For my final project, I created a series of illustrations depicting moments throughout an individual’s day. I was very excited about this project as I enjoy illustrating much more than I do animating. I thought it would also make use of my character design skills. Though I only was making still images, I still wanted to create a story. Some stylistic choices I made included having a separate color palette for each illustration in the series. I wanted each scene to have it’s own mood created by the hues and textures used. I also made the choice to place each illustration with in a bubble that progressively grows and shrinks throughout the series. I wanted this to not only create a painterly effect, but I wanted the size of the blob to indicate the amount of energy that the subject had during that time in the day. I created two versions of the series, one with black in the background, and one with more dull colors from the color palette in the background. Some struggles I faced was getting frustrated with the composition of an illustration and then scrapping it, but this is mainly due to how much time I had to complete the project. I would like to add more illustrations to this series in the future and clean some of the current ones up.
This symbol may have multiple meanings behind it. It mainly indicates that my bed or sleeping is my safe zone and place where I can find peace, represented by the wavy lines hovering above the bed. But these lines could also represent some sort of blockage, illustrating my lack of ability to get rest (due to my never-ending list of obligations) or the times when I wake up and am bound to my bed, not wanting to leave its safety. It is a barrier between my peace and the real world.
This symbol is inspired by my fear of time going by and running out, especially when it comes to my family and their aging. I combined an hourglass and DNA strand or chromosome easily for this. When DNA twists it creates a shape that bulges, cinches, then bulges again. just like an hourglass. A chromosome also looks very similar to the crossing paths on a silhouette of an hourglass.
This symbol is relatively simple. It represents my Misophonia, which is a condition that causes extreme anger or rage to the person inflicted with it when they hear certain sounds, which for me is anything that has to do with other’s mouths or even repetitive noises. The ears obviously represent my hearing, and the nails show how it feels for me when I hear my trigger noises. This symbol is really important to me as my Misophonia prevents me from enjoying the good things in life, such as having a meal with others.
For my logo design, I wanted to create something versatile and simple that I can use for my brand as an artist. Simple shapes and minimal color palettes were my goals from the beginning, as seen in my mood boards. I want to be able to easily use the logo in any media and at any size. My first logo was inspired by framed artwork in a gallery. Since I want to work with others to bring their ideas to life, I wanted to represent outside ideas coming into my “frame” with the simple shapes being used. For my second logo, I simply wanted to emulate fog through simple shapes, since “fog” is a a part of the brand name. I also want the colors used in the logo to change depending on the season or a special event, making the logo more a part of the theme, rather than being obviously separate from the work. I am leaning towards the first logo for my brand because I enjoy how simple, yet dynamic it is and can be.
Moodboards
Gallery Posters
I decided to incorporate my logos into fake gallery exhibition posters for my artwork. I wanted the colors used in the posters to be incorporated into the logos so that they don’t look out of place. It was a little difficult to incorporate my first logo in without it looking slapped on, so I tried to make the design of the poster reflect the logo, especially in the “Out of Frame” poster. I enjoy how my 2nd logo was incorporated into the “Skewed” poster, as it doesn’t look randomly placed, but intentional.
These character designs are for my first senior project “The Burger Man”, which follows two characters exploring an abandoned diner. I kept the color palette for the characters similar, as they were going to be in a dark environment. Using similar colors on their feet as their head was important for me to tie the character together, making them feel complete. I kept their coloring flat, as they were going to be animated and I wanted to keep it simple for myself. I tried to give the two characters differing personalities to create an interesting dynamic in the animation. Diya is confident and curious, and Louis is easily scared but follows along. I had an example of their personalities shine through with the more detailed illustration, where Louis is scared, and Diya is leading. I would like to have created a hand sheet showing different hand poses for them.
#2 – Character Design for “Theory of Technolution”
These character designs are a part of a personal project that I began this semester. I decided to create character designs based on my father’s horror screenplay “Theory of Technolution”. This required a lot of research into the characters by reading the screenplay and annotating, as well as interviewing my father and taking note of how he envisioned the characters when writing them. I explored different muted color palettes that would match the horror vibe of the story. Creating the design for the monster was interesting, as I do not usually create non-human-looking characters. The monster used to be a human, which gave me a base to work with. I tried to play with what would happen if a human was living in the conditions that the character was in. Luckily, my father had a description in mind for the monster that I was able to follow. In the future for my character design sheets, I would like to have more poses, characters interacting with each other and objects, and characters in scenes.
#3 – Character Design for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
This piece is a personal piece that I created for Alfred State’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It was used as promotion for the show as a poster and in the programs. I used this as an opportunity for practicing character design. I started and finished the piece before everyone had set hair, makeup, and costumes, so I researched past productions to get an idea of what each character should be wearing. Rather than just drawing the actors in costume, I used the actor’s likenesses as inspiration for the characters, making them become the character themselves. This allowed me to make changes to their appearances, as I needed to age almost everyone. I changed Johanna’s hair color, as our actress is a brunette. Tobias was also played by a woman, so I had to change her features to look more youthful but masculine. It was a challenge to make menacing characters from very innocent references, but it was very beneficial to my character design skills and being able to create a range of personalities in characters. I used my inking and line work techniques as a callback to the original 1979 illustration for the show, which was very textured and scratchy. I used a lot of reds and warm tones to represent the bloodshed in the show and to tie the whole piece together. I included smokestacks and smoke to reference the factory whistle that blows when someone is murdered.
On my mission to attend a gallery at Alfred University before the semester comes to an end, I was, unfortunately, unable to find any that were open when I was available. Instead, I decided to explore the building that houses many of the student studios and look at how it sparks creativity in students. Throughout the building, there is an array of pieces on display. There are paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and video art. These things help define the building as a space for creatives. I enjoyed the splashes of pink that was all around, as well. It was on the chairs in a lounge space and on the walls. This helps to create a vibrant energy in the old building. I really loved the twisting staircase with paintings on the walls and a show of lights. This created an interesting vibe that I thought was really cool. It also served as a landmark for people to remember what floor they are on. There was a black wall that students can draw on whenever they please, and I thought this was a fun way for students to communicate and express creativity if they are feeling bored. I also thought it was nice that each student had their space that they can work in, allowing them the focus they need when they create. I wish that this was something students had to utilize at Alfred State.
The young Diya and Louis explore the old, abandoned diner, “The Burger Man”. During their investigation, they discover something truly grotesque.
Artist Statement
For my first senior project, I decided to create a 2D animation featuring two characters. I came up with the idea of ghost hunters exploring some sort of abandoned building during the summer, but I wasn’t sure what kind of building it would be until I drove by a very old abandoned diner. I thought that would be perfect, as it was different from the usual haunted house trope. This is where the idea began to sore and I started creating concept art of the characters and environment. I went for a retro type of theme and stuck to a mainly cool and dull color palette. The most vibrant colors are those that come from neon lighting, creating an elegant contrast between gloomy and bright. Though the storyboard had to be cut down quite a bit, I enjoy the final product and what I was able to accomplish, but I would also like to expand more on this project, as well as the characters.
Future Improvement
I would like to continue to work on this animation so it is a more professional grade for the Senior Showcase in the Spring. I would like to add a few scenes, clean up the line work and backgrounds a bit, add some more frames for smoother movements, and add more to the sound design to make it sound fuller.
I attended the Light Matter Film Festival at Alfred University on November 5th. I decided to see program five, which was called “Potential Spaces”. All the films in this program made comments on spaces, whether they were occupied or vacant. Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed with the overall experience. The majority of the films were not intriguing, and the messages felt overdone. One of the films “The Black Tower” had an interesting beginning, but the direction it went in was not what I was expecting at all. The message that I got from the film was “technology bad” and that was a letdown for me. One of the films repeatedly said “us” for what felt like forever. I think the imagery that was paired with the annoying audio was trying to create a deeper meaning, but it was lost on me. I enjoyed the last film called “Pet World”. This film was more narrative based compared to the previous films, and I thought the imagery and cinematography were quite beautiful. A few of the films had intense flashing lights or quick transitions between dark and light repeatedly. There was not any flash warning at the beginning of the program, and I think that was quite neglectful. I am not sensitive to light, and the flashing was way too much for me, so I would imagine that it would be extremely harmful to someone with a condition. I don’t know if it was because I was overstimulated by the constant intense imagery and sounds for an hour and a half, but I did not feel like I was enjoying myself once we got a few films in. The films would have better fit the theme of the program if the program revolved around repetition, rather than spaces. I tried to find the correlation with spaces as the program went on, but I got to a point where I could no longer see the significance of spaces because of how obscure everything was.
After taking a while to look through old work to see if something would spark ideas for my personal project, I remembered a project that I had wanted to do two summers ago but did not have time to start. My father is a writer and I had asked him if I could create a graphic novel based on his horror screenplay “Theory of Technolution” which was published in 2017. I had already started doing research on the world he created in the story by finding reference images and I thought it would be fun to create something with a horror theme since most of my work is light-hearted. I want to create a character and world concept exploration of this screenplay for my personal project. I want to create character exploration sheets and lineups, different expressions, general poses, and hand poses for each character. I also want to create concept art of the setting and the colors that will be incorporated into the world. I think this will be beneficial for my portfolio to have a full study and research of character and concept design for a story that has never seen animated media before.
The lecture by Ben Fino-Radin about the age and deterioration of digital works was very interesting and insightful. It was interesting hearing about his background and how he discovered such an unconventional career as a digital art conservator. I enjoyed listening to his stories about working with artists to make sure their digital is restored and presented as how the artist originally intended. When digital art is moved from one gallery to another, they are sometimes set up in different ways with different equipment than what the last museum that had it used. This creates different iterations of the piece, which I thought was noteworthy. But it also creates room for error in displaying the piece, making it difficult to display as the artist had intended. This is where the need for art conservators begins to arise. Hearing about how happy artists were once their art was restored was also great. Ben mainly gave examples of works that he has helped restore from the 90s and early 2000s, so that part did not help me put into perspective how my type of work created with modern technology would specifically be affected by age. Though, it did get me to think about how my artwork could face deterioration in the future. I had never considered how my digital work may end up deteriorating due to technological advances because of how great modern technology is. But as it always does, technology will change and these changes will affect how my digital work is stored and displayed. One key piece of advice that I thought was beneficial from the lecture was how to prevent age and deterioration of my digital work. Ben highly suggested that we store copies of all our files on an external device that is big enough to hold a lot of information, which will make backups easier. We should also implement an automatic backup system to prevent loss. If I am unsuccessful in keeping my pieces preserved properly, it’s reassuring knowing that there are art conservators who are able to help me restore my work.
On Friday, September 16th, I attended a free figure drawing class at Alfred University. I haven’t been to a figure drawing class since before the pandemic in the spring of 2020, so I was worried about my skills being rusty. The class was in a big studio space in the basement of a residence hall, which I thought was interesting. There were mainly other seniors from Alfred State in attendance, but the model and a few other people were AU students. For some reason I was expecting a female model, so I was a bit surprised that the model was male. What’s great about figure drawing is that the sessions are timed, so you are more focused on getting the drawing done, rather than your discomfort. We did a few 1 minute gesture drawings before we worked up to 5, 15, and 20. It is a bit funny looking back on my drawings, because I thought my one minute drawings were so amazing, but they are amorphous blobs compared to the longer sessions. I liked being able to practice getting a feel for the pose and then working up to adding form, lighting, and shadow. I was also able to make some connections with the Alfred University students who were present. I thought this class was really great for getting my skills back into use and I’d like to attend again when I don’t have prior engagements.
Sofia Baldwin 