Draw The Dinosaw: February 2012

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Notes from the 29th February session

Notes

Matt, Dan and Mary sat in on the websites session - see the detailed notes below for all those unable to attend.
A reminder that from next week (week of the 5th March) the Wednesday sessions will have tech support from Ashley, while Matthew will now be available on Thursdays instead, giving you two days of our support a week as we move toward the final stretch of production.

Short Bites - Space Stallions and Out of a Forrest

Space Stallions

Out of a Forrest

Film Watch - Fritz the Cat

Something a bit left field for you this week, on Mr Jones' suggesgion we have Fritz the Cat (Warning: Not for young children or those of a sensitive disposition)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068612/

Exploring the Bookshelf on an Animation Legend

I came across this ingenious article, where the author has scrutinised a photo of Jules Engel from the 1950's to extrapolate a fascinating reading list.

Genius.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/books/exploring-the-bookshelf-of-an-animation-legend.html

Website Session notes

As one of the components of your Vocational work (remember all of this adds up to around 15% of your mark!), the aim is to set you all up with a simple and easy to manage website.

Rather than worrying about HTML code, tables, domain names and hosting, my suggestion is to use About Dot Me. Here you can create a basic splash page, which acts like the website equivalent of a business card - a page you send people to which gives a bold thumbnail impression of you and your work and provides links to enable them to look at your portfolio of work and get in contact to employ you!

Here's mine as an example: http://about.me/matthewduddington

About Dot Me
http://www.about.me/

Free
Very very simple
Easy to maintain AND easy to set up
Visuals are the dominant USP - This is great for artists!
(Doubly great as it's a nice simple earner for Illustrators and (Animators with a strong illustrative ability) as you can offer to do a customised background image to the huge numbers of non-art based people with listings, who otherwise have to make do with (at best) their own amateur photography, or one of the library selection of images which you see the 'best' of over and over (eugh!), or (at worst) nick something off google images or elsewhere on the Internet)
It links out to all your external media pages
You need to be part of as many of the main ones as possible to have the best chances of being spotted in blind searches by potential clients. These days it's better to put the effort into a good presence on a range of content sites rather than spending lots of time and money on a totally unique web site when those other sites are likely the first point of contact. A personal website (of the traditional kind) is mainly now for people wanting a more in-depth look at you, your work and your services (that doesn't mean you should get overly complex or busy if you do create a personal page though. Information overload is still a problem!)

Image Size
It's a minefield!
This is why considering the space AROUND your image is important too, with About.me you will choose a solid colour to use around your image if it doesn't tile.

For webkit based mobile browsers 980 px width is the base scale... so 980 x 735 (or 551 for widescreen)
However, I would advise 1024 x 576 for About.me as a good starting point, making sure important elements always have a position distant from the edges. This means you have the nimbleness of a small image for mobile but enough scale to have an impact on desktop monitors.

It's not a bad idea to hold on to / create your images at a much higher resolution (for when technology catches up and you are able to deliver upgraded content just as fast), however, don't use them online yet, because it will be a problem for both screen size AND download time on mobile devices and older computers.

Examples
Some good examples of About.me pages (mainly chosen for the impact of the BG / styling rather than their choice of text etc.)

Illustrators
http://about.me/RodneyPike
http://about.me/chelseaconlin
http://about.me/RolandMacDonald
http://about.me/jcroxas
http://about.me/philhew
http://about.me/robsdigitalart
http://about.me/putuebo
http://about.me/ceciliacerri
http://about.me/margi
http://about.me/kellycarnes

Animators
http://about.me/veronykajelinek
http://about.me/colingiles
http://about.me/dustinbolton
http://about.me/sohrabi
http://about.me/donasia
http://about.me/tombancroft

Examples of what not to do!
Poor layout: http://about.me/vinganapathy
Not enough information about the artist: http://about.me/willpierce
Low level of quality in choice of image: http://about.me/animator
Not the best personal impression: http://about.me/dannyngan
Useing one of the defaut library images (doesn't suggest much for an artist): http://about.me/benwebber

External Sites for hosting content

Jobrary
http://www.jobrary.com/
Image and video portfolio with a CV at the centre
Example: http://indiaink.jobrary.com/

Coroflot
http://www.coroflot.com/
Similar to above but the portfolio take prominence over the CV page
Example: http://www.coroflot.com/tomparry

Vimeo
http://www.vimeo.com/
Professional video hosting site

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/
Less professional video hosting but gets more general public hits, set up a channel page

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/
Photo and image sharing and portfolio

DeviantArt
http://www.deviantart.com/
Artist and photography community with image portfolios

LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/
CV focused and aimed more at non-art based careers but still worth having a listing on here

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/

Blogger
http://www.blogger.com/

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Notes from the 22nd Febuary session

Notes

A reminder for everyone to read the website post below if you haven't already; our around-table will be next week!
Ashley worked with Mary to export her After Effects work thus far and discussed DVD authoring for displaying her animation at the gallery next week.
Allison put together mockups of digital book pages in After Effects for chapters 1, 2 and 3, with Matthew's assistance.
Mary learnt how to switch mouthshapes within After Effects to create lipsync.

Film Watch - Ratatouille

This week we continue the theme of animated rats, with one of Pixar's finest works: Ratatouille.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382932/

Short Bites - Back to the Start and Salma's Skarf

Back to the Start

Salma's Skarf

Professor Munakata's British Museum Adventure

Professor Munakata poses in front of the British Museum
© Hoshino Yukinobu, Hokkaido Shimbun
From the British Museum website http://www.britishmuseum.org/

The British Museum is hosting an exibit of the sketches and drawings of Hoshino Yukinobu, creator of the famous Japanese manga character Professor Munakata. It shows the production of his five month mystery story featuring the iconic character's visit to the British Museum and the thrilling storyline he becomes involved in.

Japanese readers followed the fortnightly episodes of the adventure in Big Comic, and now the museum is publishing all ten parts together with an English translation.

The exibition runs until 9th April 2012 and admission is Free!

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/manga_at_the_british_museum.aspx

Exibition of Justice and Security cartoons

Peacebuilding by Giacomo Cardelli from Italy.
'Working together to build a peaceful future'
13 February 2011
Photograph: Cartoon Movement/VJMovement/LSE

The London School of Economics held an exibition of cartoon drawings on the themes of Justice and Security. Sadly it ended on the 17th, but the Guardian website has images of some of the work that was on show:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/gallery/2012/feb/09/cartoons-justice-security-in-pictures

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Notes from the 8th Febuary session

Notes

There is an important post from today about an upcoming website session. Please make sure you read the post carefully and leave yourself enough time to prepare for the group discussion.
For the Illustrators, if you havent yet had a chance to read Nick's posts from the 7th February go take a look.

Website ideas session preperation

As part of your professional development this semester you have been asked to produce a website that will act as a vital part of your online promotion during your career. On Wednesday 29th February we will be having an around-table session to discuss the group's ideas on personal professional websites, so we'd like you to do some research and concept work between now and then to bring along.

There are some key things you should think about and form some ideas around:

Tone
- What is the image you want to present to potential clients / employers? Where do you want your website to draw peoples attention to most: you as a professional, your work, your influences, your skills or a mixture of all of these? How do you want to balance formal with playful elements?
Identity / Brand
- Do you have a persona, screen name, business name that you currently work under or plan to be known by? What kind of logo and styling goes along with your brand? What makes your identity unique or stand out from other artists?
Content
- What information and work do you need to display? Where will this content be found online: directly on your website, embedded from content hosting websites or via links to your pages on other sites?
Priority
- Which elements of your content are the most important to ensure people remember? Which pieces of work are your strongest or have the most 'commmercial' potential? If someone views only 1/5th of your website which part do you want to guarantee they see?
Upkeep
- How easy do you need maintaining your website to be? What time commitment can you realistically give to updating content and information or changing elements round to keep it fresh and engaging as well as relevant and up-to-date with your latest work? What level of technical skill would you need for the design you want?
Cost
- What are you willing to invest in the creation and long term maintenance of your website? How much control or design complexity are you willing to sacrifice for keeping the cost low or free?

Please bring with you to the Wednesday session any rough design sketches, concept art, lists of information or website links, idea notes etc. that you have.

Following the group discussion, Matthew will be taking bookings for Thursdays to work with students 1-on-1 to set-up a basic website or assisting with planning the pipeline for creating a more ambitious site.

Film Watch - Basil the Great Mouse Detective

This week a Disney classic that deserves more attention than it often gets. It is a strong contender for my favourite of their animated films, along side Sword in the Stone and Robbin Hood, and definitely worth a watch if you haven't come accross it before.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091149/

Short Bites - Man Up and Kudan

Man Up

Kudan

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Luke Pearson

Nowbrow was set up in 2008 as an independent publishing platform for illustration and graphic arts. Nowbrow are focused on a renewed interest in the quality of print and work with locally based printers to produce books as limited edition print runs, which are collectible art objects in themselves.

Nobrow Press work with offset printing processes with editions of between 3,000 - 5,000 copies, whilst Nowbrow Small Press work with screenprint producing very limited editions of less than 100 copies.

Follow link below to see range of Comic Book artists / Illustrators work and some pages from their sketchbooks:

http://www.nobrow.net/category/artist

Nelson Graphic Novel

Nelson is a 250 page collaboration between 54 of the UK's most exciting comic creators to create a collective Graphic Novel. It's published by Blank Slate Books.

Follow link below to Blank Slate Books website with lots of links to Comic publishers & Comic book artists.

www.blankslatebooks.co.uk/our-books/nelson/

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Notes from the 1st Febuary session

Notes

For our animators, there is a list of local animation and production companies on a post below, you might want to consider contacting them about possible placements, freelance work or job oppertunities.
Ashley worked with Matt on a working schedule for his space saga animation.
We seem to have inherited a monster sized lightbox!

All the practice being done in Photoshop today reminded me of this video from earlier in the year:

10 Classic Stop-Motion Shorts

In true High Fidelity style, I've put together my all-time top 10 favourite stop-motion short films on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL18985762CE0D55F8

Do you agree or disagree with the choices?

Post your own top 10s into the comments below and see how many different films we get..! (They don't all need to stop-motion, any style of animation will do.)