Alexander Darabi BA (Hons) Digital Animation
I was approached by a friend to create a covering for an eco-friendly cardboard hanger he wanted to pitch to Cyberdog (a futuristic cyber-goth shop in Camden). I was really excited to be involved in such a forward thinking project, especially having seen the 3D version of the hanger which was really something else! I can’t wait to see these mocked up!
First draft of a building company logo I designed. The main aim was to create something that would look effective on the side of a work van!
Two Character turn-arounds from the forthcoming animation. This is the first stage of the pre-production process and will be referred back to when animating. It also helps to give more depth to the characters, making them more believable. Another way of doing this is to write a detailed biography for each character (to follow). Keep tuned for the storyboard and music track which I have decided to conduct myself using Ableton Live.
Check out this comic book style effect on the ESO images I uploaded. It is meant to mimic the tiny priinted circles you find in comic books and posters. It was made simply by duplicating layers in photoshop then using the colour halftone filter to darken the original layer. There are so many variables in this technique you can get it to look exactly how you want it to. I really like this technique of combining many splodges to form a bigger picture. It is sometimes reffered to as divisionism or pointillism as an impressionist movement practised by many painters in times past. It is still used in printing whereby varying densities of CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key) dots are used.
The gathering of influences for the forthcoming animation is exactly what this blog is for. Keep tuned for further developments/updates. These incredible photographs can also be found on The European Southern Observatory’s Website in super high definition. Check it out!
This character I designed to be a happy explorer of galaxies, travelling through many different layers of stars. This idea was mainly inspired by trains, the song by Air and possibly Astroboy (the hugely popular Japanese cartoon). Keep tuned in for the storyboard development and to see this guy animated! Animating vectors isn’t impossible but always abit finicky, therefore I am first going to experiment with hand drawn (light box) animating. The background will be a mixture of 3D, like the Earth you have seen and some after-effects. I will probably keyframe the character movements to get him to respond differently to different tempos for reactive sound but these will probably follow from the narrative I am hoping to develop in the following week. Essentially the story is about the character’s journey through space where he comes across alot of space-junk which comes to life through his imagination, where he uses the animated, newly found resources to overcome some hairy obstacles on his route. At the moment I don’t think the character is cute enough, I had envisaged him as being quite child-like and small rather than a super-hero. I guess that’s because children are seen as having the most wild imaginations compared to a super-hero, who can only really approach things from one angle, that is the angle they have developed or grown into. The song I was thinking to animate to seen as the animation will primarily be in corresspondance with the music. The background is central to the animation whereby each instrument will be represented by a different form/set of colours. Check out this brilliant but quite outrageous video produced by Jérémie Périn a fantastic young animator, but obviously quite messed up in the head!
^^^^Updated^^^^ A T-Shirt Design I am going to propose to Da Londra. The Magpies are Husband and wife. I want to add a top hat for the gentleman magpie and I have yet to place the branch they are standing on. I think that a hand drawn style might suit the subject better rather than the vectors I have used in this design.
I have been exploring the work of this illustrator/animation director recently and really taking a liking to his bold, colourful, surreal style. This is just one of his many illustrations. What I really like is the way he exaggerates certain aspects of the human form and also the way each of his paintings is almost a microcosm of narrative. Above is a prime example of this, entitled Abrah Ka Dabrah. Again I urge you to check out the rest of his work at www.stevescott.au if you like this kind of style also check out Laboca design house and Will Sweeney who all share the technique of using stark, bold lines and colours to depict slightly mind-bending subject matters. Also check out the latest music video for Birdy Nam Nam produced by Scott and Sweeney! It really is quite mental, but a brilliant rendition none the less, encorporating many different forms of animation from 3D to hand drawn. I really love the concept aswell!
I made this book cover in response to an open brief set by Penguin Books. I used an experimental method of pressing paint onto the page and then rubbing pastel colour across it. The white line graphics provide a contrasting 2D overlay and representation of the word itself “Waves”. I will endeavor to read the book and produce a more meaningful rendition. Coming soon!
The detailed version of the heart with patterns/doodles. Hopefully not too busy, I tried to integrate the text with the patterns in an attempt to make the text blend in to the heart.