Life-drawing

I went to life drawing tonight, for the first time since July. The model was a girl whom i'd drawn before and it seems that she has a particular repertoire of poses as I remembered some of these from the previous occasion.

The turn out was rather large during this class as opposed to the usual number, I assume though that this is due to the flood of new students in the area who have recently enrolled. I also enrolled onto year 2 of my course this morning. I'm not sure that I was at my most observant tonight, but I guess practice makes perfect so i'll look forward to the next class.

Further 3D dabbling

I'm still getting to grips with the basics of 3D bit-by-bit, and i'm at a stage now where I can build basic models from primitive shapes and also basic terrain from 2D images. I'm hoping that i'll be at a stage further on in the academic year that I will be able to incorporate some 3D work in to my work, this 2nd year is geared towards self-motivated briefs so at least i'll have some flexibility with which to work it in.

This is my first basic model, I even tried a little basic animation just to ease my mind that 3D work isn't as daunting as initially anticipated.

Azur and Asmar: A Prince's Quest

I saw this film last week, it's the kind of film i'd loved to have seen growing up along with other fantasy films like 'Labyrinth', 'Krull' and 'The Thief of Baghdad'. It's about two guys (one caucasian, the other middle-east asian) who grow up together under the same carer; who tells them stories of an old myth about the Djinn Fairy and how she promised to marry the person who freed her from her glass prison.

The boys become rivals from the get go, each claiming to to seek out the Djinn Fairy and free her. What follows is that journey....

This film is another from director Michel Ocelot, whom also made my previously reviewed film 'Kirikou and the Sorceress'. The style is very much the same, however, this film has been created in 3D and the use of bold colours with almost no shadows at all gives it a vectorised look.

I'd say that it probably wasn't a great film worthy of a dozen awards because it looks pretty good and the story is about average, but this is the kind of film that I would want to show my children. What I really love about Ocelot's work is the message that it carries, both this film and the Kirikou film contain an important (and simple to understand) moral message which the storyline ultimately drives towards, and I hope that he continues to make more films like this in the future.



They are French movies dubbed into English so unfortunately there are other works of his which are available only in the native tongue (without subs) and I hope that the various film councils and committees out there will be able to bring those works to us.
If any of you have access to the Sky Arts channels (they're free channels so should hopefully be on freeview, etc.) then keep an eye out as both 'Azur and Asmar' and 'Kirikou and the Sorceress' are often listed on rotation.

Photogram workshop

Today I went to the 'Noise Lab' in Manchester as a magazine group called 'One Five Eight' were holding a workshop on how to produce photograms, initially I thought I was going to be the only one who turned up as I was sat alone for a while composing my first experimental piece, but when I came out of the dark room after producing my first piece a few more people had arrived.

It was quite fun, there was a good mixture of people my age and also children getting involved and when I was talking with one of the team in the dark room she wasn't sure if there would be enough supplies to last the whole day....in other words it was quite a success.
Essentially we were all sat around a long table with all sorts of items in bowls at its center, marbles, toys, light bulbs, stationary, buttons, and more random things which we could just grab and compose our pieces with and then one-by-one we took our boards (steadily...trying not to wobble the items on top) into the dark room to develop the photogram.

I have done a little work in a dark room before, when I went to college first time around about 10 years ago we had the chance to take a short course from a given list and Photography was one of them. During my time at high school and also this college I had been refused the opportunity to study anything art related because the curriculum forbid both music and art to be studied together and I was forced to choose one....so I jumped at the chance to do some photography. It was a lot of fun taking photos and then developing our negatives into actual prints in a dark room.
Today's workshop reminded me of this.....

As we each put together our pieces we had to wait until the person currently in the dark room had finished before we could then do our own again, I had put together another wreckless piece whilst waiting for my turn again but because the wait was so long I decided to wipe the board clean and create something properly. At that moment when I was looking for things to use I spotted a toy lion and an image from a video game sprung to mind, so I decided to make a piece relative to that. I quite like how it turned out.

3D dabbling

I told myself a few months back that i'd try to get to grips with at least a few basic 3D elements over the summer, with the aim of having an extra source of creativity when I start the new academic year.

Well...i'm ever so slowly getting the hang of the it, this has been some of my dabbling today.












EDIT: Ah...I see that Blogger's "Add Video" option uploads via YouTube, hence the quality is pretty shoddy. There are stars in the latter shots.

SHIFT calendar competition

Today i've been creating some designs for the SHIFT calendar competition, it's been a few years since I last submitted any entries but this year i'm on it.

I'm just wondering though which of these to submit, i'm not sure, I asked my brother earlier on and he prefered the coloured background. Any other opinions?

Inception

Finally got around to seeing it, I had to go on my own in the end as no one wanted to and watch it with me. I knew i’d like it because i’ve always believed there is more to the mind than we understand (ie. dreams, dejavu, etc.) so the concept was right up my street. It’s a really good film, but not fantastic.

It wasn't a mind job like everyone has been saying….you just need to be able to follow what is going on. A few of Nolan's regulars were in there from his previous Batman outings, although I found it interesting that he brought in Joseph Gordon-Levitt for this film, because even though he was great in his role I somehow felt that this decision was a prerequisite for Nolan to cast him in a future movie. When you consider that Gordon-Levitt carries an almost remarkable resemblence to the late Heath Ledger, it begs the question of whether Nolan has already thought of how to replace the oscar winning portrayal of 'The Joker' in his next Batman film.




Leonardo Dicaprio was also brilliant in the film, coupled with his performance in 'The Aviator' he is well on the way to becoming one of my favourite actors. Ellen page also played her part well but I felt that her introduction into the film was rushed and it was fairly obvious that her role in the movie was written as a means to explain the main premise of the film.

I just found this poster for the film, whilst I can understand why they used the posters they did I think that this one really nails the concept. This is exactly what I had in mind when I was watching it.