Assignment #11 - Backgrounds

In this Assignment you will be:

1) Designing a character - theme: "Adventurer"

2) Designing a stylized background based on given compositions that fit your character.

3) exploring the use of color to create "mood" and story.

Purpose:

exploring the stylization of elements of an environment to compliment your character and treating the environment as a Character.

1) "Adventurer" - pretty open ended, adventurer of anything, caves, forests, underground, underwater, volcanoes, ruins, libraries, restaurants back ally ways ... your choice, your story.   focus on good shapes and interesting stylization.

2) Everyone in class will be working off of these basic compositions. (I have provided one horizontal, and one vertical for your choice).  These are "blockouts" on top of which you will design your own environment.   shapes in the blockout should be changed to fit your story. for example, a square might become a tree, stalagmite, building, column etc.  Value may be changed. 

Use Color

WIP (work in progress) Due Tuesday - bring a printout - we will go over these in class

Final Assignment due Thursday Nov 20th.

Use one of the 2 following blockouts:

Background as a Character

The Background and Environment follow the same principles as props.  THEY ARE CHARACTERS TOO and so must be designed, thought out and match/ fit in the same world as your characters.

Look for similar shape languages - rounds, thicks to thins, Big med small etc.
Moods - sharps, dangerous, rounds, whimsical, tropical, etc.
Stylization - real, cartoony, strong shapes, angular, etc.

the same rules that make a character strong also apply to environments.  Treat the background as a CHARACTER.
consider STORY, MOOD, AUDIENCE, CONTRAST, BIG-MED-SMALL
If something isn't supporting the story or characters, then it's probably stronger without it.

ENVIRONMENT PROP DESIGN

Backgrounds - stylization

“The styling of the film, backgrounds, props, etc. must be appropriate to the character design. Normally you wouldn't want to design a complex, realistic environment for highly stylized, flat, cartoony characters, and vice versa. Every character and element should feel like it lives in the same world... I fee that the background styling should have the same treatment as the characters. .. It just seemed to make sense to me and tied everything together nicely. Disney was going for a softer, more realistic treatment at the time. This type of art direction would not have worded as well there.” 

The Nobel Approach pg 85

Bruce Zick

“Background and layout design is in many cases like a cartoon character, a caricature of reality. How much does Daffy really look like a duck or Bugs really look like a bunny? Don't be afraid to use the same sort of logic in your layout design. Of course, the about of characterization you use in design will depend on your story.” 

The Nobel Approach pg 85

“Id always had in the back of my mind that super-realism in the backgrounds behind flat animation was not the right approach. So when I got the opportunity, I started to place more emphasis on shape. I started … to create she spaces by shapes, instead of a lot of fussy shadows and so forth. I tried to create each frame to support the action, and not clutter up anything or interfere with a gag or bit of action” 

The Nobel Approach pg 27

Marcello Vignalli

Bruce Zick

Hans Bacher

Roy Santua

Pascal Campion

Domareen Fox

Secret of Kells

Maurice Nobel

no end here, see also:

Eyvind Earl

David Catrow

etc. etc. etc.