Week 4
- Alisha Gupta
- Dec 2, 2021
- 4 min read
Concept Art
For the fourth week I wanted to make progress on my concept artwork by redrawing an outline over the original so my structure was clear for me to paint over in colour. I had previously contemplated cropping the composition in a way the view on the left of the spaceship was visible and gave it a point of action to the viewer. However after I showed this to my tutor he didn’t quite like the idea of the focus moving away from the food stand and preferred the entire shape to be visible as a whole. Following this I outlined it as a whole with the doors on the right stand and the curved benches wrapping around it.
I then proceeded painting the actual composition in Photoshop. Since I was not very familiar with the settings of the software this took me some time getting used to.
I approached it slowly starting to build the layers from dark to light, leaving highlights for the end
Colour
Previously we were given a presentation on Colour. Through this I made note of the importance of colour and the impact it leaves on the viewer. It affects the mood and can heavily influence physical emotion and even interestingly alter the pulse rate. A colour wheel can even help examine the colours on an opposite spectrum and the help choose the complementary ones that best suit a composition.
An important element of colour are the outputs to choose from- RGB and CMYK. The first refers to the three primary colours- Red, Blue and Green.
This is an additive mode where light is added to the existing colours. CMYK refers to Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key that refers to Black. This is a subtractive colour where the print turns the output darker.
The six colour harmonies discussed were very insightful and made me understand the reasons behind these particular choices used by colourists in film. They went in the order- Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Split Complementary, Triadic and Tetradic.
Monochromatic that I was most familiar with dealt with different values of the same colour. In fashion Its currently very popular and conveys elegance and class however in film it directs the viewer towards the point of drama and its quite popular in action sequences. Analogous colour schemes are the side by side colours that project a feeling of synchronized harmony.
Complementary colours are the opposites that attract. They are the ones on two very different sides of the colour wheel but manage to highlight the important elements in a scene and a perfect example shared of this was the dress worn
by Emma Stone’s character in La La Land (2016) that provided the hint of warmth in an otherwise cold scene.
Triadic are the colours evenly spaced apart from one another on the colour wheel. They each fight for a spot on the screen and its usually the warmer one that wins. A great example given of this was used in the film The Sixth Sense (1999) where the hint of red here indicates the lurking danger behind the moving door knob.
Lastly we have Tetriadic which are the use of the colors beside the opposite ones on a colour wheel. This is used to create discomfort in the viewer and an example of this is used brilliantly in Joker (2019)
where Production Designer, Mark Friedberg conveyed the character’s spiralling madness in the hints of colour played out in the background of the final act.
After diving into the colour harmonies we looked at the individual primary colours and their meanings. The colour that has the strongest visual impact is Red. Martin Scorsese uses this in his films and it even stimulates a raise in our blood pressure. Orange is a colour frequented in romantic comedies seen fluttering around as an Autumnal background that rarely has any negative meaning. Yellow however is surprisingly different. I used to only associate it with happiness but it can also signify madness, insecurity and sickness.
Following this is Green. This colour is quite special to me because of a project I worked on alone on my Foundation course called ‘Exit Light, Enter Night’. For this I designed a physical diorama for a narrative I built around Medusa called ‘Medusa – The Awakening’.
Green was heavily used in the process and build as I worked to recreate her environment in a cave on an island which is where I explored the sinister origins and yet reversed the meaning of horror into one of power she claimed and fought for.
Blue remained as the one colour that signified calm and isolation all at once. It could even in many ways mean apathy and detachment that brought either a sense of solitude or loneliness. Lastly was Purple. I referenced a book for my Final Major Project on my Foundation course called, ‘If Its Purple Someone’s Gonna Die.’ The book itself believe it or not is more entertaining than the name. It dives right into Colour Theory which is exactly what I explored in my FMP ‘Vice’ a modern concept based on a reimagining of the Seven Deadly Sins. Purple signifies the unknown. Which is why it is commonly used in Fantasy and Science Fiction and was the colour I decided would be a central point to my composition being in outer space.
Blender Rework
Since I last worked on my eyeball soup composition, I decided to do a rework of it from my previously saved version of the iris, which is where the complexity began in the model. I watched the recordings saved from the tutorials again to this time follow each step closely and by having done these steps multiple times at this stage I managed to successfully complete the model of the eyeball with the cornea and iris ready to be textured.
Although I knew I was behind the others in the making, the repetition of Molly’s instructions helped me practice doing the one thing I feared- loop cuts. They had previously lead to disasters which left me far behind but I learnt slow progress is still progress because the outcome is never as important as what you understand to achieve it.
Once I was finally done modelling it in the Layout, I moved into the Shading panel to add the textures. This time around when I UV unwrapped It my shape did indeed resemble an iris and a cornea which meant it was safe to apply the textures. Finally after hours the floating eyeball looked as real and disturbing as possible.
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