ART 207 Spring 2012

Homework

FINAL CRITIQUE, Tuesday May 1st (1:30-3:30pm)

- Complete the watercolor illustrations of your character viewed from two different angles/in different poses. Select two poses from the gesture drawings as a starting point, and add more specific details to the figure.

- Use the swatches from the sketchbook project as a guide to coloring your character. You should use all of the colors, and you may discover that you need additional colors -- add these to your swatches in the sketchbook.

These illustrations will form the basis of the gradient mesh project, so ensure that the proportions and poses are correct, and that all important details are included.

- Create a new color group of swatches in Illustrator based on the colors swatches in your sketchbook. Add more colors, as necessary.

- Begin to work on the gradient mesh. Start with rectangles and only add mesh points along one dimension. Use the white arrow tool to conform the points to the shape of the painting. After adjusting all anchor points and handles to create a smooth contour, add more mesh points along the other dimension of the rectangle, and adjust the placement of anchor points, as well as the orientation and length of handles as necessary.

Do not begin coloring in the mesh until all lines are established. Hide the watercolor template layer when mesh illustration is complete.

- Export mesh as .png image files. If both illustrations are in the same Illustrator document (but on separate artboards) check the box that says "Use Artboards" (at the bottom of the first export window) to generate two separate image files.

Note: See bottom of blog for old assignments

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Example: Mascot

Example: Research 2-Cartoon

These characters from Disney's Fantasia 2000 are good examples of humpback whales. These are actually rendered using 3-D software, and the play of light and shadow across their bodies lends a sense of realism to the animal. I will incorporate similar highlights on the upper side of the whale (even though the whale's back is darker than its belly) to create the illusion of environmental lighting.

Computer Graphics World, CGW vol. 23 issue 1, Jan 2000, http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2000/Volume-23-Issue-1-January-2000-/Fantasia-2000.aspx

Example: Research 1-Cartoon

My character will be a humpback whale shark, consisting of the overall form of a humpback whale but sporting the unique speckles and stripes of a whale shark. It will be rendered fairly realistically, with natural colors and shading. The humpback whale shark is a wise old lady with a deep, melodic voice.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Example: Perspective Drawing with Cross-Hatching

You do not need to post this on your blog (you can, if you want to), but I wanted to make this example available to you as you finish up your drawings this weekend. As I said before, the drawing should utilize the same type of perspective (one-point, two-point, or three-point) as in your digital illustration, but it does not need to be an exact replica. The drawing and the digital illustration should share similar architecture and compositions, but the drawing can be less detailed (for example, there are fewer columns in this drawing).