One of the latest inspirations for my style is the art of Koko Gate. Her surreal worlds, where love and sexuality are celebrated by strange, sensual, and quite squishy characters, are something that I wanted to explore more in detail. I found out about her art from Instagram and watched all her films on Vimeo. The first film I saw was a music video with a black background that was my main inspiration for the Children Society project. Today I want to discuss the squishy, gradient textures she uses to bring these quirky characters to life.
Slug LifeSlug Life Slug Life
I noticed that this style is quite modern among RCA animation students, and I saw similar films from this year’s RCA graduation show. In an interview with Cartoonbrew, Koko said that her favorite tool is the airbrush and that she recently started using 3D software. I think that the fly in her latest film – Sluglife is made in 3D while the rest of the film is made in photoshop (not sure, but that’s what I read). I love the contrast vibrant colors she uses in her personal work. Using an airbrush to do the shadows and the highlights add a 3D feel to the film, without depriving it of the magic of 2D animation. The grainy texture makes the piece look older. It is a combination of old technologies and innovation, that creates the dreamy world in her world. There is no specific time where the actions take place, it is all a surreal universe of exploring human emotions and body.
Sophie Koko’s personal instragram Sophie Koko’s Instagram
I wanted to try her style for one of my illustrations and found one that I liked in black and white. It was a drawing devoted to self-care and feeling good in your skin. Channel your inner goddess type of illustration. Instead of using an airbrush, I decided to use a spray paintbrush that has more texture. I kept the design in my personal style and did not change the way I draw her face, and I like the mixture of the two styles. It is something that I will not use in my art all the time but definitely enjoyed exploring it. I think it will find its place in my art eventually.
The theme today is my first experience as an animation director. I directed my first short film in a global pandemic (the last one was 100 years ago, so pretty impressive yeah).
After my small mental breakdown in march – hehe all my plans getting canceled and being unemployed with no clear direction for the future, I had little to no idea of what I would make a film about. So I promised myself that I will draw every morning with my morning coffee. Started with a page or two per day, and at one point, I was using every coffee/lunch break to fill my notebook with doodles.
Spending a month of animating around 8 hours per day on my Children Society project, I felt mentally exhausted, and coming up with a new idea for a film in just a couple of days, seemed impossible. Then I saw him:
Standing alone on the page with his glorious long armpit hair, waiting for me to notice him. I desperately needed to animate him. A couple of days later, I saw a medieval drawing of a man riding himself instead of a horse and thought that this could be the perfect story for my gentleman – him standing still on a horse that is not a horse but it is the same person eating grass. I loved the idea of him being alone with himself and started thinking in this direction. I came up with many different scenarios of group social activities that he can do alone with altered versions of himself.
When I was designing the background I asked myself what was the message of my film – I loved the character and the activities he was performing, but I still had no idea why I love it so much and what I want to say with that. I was listening to different episodes from a podcast by Sam Harris where the central theme was the human psyche and the pandemic. I started thinking about the way the whole situation made me feel – a timeless existence where there was no beginning and no end, just an endless stream of thought. Wanted to show that in my designs, so made a mood board:
After choosing my palette I started playing with the background:
The background visualizes the dreamy inner world of the character. The vast, empty horizon so far behind the character, emphasizes the idea of timelessness and isolation.
The prosaic main character is a metaphor for the common nature of the emotions he experiences. The simplicity and goofiness of his look provoke empathy in the viewer. We are all, in a way or another, products of our repetitive patterns that bring short-lived joy.
Even though I loved the theme of endless suffering, I wanted it to build up and escalate at one point. Therefore, in the end, the camera zooms out and the viewer is invited onto the bigger picture – the character is just a little piece of a large system, a tiny dust particle in a galaxy where there are a thousand galaxies.
Deep down, we all live with the knowledge that we will die and that the universe is so massive that we don’t matter. Routines are familiar, comforting, and self-defying. However, we still get up from bed every morning, play leapfrog, buy ice cream, and continue our patterns. Although just like the character, we are unhappy and insignificant, we live for the moment of finally getting the ice-cream, even when we know we will drop it the next second. And what a moment it is!
In its most common definition, the caricature is characterized as a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated to create a comic or grotesque effect.
According to Iliya Beshkov, one of the most famous Bulgarian caricaturists, the caricature is not even an artistic expression, and yet, it plays a crucial role in the social and political life of a country. A caricature’s purpose, says the artist, is to mock and judge the vices through a public, social “trial”. Therefore, it cannot be intimate – it is art for the masses.
The period after WWI is considered the Golden Ages of Bulgarian Caricature. Many prominent illustrators, living abroad, were using their art to express their position towards the political injustice in the country. They were young, well educated, and cleverly used humor to create a simplified relatable situation from the Bulgarian social life.
A greedy, shameless careerist, ready to do everything to satisfy his desires, can often be found in the pages of Modern Bulgarian newspapers. The apathetic man, living quietly in the comfort of his ignorance, is another common figure in the Bulgarian caricature world. Pegasus, a symbol of artistic inspiration and wisdom, is often shown as a passive figure led by a mediocre writer.
After 1944, with the rise of the Communist regime, the Bulgarian caricaturists fell under the Iron Curtain and the Soviet censorship. Many artists were imprisoned, prosecuted, and sentenced to death for portraying the party in a way that did not pursue its best interests. In the following 40 years, Bulgarian art loses its voice and becomes a mirror of communist ideas and propaganda.
What I love most about the old Bulgarian caricatures is the simplicity of the characters and the clean line work. Without overcomplicating the illustrations, the artists managed to convey messages brilliantly. The ideas behind the caricatures are often simple, yet witty and memorable. I spent a month in the National Library going through the archives of old newspapers and books where I could find more caricatures with a social message, and redraw my favorite ones in a notebook. I decided to use a market to challenge myself to draw with no mistakes and let the lines tell the story. I found that it was an excellent exercise to learn how to draw faster and use cleaner lines. I also found inspiration in the story behind some of the drawings and used them for my illustrations.
In a midst of a global pandemic, I decided that it is the perfect time to launch my very first personal website. I wanted to create an online portfolio and a space that is super-extra-me.
I looked for inspiration through the pages of some of my favorite freelance animators and illustrators. What I discovered is that they had a lot in common: they all had a more simplistic, straightforward design with a single strong illustration/animation on the landing page. They all had few categories – reel, personal work and about or animation, illustration, and about page.
I use bright colors in my work, and I love colorful designs, but when it comes to customer experience interfaces, I prefer minimalism. I decided to go with a simple outlook of the page and divide my side into four groups: animation, illustration, shop where I sell my prints, and an about page where I will have my CV and a short intro.
I asked a friend of mine for help with the whole set up. The side is built in WordPress because it is user-friendly, and I can manage it by myself after the initial design phase. This is the first design I made as a reference for him:
As you can see, my site looks pretty much exactly like it.
On my animation page, I uploaded my first showreel ( 2020 is all about first-time things for me) and the gifs I have been making in my free time.
The illustration page has a selection of my favorite illustrations from the last months, and it will be updated regularly as my style changes constantly but I want to show more diversity in my work.
Shop section – decided to keep it limited to ten prints and leave an option to choose your illustration as a request form. It works on pre-order, so my shop is supporting sustainable production concepts, and I will not end up with artworks I do not need.
About page – after spending a week writing the “about” paragraph, I gave up and asked a close friend of mine that is a marketing specialist and occasionally, a writer, for help. I spent a significant amount of time designing my CV – I wanted to create a minimalistic easy-to-read resume that presents the projects I have worked on without unnecessary details. After making sure that my OCD fixed every millimeter difference between the paragraphs, I uploaded it to my site. I might create a new colorful and eye-catching CV soon, but I am happy with the final result for now.
Lately, I’ve been trying to rewatch all favorite animations from my childhood. Stated with Monsters INC, went through some classics such as Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp, and finished with Mulan. Looking for something new to watch I found Anastasia – an animation I loved as a child that I have forgotten about.
Half-way through the film, I went “wait a minute, Disney never uses this type of camera movement and what’s with their faces?”. At the end of the movie, my only thought was “Okay, it was nice, it reminded me of my childhood and I love Bartok, but something was missing… there was no Disney magic”. To my surprise, I found that the animation is a product of 20th Century Fox, directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.
Well, that explained a lot.
I am not going to focus on the story, the music or animation techniques used for the production, but rather, on these little details that I believe are the reasons I did not feel the “magic”. Thinking about Disney’s magic brought me to the comparison with the so-called “x-factor” – you can be a great performer and still lack this last bit of something that makes you a star. So, if Disney’s magic is the x-factor of animation, does Anastasia have x-factor?
I will start with the character design. I like the designs of Rasputin and Bartok – they show the personality traits of the characters and creates the classic combination of a villain, obsessed with his revenge, and the simple servant. However, we never find out why is he so passionate about killing Anastasia. His motive remains unclear, and so does his existence in the plotline. They could have had all these troubles even without him.
Anastasia (1997) 20h Century Fox Animation Studios
The character design of Anastasia and Dimitri is slightly disappointing. There is nothing special about them, no character can be found in their facial features and they remind of a generalization of all Disney princesses and princes. Even though they have the cartoon looking design, they have overly realistic expressions. As a result, these unmemorable characters have so many facial expressions that it is hard to follow their emotions. What is more, the acting of the characters was so realistic that it felt wrong at some moments. The same goes for Anastasia’s grandmother – not sure if that’s her or the evil stepmother of Cinderella that simply dyed her hair.
The second thing I noticed, while watching the animation, were the blurry backgrounds. The scene where she is walking happily around the castle, the character looks out of place as if it is a mixture of live-action and animation.
Anastasia (1997) 20h Century Fox Animation Studios
Don’t get me wrong, I think that the animation of the film is beautiful and I appreciate the effort put into the little details such as showing how nervous she is before meeting her grandmother – tearing the ballet program into pieces.
For some unknown for me reason, it turns out that I am better at writing at night. Not that I am good at it, I still suck, don’t get me wrong, but my thought is flowing smoothly, and I better express my mind.
So tonight, I want to share more about my inspiration for the Children’s Society project and the work of artists I admire.
As you already know, my film has a black background and contrasting, colorful main character and symbols.
Initially, I was inspired by Disney’s Dumbo, and more specifically, by the scene where Dumbo gets drunk. The scene is so different, compared to the rest of the film, that made a big impression on me. I loved the way, Disney portrayed the unconscious state of the character through the vast black space where huge, colorful elephants were dancing and coming closer and closer to the camera. I wanted to recreate a similar feeling with my animation. Therefore, I decided to look for more films, that had similar aesthetics – black background and contrast bright characters.
Disney’s Dumbo (1941)Disney’s Dumbo (1941)
I found a music video on Vimeo, made by Sophie Koko Gate (I watched her Slug Life film and I absolutely love it, but will probably write about it in a different post) that fit the description perfectly.
Here is a link to it:
https://vimeo.com/105585712
Big Weather Part II (2015)Big Weather Part II (2015)Big Weather Part II (2015)
I used the meaning of colors to emphasize the inner change of the character. I started with blue color to show her isolation and the hostile environment, went through the green color of the cocoon to indicate her personal growth, and finished with pink, to set the environment for the positive message of the girl.
As you can see from the illustrations and the character design sheet, I used a similar approach in my animation – first, I would draw the black outline of the character, and then I would color it.
How Far I’ve Come Style FrameHow Far I’ve Come Style Frame
Finally, I liked the roughness and sketchiness of Koko’s animation, and how she left some gaps while coloring to show the imperfections. I applied this sketchy look to my project, and I believe that it gives the film the authentic feeling of the strong emotional distress, discussed by the narrator.
Here are my initial sketches. As you can see, the idea evolved in the process and I changed the beginning. Initially, I wanted to show the girl gazing through a car’s window, as a train passes by, and use it as a transition for the next scene. However, as I was sketching it, I felt that it would look like a teenage series where the main character is going through a crisis of identity, and there is dramatic music in the background. Therefore, I decided to show how uncomfortable she feels in the car, almost as if she is too big to fit in it, and she cannot breathe. Therefore, I started designing a character with a large body, that makes her almost clumsy but also adds softness to her personality.
I went home for two weeks … now I am staying for at least two months.
UK’s incredible, breathtaking, never seen in history measures (because they were non-existent) to deal with the upcoming pandemic were the reason I had to stay in quarantine alone for two weeks.
My extroverted personality went from “I need time for myself anyway, I can do yoga and draw” to “Jesus Christ I need people I am physically ill without human interactions.” So this post is about my mood swings expressed in my sketches/doodles/illustrations.
I bought a new marker, and I am trying to push myself to experiment more with shape and style by drawing without an outline. It is addictive, and I had to buy more paper because I was running low on it. Luckily, the best art shop is still open – because art is a necessity ya all. Enjoy:
In the second week, I decided to turn some of the sketches into illustrations. I called them “Love in Time of C(holera)orona” – spread love, not germs.
And finally, some random illustrations I made in the last days:
Now I am home, living with my parents for the first time in 5 years. Not gonna lie, now I started appreciating my quarantine.
I am learning to animate on procreate, but it is harder than it seems. I still can’t make it smooth, and it takes me a long time to make the character’s movement. What is more, I can’t work on different layers, and it makes coloring and adding additional elements harder.
I always thought that making a character design is one of the funniest jobs in animation. You give life to the characters, creating a whole image in the eyes of the audience. If you are lucky enough, and the story reaches more people, millions around the work will know your work: fans will want to have it on everything from their backpack to their toothbrush. Little did I know that actually, coming up with a design would be one of the most challenging and time-consuming exercises I would encounter during my first term. Let me introduce you to Damon – a lovely demon, working in the family business of burning people in Hell. Unlike any other demonic creature, Damon has a gentle soul, and his aspirations in life are far more different than his family would wish to. In essence, Damon dreams of becoming a professional ice skater. Since at the end of Unit 1, we submit only the final version of the project, I decided to share all stages my lovely demon went through. Even though I quite like the design I have at the moment, it is still work in progress, and I intend to improve it over the next couple of months.
I drew my initial inspiration from old medieval drawings of demons. I started researching the different types of demons in Hell and their hierarchy. I wanted my character to be someone with little to no power, whose job is tiring and endless. Then, I found the “Ukobach” demon. According to Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy in the Dictionnaire Infernal from 1818, Ukobach or Urobach is a “demon of an inferior order.” A creature with big eyes and flaming body, holding a hot pan full of coils. More information I found in Demonicpedia (yes, that’s super creepy). There the demon is described as “goofy” and “incredibly thin” with ample head and a huge nose.
The Ukobach, from Dictionnaire Infernal.
At first, I wanted to make Damon small and cute:
first doodlesinitial design
Then, I started thinking more about the personality of my character and how it could reflect in the way he looks. I decided to use the primary image from Dictionnaire Infernal as a reference. To show his unhealthy lifestyle – the man is burning people all night – after all, I decided to make him quite unfit with a belly and baggy butt, but at the same time with pointy elbows and knees. So after days of working on my character design; eventually, my project looked like that:
Life scenario 1, December 2019Life scenario 2, December 2019Life scenario 3, December 2019
Leaving the project aside for a couple of months game me a new perspective on it. I decided to improve the backgrounds as I redrew them and set on a new color palette, keeping only the initial concept. Looking at the turnaround, I saw that the 3/4 pose does not fit the others as it shows a different mood, and I can use it for character exploration in the future. I also added additional drawings, so I could animate the turnaround and make it look smooth.
The final version of my character design, which I will submit for Unit 1 looks like this:
Life scenario 1, March 2020Life scenario 2, March 2020Life scenario 3, March 2020
What will happen to Damon next? Will he have the courage to follow his dreams and fight for what he loves? Tune in next week to find out.
I know it might sound strange, but sometimes … I go outside the studio. Like, I do leave the building occasionally. So on the FIRST SUNNY SUNDAY IN FOREVER, I went to a museum because why going to the park and enjoying the sun. I wanted to go see Steve Mcqueen’s exhibition at Tate Modern. So here’s a short review of it and some cool photos I took (illegally).
Western Deep
The film shows a fragment from the life of the minors working in the deepest gold mines in the world – Tautona Mines in the Witwatersrand Reef near Johannesburg, South Africa. Going on the lift, the minors embark on what is seems an endless journey under the ground. The darkness of the tunnel juxtaposed brilliantly with intense noises creates the feeling that this is a journey to hell. The only source of light comes from the lantern of their helmets, so the only thing the audience can see is the sweat on their faces and the hopelessness in their eyes. An image of trapped souls in a black pit, which reminded me of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Back in the real world, we see the minors with thermometers in their mouths, being tested like animals used in an experiment. Repeating the same exercise over and over again, the spectator gets the feeling of a timeless existing, a life deprived of meaning or purpose. In the last shot, as the camera moves back we see that “the experiment” is being monitored through a screen. Someone else is observing the “animals” and writing down their results. I see the monitors as the idea of the “peephole” and objectification – the participants are no longer human, they are reduced to objects of the research, a tool in the mines.
Caribs’ Leap/Western Deep 2002 Steve McQueen born 1969 Purchased 2005 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T12019
I loved the way Mcqueen used colors in different environments. The pale tones of the shots in what it seemed like a hospital and the contrast blue shorts of the minors create the atmosphere of a hostile environment, even the red light is not a source of warmth, but rather a symbol of their helplessness.
Finally, I was most impressed by the role of sound in the film. The loud, almost unbearable noises in the mines followed by silent pauses, conveyed the message of the struggle to survive in an extreme environment, the helplessness and the fear of an upcoming danger. It reminded me of the Chernobyl series, the moment they knew that we’re unable to stop the catastrophe from spreading. The absence of sound made the scenes seem endless, a feeling of lingering.
my sneaky photo, then my camera flash went on .. it was embarrassing
“To say that Steve McQueen’s new film, Western Deep, is a staggering achievement barely does it justice…. It is one of the most physically powerful pieces of film-making I’ve ever experienced.”
“Ashes” is a video installation of two short films played simultaneously? The first video is footage from 2002 shot on Super 8 by the Dutch cinematographer Robby Muller. A young man, probably around 18 years old, sitting on the deck of a bright orange boat, carelessly playing with the camera, going through the sea on a hot sunny day. A seemingly idealistic image of the beauty of youth. A man starts talking in the background. A discussion of the unfortunate death of Ashes. Killed by a drug dealer for discovering a stash of drugs.
Video Installation Ashes, Steve McQueen, 2002-2015 https://www.thomasdanegallery.com/artists/45-steve-mcqueen/works/4360/
On the opposite side of the screen, you see the making of his grave. The engraving of the stone, the memorial plaque for the grave. Shot in 2013 on 16mm film, the video shows the calm, peaceful process of “the departure”.
Video Installation Ashes, Steve McQueen, 2002-2015 https://www.thomasdanegallery.com/artists/45-steve-mcqueen/works/4360/
A contrast between life and death. The bright, vibrant image of the boy enjoying life next to the old men carefully engraving Ashes name into the cold stone, painting the memorial in white.
credits: moi
Something I noticed about McQueen’s style is that he starts by showing a small detail and then he reveals the whole picture. In Western Deep, first, he focuses on one of the miners repeating an exercise under the sound of the red light and then he moves back and shows the whole room filled with men doing the same over and over again. In one of the shots in Ashes, he focused on a bee trapped by the sticky white paint on the memorial and slowly reveals the larger picture of the cemetery with tons of new memorials all painted In white. I like this particular approach because it helps in building up with the emotional connection with the audience – people are more likely to sympathize with an individual rather than a group. Because as Joseph Stalin said to Averill Harriman:
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
What is more, this approach guides the audience through the film and places emphasis on what is important and should not be overlooked or ignored.
In conclusion, I would say that this was probably one of the best exhibitions I have been to in London so far. I hadn’t seen anything from Steve Mcqueen previously, but I loved the use of color and sound in his work. What I found most inspiring is that he addresses serious issues, often neglected by modern society.
Now, to cheer you up after my talk about death and suffering – check out the cute photo of a grandma and her grandson sitting by the window on the last floor
Before coming to CSM, the closest experience to life drawing was watching YouTube videos and drawing in my room. After going regularly to the Thursday sessions for five months, I can say that drawing from reference is so much different from the real-life drawing sessions.
October 2019
Looking at my first sketches and comparing them to what I create now, I can see the difference in the way I approach the whole process and the improvement in the quality of my drawings.
What I learned is that the most important aspect of these sessions is to capture the movement and ignore the unnecessary details. The easiest way to do so is by drawing simple shapes and using arcs instead of straight lines. I still struggle with “minimalism” in my work, and I tend to go into details, thus having only a minute to draw a movement has proved to be the best amount of time for me.
Jan 2020
Observing my three-minute drawings, I can already see the heaviness of unnecessary detail. Another habit of mine that I am trying to change is drawing really small figures, which frames the movement and I can see that these sketches lack fluidity and lightness.
Another aspect of the classes, which I found to be useful and interesting, was our last session with Maryclaire when we had to make 29 drawings of a man sitting on a chair. Even though we had a minute per drawing, I find the result quite satisfying ( as the images move fast and you cannot tell how bad my drawings are), so I decided to turn it into a gif.
I really hope that the gif doesn’t work only on my computer. Jeeeez Rick do something.
