Tuesday 5 August 2014

How To Train Your Dragon




Going to see the recent release of the How To Train Your Dragon sequel genuinely became the kick up the butt I apparently needed. I have always had a passion for animated movies, beginning with my collection of the Disney Classics and venturing into the more recent computer animated movies by companies such as Pixar and Dreamworks. I also have a collection of the "The Art Of..." books that I absolutely adore so the idea of being a concept artist has always been an seemingly unreachable dream of mine. I say 'unreachable' as realistically the way I work doesn't fit the bill. Perfectionist. I am a perfectionist, and sometimes this limits the creative process as I get too focused on details and accuracy, so the fast paced idea generating of concept work just isn't for me. Having said this, once I do get a concept, I get into the most dedicated and almost ruthless mindset until the final product is just right. After a very in depth conversation with a friend of mine, who has recently started work at The Moving Picture Company as a Software Programmer, it was discussed that I would very much suit being a texture artist, something I had never thought about before. The level of detail that these guys work to and the digital yet also hand rendered methods they use just sounds like a dream! This accompanied by the potential for 3D digital sculpting just completes the package. But it was only when I watched How To Train Your Dragon 2 that I became set on making this dream happen. I had been anticipation the film as I had been reading up on the new Apollo animation software they were using that allows them to render in real time. I was absolutely amazed by the quality of the animation in the film and loved it so much that that was it, I have to be part of it.

I will be spending the last year of my degree doing everything in my power to learn and create all that I can to give myself a fighting chance at getting into that industry.

So here we go...

Monday 4 August 2014

Me

As a student now heading into the final year of my BA (Hons) Illustration course, as you can imagine, I really need to finish with a bang. Throughout this course we have completed many projects and within reviewing these, my tutors and I have identified a few strengths of mine. My ever growing interest in science fuels many of my themes as I use the facts and figures as the backbone to my work. This alongside my love of accuracy translates to my work having quite an obvious mathematical influence. Using data as my building bricks in my previous projects, I have created both a fractal animation showing the levels of electrical energy generated per country and diagrams showing the exact scale of our solar system and the planets within it, accurate to the pixel. As you can see I take quite an info graphic approach to my briefs and this really works well with me. I am very different to the rest of my course mates in this respect and I thrive on that. However I intend to take this to the next level and really challenge myself throughout this year. I want to do something amazing.