Crokis

Time's Anthology Book

2013-01-31T06:19:00.005-08:00

Took three years to get here and look back and collect what I learned. Several assisted this journey in different proportions, to all of them: Thanks.

Thesis Book - Small Version

This project is born from the charge of our thesis work at the Academy: to create a book about ‘The Art of’ something. All the material and content was created in the second half of 2009, up to this submission. At first I thought these ideas would come together into a feature length story, but rapidly I realized that for now it could only exist as a compendium of three short stories. With each, I hope to cover the story deeply enough for it to stand alone, but also allow me to work with it in the future.
The three short stories are about elder people’s stories. one of them may be fantastical, but each of them are what I believe to be realistic stories or anecdotes of what I think and feel must be true of the last years of our life on earth. The style I hope to engender is one nostalgia, and yes some sadness and loneliness, pushing each story towards a more european aesthetic and sensibility.

I plan to continue develop these stories in the future and hopefully feel as though I can say to myself that they are finished. I have tried to detail each one of them, designing and defining as much as possible. backgrounds, characters, some props or vehicles are covered in the project, but I understand more is required. Unfortunately, my background relying on a collaborative environment made me slower and less effective than I expected. I made the decision to focus on one story at the time and sadly I don’t feel as though I finished all three of them, but, I think I have completed the necessary amount of the requested material.

Some common themes, images, and ideas have worked their way through all three stories. The elderly characters, their dress, and certain props I wanted to be present in all of them. This as an aesthetic decision about the symbols of the stories I wanted to tell, and about the common emotions I hoped would ground each story.

The first story is ‘The Dress’ that was planned with more detail in the environments and thought of as a Cg animation film. The narration of ‘The Anniversary’ is planned as a 2D animation and I focused more on the characters in many layers, from the personality of the characters, the backgrounds (both physical and historical) and the visual style and appearance. With ‘good Memories’ I wanted to try something with a more artistic approach, but sadly I wasn’t able to achieve as much work as I wanted, and so it exists more in its infancy. The plan for that story was to work the page using heavy ink areas and watercolor.

WIP Old Character Pablo

2012-04-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

Zoo part3

2011-11-29T06:28:00.000-08:00

Zoo part2

2011-10-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

Zoo part1

2011-09-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

Vector Graphics

2011-06-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

Other graphics in AI...

Spool for a company logo.

B&W caricature for a wedding invitation.

2D Graphics

2011-06-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some icons, logos and some graphics for an user interface (UI) I did for a website project last year. The site's purpose was to help to find venues around you and give more info about them, in real time.

Types of venues and their different status.

Some icons of the UI.

Some icons about properties of different venues.

Some graphics for the iPhone interface.

Different uses of the logo.

Some improvements

2011-05-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

A new version of the Sheltered Deck after some comments from Kenneth Spirduso.

Thanks, much better.

Bernard's car

2011-05-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

After looking for a car design that met the concepts, I chose the Fiat 126p as the core design, then pushed until I got this compact model that complemented the character.

More Still Life exercises

2011-05-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

Oil over canvas or over panel.

Sheltered Deck

2011-05-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

Other background design needed for the steamship was, inside the cabin class area,

the Promenade sheltered Deck.

Here are some pictures from the place around 1940's

RMS Queen Mary - Sun Deck

2011-05-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

The next background I needed is the Game Space over the RMS Queen Mary, at the Sun Deck. There steamship is huge and now is placed in south California as an Hotel.

In the story a young lady, in a yellow dress, finds the love of her life, a young officer from the UK Royal Navy. This happened at the late 1930's so the place was brand new. I placed that scene over the game space in the Sun Deck, part of the Cabin Class or First Class. Obviously all the pictures from that time are in B&W so I had to imagine the colors or how were the new materials.

Here are some pictures how was the game space in other liners.

And here the painting.

Prop design: Steamer Trunk

2011-04-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

One of the other important objects on the story is the Steamer Trunk that is in the Attic. Fot that once I decided the style and the design of it I modeled in Google Sketchup and over it painted in Photoshop.

What I got from Sketchup, the model I made it public here.

Some previous drawings:

Dress design

2011-04-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

These are the tests how the dress looks like after spending many years in the trunk from the attic. Moisture, the years and some other moths have done their damage.

and found it among rugs, triggered some memories on our protagonist, pulling her back on time when the dress was in perfect conditions.

And here some of the designs ideas...

More Still Life Painting

2011-04-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

To be totally honest I started to like this... I like challenges. (Oil over canvas)

Old woman Studies

2011-04-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

Studies for the character of The Dress

Living Room Digital Painting

2011-04-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

And finally the Living room, so I finished all the layouts of the interior of the house.

The idea was to keep the very late evening from the window in contrast with the warm light from the fire, it was fun, but took me a day...

His Armchair is bigger, with a pattern and next to a O2 tank, on the other hand it is her chair, more rounded and compact, but keeping both in the same family by value and color. The house is from an old couple that have being living there for a long time, so tried to be very careful on the choices on the furniture and style. The meet in 1920 on a vessel and we are now 50 years later on this old style house. He was a Sailor and thats because all the pictures are ocean paintings.

I worked to keep the consistency trough the house on the Entrance and Dining Room.

Thanks Ken for the input about the rug for the composition and Anthony for the lighting comments.

Digital Painting of the Corridor

2011-04-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

The same house I'm designing for the story that I painted the dining Room...

and the Attic. Next and last step the Living Room.

And as usual some steps...

The Dress

2011-04-03T15:20:00.001-07:00

Looking for a character...

2011-03-31T22:26:00.001-07:00

VizDev Checklist

2011-03-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

This is based on some notes that I have being taking from the classes “Drawing for Films” and “Visual Development” from Anthony Christov.

I got the feeling that most of critiques on everyone's work are base on the same criteria, and can be organized in these groups. Let me know if you find a way to do it better...

The Shot / Composition

Is it describing what you want it to tell? What is the story?
Is the line of action clear?
What is the focal point? What is the secondary focal point, if any?
Is anything distracting or competing with the focal point?
Does it have an easy read silhouette?
Is the perspective OK? Linear and atmospheric.
Is the camera angle placed at an interesting and clear point of view?
Does it have depth? Foreground, middle ground and background?
Is there leading space or space for the character(s) to move?
Is it visually balanced and interesting? Rule of thirds, symmetry, etc.
Are shapes, colors and details placed with rhythm and variation?
Is the graphic style working as a whole?

Characters / Creatures

Is the anatomy and figure drawing in proportion?
If anything is foreshortened, do the angles and overlapping forms look right?
Is the overall shape balanced?
Can you tell who they are? (reinforce archetypes: gender, age, race)
Do the characters work together?
What is communicating the body language and posture? Is the pose clear and dynamic?
Can you easily recognize each character’s roll in the shot? Hierarchy, hero, villain, etc.
Is the design base on its function? Anatomy, costume, proportions, ‘Why this?’, etc.
Are they believable? Do you relate with them?
Are the default or generic? Why not? What’s new?

Elements / Objects

Are they believable and relatable?
Are they giving the necessary info to support the story? Any distractions?
Where and when are we?
Can you tell an implied story about the scene and objects?
Are elements and their parts demonstrating their functions?
Interesting shapes? Unity and variation.
Are they detailed enough without being distracting? Are the most important objects more detailed than the less important objects?) Are details placed with rhythm?

Created by Nicolas Ariztia 2011

Edited by: Alexandra Bond on 3/10/11

Here is the link to the online 'updated' doc...
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1lEsG_DMFUopvxm4B6XdmpPOoPt28PcdZYQYn_vgrvRQ

Other old character

2011-03-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

Old Dining Room painting

2011-03-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a background painting, an old house's dining room.

and some stages...

Attic speed painting

2011-03-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

Still Life Painting 101 part 2

2011-03-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

My last attempts with oil and some studies. This is like playing piano, many years to achieve a good level. Frustrating.