What it feels like:

Before the Beginning:

had to lower the pixel count for the whole gif so it might look a tiny bit choppy but here it is

I used piskel to create the animations.  I like using piskel because it allows me to be very precise and I have previous experience using it for other projects in the past.

time:  8hrs of drawing and prep, 15hrs of animation, 1hr 45min sifting through video and picking out audio snips to use, 1hr 30min thinking  1hr 30min video editing

I would draw my basic shapes and outlines for people first.  I would use these as a reference to keep smaller details (especially the faces) uniform.

I would also block out pieces of animation to be made on paper

this was the beginning of the klax scene

Moving to Piksel I would resize my canvas by pressing the resize button:    Then I would set the specs 1028 by 1028:

I used this size because I wanted my animations to look cleaner and less blocky.

Then I would start with the basic outline of the characters in the scene:

Then I would start to layer on the details from basic to fine until finished.

(below is part of the basic layer)

After I get all the details done in the first frame I need to work on movement.  For most movement I utilize the lasso tool:   Then I choose the area I want to move and select it with the lasso tool:

Then I hold shift and drag the selected area to the desired area:

after I move a selected area it leaves an area of transparency so I need to fill that in.  To do this I use my color palette that piskel sets up as colors are being used for each frame:

Doing this I can easily and quickly choose the color I used before.

Then for shapes that repeat in an animation, I use the lasso tool again to copy and paste sections:

once I select an area with the selection tool, it selects the same area on all frames

here is the area I wish to change:

now I go to a different frame:

I like this shape so I hold ctrl + c to copy it. Then I go back to the frame I am currently changing and hold ctrl + v to paste:

This is done after a couple frames of making new shapes for this spot so there is variation.

I do not recommend piskel for big projects such as this.  Sprites and animations can easily become too large for piskel to handle as I learned this week.  You may notice a lack of animation in this piece.  If something is too large for piskel to process it will either crash or fail to save properly.  I had two major animation pieces that did not make it because of this.  I then used the closest thing to movie maker I could find since I found movie maker is no longer on the computer I use to edit videos.  I apologize for the watermarks, the software does that automatically after you export for unpaid users.

I love his three-panel bird installation.  Birth – body disintegrating into birds.  Critique/being picked apart – birds coming down and out to attack you.  Transcendence – sprout giant wings.  Chris works with VR technology for some of his projects making them interactive.  He has a wide variety of motion pictures, some animated and some live action.  “Rome” is an animated music video that tells a story.  This video has a lot of symbolism and the story does not tie up until the very end.  Other videos he has made tell stories that come from his own life and the supplement of his commentary makes the reason for the video very clear and interesting as it sheds some light on the artist’s childhood.  Chris has also done some photography for famous figures and just in his daily life.  Chris effectively goes from flat still images, to moving images, to three-dimensional work.  I find this refreshing as you see multiple forms of art from one artist instead of the capitalization on one form of art.

His collaborative storytelling experiment “THIS EXQUISITE FOREST 2012” sounds and looks really fun! Starting a seed animation or just being apart of the process just sounds like fun.  The little examples and samples are fun to watch.  It might start out as something simple and evolves into something bizarre or the object will turn to do actions you wouldn’t initially expect.

milk forest

milk in rome

milky mouse

milky portraits

if you want to view more and explore click on any of the tabs above the artwork in the links.

He has done a lot of interesting video work.  He also worked on multiple movies during the 1990’s and early 2000’s.   He is very proficient in layer work.  His megaplexes are just layers and layers of gifs, as many gifs as one could fit in one area and still make sense.  He uses colors and tints to his advantage, the colors he uses help tell the story or mood he is trying to display.  I think this is most utilized in his piece “Civilization” it has very clear boundaries were one layer/section of the story ends and the other begins.  The beginning is dark, red, and has a lot of symbolic religious images both what you would think of when you think of holy and unholy (more unholy in the first section) as the video moves up the colors become brighter and hold more images of science and advancement.  I love all the variety of references in his works, especially in his megaplex “Creation.”  He uses a lot of gifs from classic movies that can range to connect with a large audience.  All of his megaplexes hold a different style in the creation and implementation of ideas.  Some are very linear and the other is not, but even when multiple are linear one exhibits clear boundaries while the other one has very smooth transitions, gifs moving in and out between sections(Evolution).  He has done other work besides movies and megaplexes such as the video getaway and APOLLO XVIII.  I believe APOLLO XVIII is his most recent work and it played on monitors in New York.  APOLLO XVIII is very different from what he has done before; instead of the message being brought across by layers of different pictures and gifs, it is more the layering of audio that makes the piece.  This is the only work I have found where you have to have the audio for impact, the other still have an impact if you were to watch them without audio, even the getaway video works without sound.

Great use of space.  His work varies from being very economical with space to be very spread out and really using the space given. They way he sorts his wires are the most organized of the artists we have seen so far.  His installations with photographs and filters are very well done and organized.  I like how he plays pictures on a screen, it really makes them pop.  He really utilizes space make his piece, for example, in the last picture, that installation would not have the same effect if all the pictures were placed close together.  I find his art really interesting as well as the journey he took to make his art.

He has a lot of variety in his work.  Many different pieces with different personality. They range from fun, cool, slick to even trippy.  It looks like he has done some commercialization with his work for things like shoes.  I like his work, it is all very clean and well done.  Nothing looks sloppy or poorly done.  The use of color in his work is very well utilized.

OWLS (if downloading is easier)

All his prints are of good quality and well made; they are thought out pieces.  His videos remind me of things made in SOURCE.  They often feel abstract and bazaar until the conclusions.  In his OM Rider video, you can see he puts a lot of effort into the faces and characters being detailed.  Then you go to his Popeye videos and it is the opposite almost, everything is very exaggerated just like the Popeye show, but it is kind of off-putting in a way.  I feel like since I have seen what the original Popeye looks like and how he goes into action the way he is animated in Takeshi’s short films just feels wrong.  I felt disturbed watching them.  It is fun how he twists the story arc of the characters but it still feels wrong in the end.

OM Rider 

Smokey Pretzel:

falling leaves:

Konami Code:

Special thanks to Aaron, Tyler, Atum and the ITCC

Kristen does a lot of stop-motion short films.  They are of good quality, even the earlier films she made as an undergrad.  You can see how she improves through the years and how she starts making more and more complicated pieces.  She even did an episode of adventure time in stop motion for cartoon network.  She has a lot of fun films and ideas.  I have seen her work before, some people like to put clips of her work on meme pages.  She has videos describing how she made pieces and the work behind making the stop-motion film.  Her “how-to” films really help people see the amount of effort and time it takes to make a piece and helps people appreciate them more.  I saw the adventure time episode before this and I did not really like the stop-motion in comparison to the rest of the show, but the video she put up about the process made me appreciate it more.  Seeing all the models they made and how each face made was a separate piece was fascinating, I would like to see the models in real life.  I like the episode a lot more now that I have seen the production process.

– follow the links below to see some of her short films.  The links are from her website so the rest of her work is on the left-hand side, click on the titles to view more of her work!

Bad-Jubies-Adventure-Time-episode 

Hi-Stranger

Sweet-Dreams

Bottle

Her installations are well thought out and put together nicely.  They are very aesthetically pleasing.  With the usage of lighting, objects, projection, and placement these pieces appeal to the senses, how things feel how textures and or the use of touch are utilized in her videos, and how the objects the audience are to sit on go with the piece and how they make the audience feel.  She has other pieces that deal with feminism and the body, those works are more known and what shapes peoples opinions towards her in a rather different way.  Instead of being known for peaceful aesthetics and video effects she is known for the political side which is feminism.  Those pieces I did not care to look at, as the descriptions of them were pornographic.  I think her projection and installation work that does not include nudity is pleasing and well done.  I do not like the random appearances of genitalia or things of that nature edited in even to like other objects I feel it is not professional nor appropriate.