on Photoshop. I originally tried to do this on C4D but it turned into a nightmare.

Finally I used each letter with the vectorizer tool, then extruded them as physical objects. I then created a basic setup with a large plane for the floor and a sky box with a sun, which I tweaked to find the right lighting setup for me. I then set up a camera that would slide along the floor whilst keeping the top of each letter out of sight. Afterwards I used some nice preset textures which I edited a little before rendering it. I really like the final animation. It might not be physical but I find it tied off the project better than the original cutouts and it's pobably the definite version of the concept.

Shadowplay Typography from Jonny Clementson on Vimeo.

3D in After Effects

For our post recent workshop with Sara, we learned how to use 3D techniques with After Effects. It's something I've been wanting to know for a while but was always a little too busy to learn. It's really interesting stuff. For simple stuff that resembles paper, it's so much easier than Cinema 4D to work with. For the workshop I decided I would re-use some of the artwork I made for Unit Two as it's a lot nicer looking than anything I would be able to make before the lesson. I do like the effect and I might try and find a way to integrate it into unit two.

Dog Biscuits (After Effects 3D Practice) from Jonny Clementson on Vimeo.

Snow Dinosaurs

This was made during Workshop Week for Sara's christmas card workshop. At the time of making it was the most advanced After Effects piece I had made. It's designed to loop, but vimeo doesn't do that. You'll just have to imagine the looping. Eventually it was also projected onto the side of the Creative Arts building alongside the other animations from the class. 

Rotoscoping

First up - a disclaimer: I wasn't in the rotoscoping workshop due to Manchester Animation Festival, so I just kinda gave it a shot on my own.

For the source material I racked my brain for something that would work for this and also be quite fun. I settled on one of my favourite GIFs on the internet, a Transformers: More Than meets The Eye parody of a football robot falling over on a Japanese TV show.

Despite having a relatively low frame rate, it was surprisingly difficult to rotoscope. I suspect that was in part from having to figure everything out myself rather than being able to run off for help like I could in a workshop. Secondly is that the GIF was a rather tricky choice. Tailgate falls on and off the canvas repeatedly and changes angles a lot. Plus the camera is moving and zooming left, right, and center. But in the end I'm happy with how it turned out. It's quite a lot of fun.

Football Robots (Rotoscoping Practice) from Jonny Clementson on Vimeo.

The Manifesto Of A Mad Scientist

I am a mad scientist. I invent things. I put things together to see what will emerge. I take things apart and put them back together again. I break things. I fix things. I learn. I experiment.

I am a mad scientist. I don't limit myself to what has been discovered. I don't hesitate to push into unexplored territory, regardless of the risk. I don't always choose the easiest way there either, but rather the more interesting one. Sometimes I stay still for a while, and embellish what I know and what I make. Innovation is as important as invention.

I am a mad scientist. I discover new things with whatever I do. I revisit old things to find new things within them. Everything I experience is a lesson; a discovery. The things that go well teach me as much as the things that go wrong.

I am a mad scientist. I make mistakes. I make errors. Bad things happen around me. Sometimes irreversable. But I analyse all of them. I pick them apart and find good in them all. Whether it's a lesson or simply something to never try again, there is always something to be found, even in the direst of situations.

I am a mad scientist. I experiment. I try new things. I do tests. I measure. I record. I look at what I have and I see what I can make with it. I enjoy a puzzle and believe the method is as important as the solution.

I am a mad scientist. I am independent. Instead of asking for help I look for my own way. I navigate where I have no map. I build when I have no instructions. I draw when I have no subject. Every time this happens I find new ways to do things. Sometimes the same ways as others, sometimes original.

I am a mad scientist. I think with my head, not with my heart. I trust logic. I trust science. I trust what has worked before to work again. I trust the realms of logic more than I trust my gut instincts.

I am a mad scientist. I take risks. I make reasoned assumptions and test them to their limits. I fall hard sometimes, soft others. The landing bruises but I learn from the healing. When risks work I push them further. When they don't I analyse them and find what went wrong.

I am a mad scientist. I trust what I can see, feel and hear and question the things I can't. Logic is my master.

I am a mad scientist. I look for solutions rather than problems. Nothing brings greater satisfaction than fixing the unfixable or solving the unsolvable.

I am a mad scientist. I see the world as a series of components. I wonder what will happen if some are removed. I look for solutions wherever I am. Anything can be solved by finding the right pieces and putting them together in the right order in the right place.

I am a mad scientist. I think before I act. Randomness is a game for others. I predict and rely on what I know.

I am a mad scientist. Even when what I make doesn't exist in this plane, I make sure it works. Everything is built with the knowledge that if it did exist, it would fulfill it's purpose.

I am a mad scientist. I trust machines to do my bidding, but learn about the machines. I need to trust the machines and I need to understand their ways. Software is simply another land in need of exploring and mapping. Hardware and aquaintance who's mannerisms you must grow accustomed to.

I am a mad scientist. Everything fills a purpose. Teachers teach for a purpose. I attend university for a purpose. I design for a purpose. I live for a purpose.

I am a mad scientist. I draw because it makes me feel good. I watch movies to feel good. I sleep to feel good. I help people because it makes me feel good. I comfort people to make me feel good. I have come to terms that everything humanity does we do for ourselves and for nobody else. Our brains are simply hardwired to make us interact and cooperate. I am okay with this.

I am a mad scientist and the world is my oyster.

The Highlander

Over the past few weeks I've been tinkering away on a new robot picture between coursework. Last week I finally finished it. This one actually started out as a character design for the main brief, when I was still considering the Adbot idea. Needless to say though, I quickly began to overwork it, and then after a few weeks of tinkering on it, the robot was finished. Once I realised the way the robot was going, I begun my usual steps of working out a theme for the bot. I already had most of the head designed, and at was a sharp, nasty looking one. So I rolled that idea around in my head for a while, and eventually came up with the idea of doing a Scottish Warrior robot. A little bit of Glasgow, a little bit of Braveheart, and a whole load of metal and fur. It had been a long while since my last proper robot picture, and I wanted to use some new skills in it. The main one I used here was the use of fabric for the flags and drapes of the robot. I wanted to achieve a mix of fabric and armour plating, but to manage to differentiate both of those from the core skeleton of the robot. I also managed to use my improved rendering skills with the textiles and with the wooden staff. The robot was initially meant to be holding a sword in its right hand and to have an empty left hand. But I forgot about that when I was drawing the torso and accidently filled in the area where the sword would go. So then I had to work with what I had, and by the end a walking stick seemed like a better fit, although I did add a flag to it. It's also worth noting that this picture was created completely freehand, with no rulers, or even pencil sketches. It's all just fineliner. So without further ado, here's Mad Mel the Scotsman.