Tolkien inspired exhibition Wolverhampton

presentation update vlog

Exhibition statement

What would happen if college was attacked by zombies? That is what my exhibition is about. I have used my class mates as main characters and tried to figure out what they would do if they couldn't escape from a zombie infested college. I have tried to keep everyone’s personality intact so people can hopefully relate to themselves and say, yes that’s what I’d do there, or even just see themselves in a different light.

DIY entrails

If I can make some I want to put some entrails in my presentation area, so I've looked up a couple of ways on how to make them. The only problem is i can't afford anything at the moment so I am a bit limited to what I can do but I'll search the house and see what we've got.

Digital poster

Statement of intent

Statement of Intent
Adam Hood
Illustration/Animation
Zombies:
My project is about people's plans for a zombie apocalypse, this has come about because of what me and my class mates were talking about. I thought it would be an interesting idea to turn people's plans for a hypothetical scenario into something visual for them to see. I want to be able to make this my own so I may make changes where I feel it's needed.
For my project I want to step away from what I'm used to with comic books. I want to try new things and get ready for university at the same time, so I want to plan out an animation. I will look at George Romero's movies and styles as a basis for my zombie stories, by looking at his 'of the Dead' set of films to see how they impacted culture in whatever ways they have. I intend look into how zombies have affected other media like games.
George Romero Is a big influence just because of what he has done with zombies over the years especially in how he's made them mainstream. I have recently started looking into how an animation is put together and how I can use that in setting up my own. For the project i will be looking at artists that are from animation and illustration, looking at these will help me in gaining a grasp in how bits are put together as well as acting as some inspiration. I will also be looking at some degree shows at Nottingham Trent and Lincoln, where I will be looking for students doing what I am doing and hope to get an understanding through their work. I hope that by seeing their work it will give me ideas that i wouldn't of had otherwise.
I hope to use animation in one form or another to tell a narrative of sorts. I want to use illustration as the driving force behind my piece though.
My work will ultimately be evaluated by my tutors and the administrator, but I also hope to get some feedback from my fellow students as well. This way I can get some constructive criticism I can use to improve myself in the future.

Cards Vlog

Slideshow animation

Presentation vlog

Storyboard Vlog

Vlog

So after jumping through many hoops I finally got these videos uploaded, it's about 30 minutes in total of me talking through my sketchbook and idea behind characters. i understand if people don't want to watch but it's there, enjoy.

Making of Samurai Jack

Samurai Jack is a cartoon that always left an impact on me in how it looks and what happened in it. It always flowed really well had some really interesting ideas as well as some interesting designs and styles. The fact that it is set in the future opens up the possibility for anything, it's just fun.

Making of Spiderman costume feature

I know I'm not making a costume but looking at the process used in this not just for Spiderman but for the lizard is really interesting in how the research and the ideas come together.

Making of an animated film

I found some interesting processes in here like how everything is hand drawn first, I thought it was all computer animated, but it turns out that it's only coloured in the computer. I was also surprised to find the background is completely done by hand and then scanned into the computer.

Zombie walk test

I had some friends do a zombie walk for reference of how the dead would walk and act if they were brought back.

The making of How To Train Your Dragon

I haven't watched this all the way through yet but to where I got it has shown me some key steps in how a CGI film is made.

Making of How to Train Your Dragon

I know it's just a link but until I can actually put the video up it'll have to do it doesn't show it in the add video bit.

Character Ideas

This is my initial idea work for what I'm basing each character on based on how they act, what work they have done or just how they look.

Liam - Blue Pencil, Wrong bus (late)
Will - Plaster Armour, Longboard
Tyler - Fashion, Robot Army
Ben - Props,
Dan - Human Clock
Chloe - Paints/Camouflage
Megan - Small, Tights used to be like an octopus
Jen - Model Dragon Wings
Me/Nud - Comic Books/Librarian, Stick
Jon - Hat wielded like Oddjob

Jamie Hewlett

Jamie Hewlett's most well known work is probably the Gorillaz, where he exaggerates limbs and proportions. The Gorillaz also have an almost zombie like expression to them, especially the front man and drummer. Each member has their own traits that's easy to distinguish in such a short amount of time they get on screen for a music video, because of this their personality is shown very quickly by how they look and act.

He has also worked in comics where he helped create Tank Girl. The comic wasn't as conventional as many comics it had collages as surrealist techniques in it, as well as your general illustrations. The designs were mainly based on British punk culture.

Simple Animations

I have been looking at animations that have a simple design to them like just having specific articulations like a cut out figure.

Cultural Depiction in Zambie Films

George Romero's zombie films always seem to have some sort of social commentary ranging from consumerism to racism or social class. These are easily found in his Of The dead film series depicting zombies and using them as a tool for his opinions of the time. I will add more to this as I watch the films

The setting for my comic

I'm setting my piece in college so I have got a few pictures from around the college for reference.

This is all of the outside to help set the scene with zombies surrounding the college

George Romero

George Romero is considered to be the grandfather of Zombies in modern culture starting with Night of the Living Dead which brought zombies into our culture, but the boom really started with Dawn of the Dead. there has been multiple sequels to the of the Dead series. A game has even taken to using of the Dead in the game name. Though he has been shown to have distaste in newer zombie renditions, especially in the TV series of the Walking Dead, since it doesn't have the same undertone his movies do.

Zambies in games

Zombies are a common element to horror games though not all are alien like Dead Space, one well known franchise Resident Evil basically brought Zombies into the mainstream of horror games. The series actually started out as the traditional zombies in games the slow shuffling Romero style, but to incorporate a new market they changed how the Zombies moved and acted. They became more like slaves akin to the Haitian folklore, but also act like regular people as well. The reason I'm going into this is to show that game zombies are adapting to keep people interested where as most programmes or films tend to stick with traditional zombies.

That's not to say that there aren't games with traditional zombies, one game is basically Dawn of the Dead. Known as Dead Rising it's a game where you survive against zombies in a mall, sound familiar? Though you can use anything in the mall as a weapon and in later instalments they introduced weapon combinations.

Dead space

Necromorphs in Dead Space is a new take on zombies in that it is an Alien infection as apposed to an earthily one. It's has all the same concepts that we know but just a new spin, as well as taking inspiration from old horror movies.

Dead Space in itself is a game based in space with deadness. The clue is in the name really but, through looking at how they made the designs it turns out they looked at car crash victims, as horrific as that sounds. They wanted to give the Necromorphs a realistic touch by recreating how some victims looked for the game.

Zombies in Comics

Zombies have been used quite a bit in comics such as The Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies. George Romero even has his own comic called George Romero's Empire of the dead.

These comics have all been released to critical and commercial acclaim, as many fans of comics also like the idea of comics. It could be seen as pandering to a crowd but it sells so mwhy not?

Zombies in animation

This is an animation of zombies in how it is portrayed by people of a similar age to me.

Where do zombies come from?

• Zombies are from Haitian folklore, called zonbi they are an animated corpse raised by magical means.
• Though associated with voodou religion it has no part in the faiths formal practices.
• the first English used word zombie was in an 1838 short story 'The Unknown Painter' as zombi
• The E was not added until the 1900's
• Zombies were widely used in Haitian folklore as the dead revived by the art of necromancy of a Bokor sorcerer
• Zombies remain under the control of the Bokor sorcerer as they have no will of their own
• Zombie astral is an incorporeal type of zombie
• Zombie astral is captured by a Bokor to enhance their spiritual power
• Bokors produce and sell decorated bottles with a zombie astral inside to give luck, healing or financial success
• It is believed after a time God will take the soul back and the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity
• It is believed that zombies represent soul dualism in Haitian voodou
• Each type of legendary zombie is missing one half of it's soul (flesh or spirit)
• Zombie belief has its roots brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and their subsequent experiences in the new world
• It was thought the voodou deity 'Baron Samedi' would gather them from the grave to bring them to a heavenly after life in Africa unless they offended him in someway, in which case they would be a slave after death as a zombie
• A zombie could be saved by feeding them salt
• Scholars have pointed out the significance of zombie as a metaphor for the history of slavery in haiti

How Comics and Manga Artists work

A traditional western comic is generally handled by a team of people doing different jobs but solely that job, for example Scott Snyder writes the comic/script and Greg Capullo pencils it. Pencilling is where the comic is initially drawn, the penciller determines how everything looks in the comic as long as it fits in the script. Then the pencilled pages are passed on to inkers and colourers where they will add colours, believe it or not. When all this is done it is sent to the publisher. There are certain exceptions to this rule such as Frank Miller or especially Andy Kubert, they tend to do scripts, pencilling and even colour, Kubert more than most.

An eastern comic is released weekly as opposed to monthly so there aren't many colours if any. Most traditionally it's in black and white. Depending on the success of the manga depends on how it's made the more successful one have a bigger team as opposed to smaller manga which have a much smaller team if a team at all. Looking at manga like Naruto or Bleach they have the team of a well selling book, where there is a main artist Misashi Kishimoto for Naruto and Tite Kubo for Bleach, who decides what's in the book what everything looks like and acts very similarly to Andy Kubert of Frank Miller. After they have decided what is in and how things will look there is specific people just for backgrounds shading and characters. Each person only works on a handful of main characters except for the main artist who does it all, before the others refine it.

How to draw the Marvel way

This is a tutorial on how to draw comics in the Marvel style. Specifically the people themselves, even though this isn't quite how it is done now I found it useful to have as reference.

Transvestism

Transvestism is the act of dressing or acting in a style or manner associated with another gender. This is not to be confused with Transgender which is someone who believes they should be of a different gender. Transvestites are happy with their gender but they choose to dress as a different one.

Drag/Cross dressing/Transvestism: Chick clothes on dude, dude clothes on chick. Fun. It's that simple at core. Hobby, fetish, career, fashion, or stress relief, it's a form of acting. Most want temporary status as the other gender.

Manchester interview

I finally got my final interview for Manchester met on the 7th of April at 1:30. So a lot of prep to do for that week of interviews.

Character development

These are my character development ideas for robocop and characters that effect him.

Character research

I was looking into key words for names like metals and technology for robocops transvestite name.

I also looked into imposing names for robocops sidekick. 

More tracing

Just a continuation of tracing to help with my line quality, while focusing on only key lines.

Back without a stick

This was my first drawing without a stick in life drawing after a couple of weeks using a stick. I'm pretty certain my drawing has improved and looks a lot better.

On a side note this is actually one of my favourite pieces tht I've done in life drawing.

Finding narration in illustration

After tracing a picture I took lines away to find where the narration wa coming from in a picture to help me understand how narration through illustration works.

The story

This is the key elements of my story which will be fleshed out as I work on the comic.

Lincoln University

I have an interview on the 4th of April at 10:00 3 days after Norwich so that's a busy week.

Wolverhampton Animation Interview

I've had my interview at Wolverhampton now and needless to say it went much better than at Norwich, as I have been offered a conditional that is as long as I pass the course.

Norwich animation

I have been turned down by Norwich for the animation course for not having a good enough portfolio/interview. So I am a bit bummed about not getting a place there but it was good practice for my other interviews.

Our Robocop Remake influence

Part of my idea to use Robocop was because I saw the new film but ultimately it was down to seeing the fan made remake. In it there was many different styles of Robocop used, why not try my own?

http://www.ourrobocopremake.com/

Tracing

I have been tracing to improve my line quality. It does seem to be helping and is fun to do which is a bonus.

More stick drawing

I did it. I finally did it. I got foreshortening right. So happy.