🎆🪩𝕃𝕠𝕣𝕪𝕟🪩🎆

The next day, I painted the entire ceramic piece once it had completely dried. It wasn’t as difficult as shaping the head and applying the ceramic layers. In the end, it turned out just as I wanted! The hardest part of the process was the hair,it was a nightmare,but trusting the process made all the difference, and it came out as I had envisioned. I added plenty of details beyond the base colors. For example, I highlighted the scars with lilac and burgundy shades, and I painted a skull on white on the black bandana, which I absolutely loved how it turned out. Well, here are some photos and videos for you all, and I hope to see you on Tuesday! :3

In these last two weeks, before the end of the course, we have been working on a project to create a ‘mini-me.’ The teachers clarified that we could either create a version of ourselves or someone we know well. Naturally, I chose myself to see how well I truly know myself. Honestly, it wasn’t easy. The first questions I asked were: How do others see me? What do I like? What defines me? It was about understanding who I am, what I wanted to achieve with this project, and how to express it not in 2D as I usually do, but in 3D. What a challenge! I started by sketching myself from the front and side, then wrote the phrase I wanted to say in the audio. Finally, I also drew what I saw in my own lips.

Since I was going to make the ceramic head, my teacher explained how I should do it. In the end, I created the bust using translucent paper, masking tape, wire for the skeleton, and bubble wrap to shape it. And it turned out as you can see in the photos.

This was the first layer of ceramics, but the head was quite heavy, so I eventually decided to add a support on the back to continue working and bring my 2D drawing into 3D form. Ceramics might not be my strongest skill, but it was easier for me to work with than cardboard or paper. In the end, I spent the whole afternoon crafting the head, which kept falling further and further back. So, I decided to embed a pencil into it to help it stay upright—not the best idea, but at least it worked.

As you can see, it's a kind of pirate. I chose this because I've loved Pirates of the Caribbean since I was a child, and also because that same day, I was wearing a bandana on my head in the same style as the statue. I added a necklace since I always wear a lapis lazuli necklace around my neck and never take it off. Lastly, I shaped the eyes like Pac-Man as a reference to old Disney designs.

After the group work and its presentation, as always, everyone was exhausted, and since it was almost Easter, our teachers decided to take us to Fota Wildlife Park near the town of Cobh. We traveled by train, and it didn’t take long to get there—it was quite fast. I brought my digital camera on the trip, and although the task was to draw, I really enjoyed the zoo, capturing moments with my camera. Most of the animals were ones I had never seen before, so I wandered around like a little kid, completely fascinated. My favorite animals I saw there were two male peacocks, a lion family that was absolutely adorable with their cubs, and lastly, three tigers, which were truly majestic

I also took some photos of the city. I tried to visit the Titanic Museum, but I wasn't able to go in. However, I did manage to enter the town's cathedral

In the end, I had a great time so that I ended up falling asleep on the train ride back. Once I was home, I made some drawings of the animals that I thought were the best.

This time, the props were made by Kiran, who designed the illustrations of the strange drink Derek consumes, both in a glass and in a can, using yellowish, blue, and brown tones for the can. He also created drawings of the cutlery.

This week, we had to work on the master shot, which was handled by Kiran, Amy, and Ella. The first one is Amy's, and you can see that it has muted colors. This is because the main character, Derek, has a pessimistic personality in reality.

Until Derek drinks the strange beverage, he doesn't start seeing more saturated colors. Kiran reflects this in the second master shot, intensifying the color saturation and creating a colorful aura to emphasize the protagonist’s experience—seeing his friend as a cat.

And lastly, we have the third master shot, created by Amy. This scene takes place at night, and due to Derek’s hallucination, the moon appears in multiple saturated, neon colors, with Kristall,who is perceived as a flying cow,floating above it.

Also you can see our final presentation if you click on this link:

Finally, I get to talk about what I enjoyed the most in the animation process—the backgrounds! Everyone worked on them except Kiran, since it made more sense for him to handle the animatic in his own style while the rest of us focused on backgrounds. Ella designed the exterior of the car, which is based on a 90s Mirca model. The color palette consists of bluish-grays with pinkish details. I have to say, I absolutely love the car—it has those Barbie vibes but with a worn-out aesthetic.

Then we have the second background, which was designed by Amy. It’s based on the fields in Ireland, which are filled with cows. Something happens with this background in the first episode, but you'll have to see it for yourselves!

This third background is the car’s interior, designed by Gabriel. It’s based on the same Mirca model but depicts the inside, featuring black-and-white details.

I made three sketches, two of which I fully completed. As you can see, they feature the main colors and details. The first one depicts the tents, and the second showcases the stage,which I think is my favorite so far. It blends a lot of colors and shadows, giving it a neon-like appearance. The last one is of food stalls. I would have loved to finish it, but it still served as a useful reference for the animatic.

For the ones I finished, I designed a mood board, which looked like this:

And from them, I created the color palettes for the final backgrounds

Today, I want to talk to you about mood boards. I was responsible for that task, and in addition to creating them, I also made a few color palettes based on them and helped with the backgrounds. Each mood board illustrates a bit of each character’s personality, and we consider their color palettes as their auras.

This week, we decided to divide the tasks based on each person's strengths in the world of animation. Kiran took charge of character design (although each of us had to create our own character as a reference for him), Ella handled the storyboard and script, Amy was responsible for the sound, music, and research, Gabriel worked on the backgrounds, and I focused on coloring and creating the mood boards for the characters. At first, it was slow figuring out what each of us would do since we didn’t really know each other. But as the group got to know one another better, we were able to work more efficiently. Some task assignments had to be adjusted, and in the end, we had to help each other quite a bit, since it was our first time working together on an animation project. But ultimately, everything turned out well. As I mentioned before, Kiran was in charge of the characters, and he created this:

Zac was my character, he´s based on my best friend Raúl. He was a perfect reference for this character because he likes to play the guitar as the cat does in the original poem, so I thought that nice to make him as one of the characters hehe. ( he has give me permission to put his face on this app and on the character).

Ella didn’t change much in her role—she worked on the storyboard and the script, with Gabriel assisting her on the latter.

Also, Ella did some sound like this ones, that you can found in her profile:

https://www.tumblr.com/k00321729/779541690373570560/sound-sound-for-the-second-half-after-derek-takes?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/k00321729/779540048969367552/sound-make-some-changes-to-the-sounds-playing?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/k00321729/779533439593594880/sound-started-looking-at-background-sounds-for-the?source=share

In this project, we formed groups again, continuing with the same team from the pixilation project. We were asked to choose a random poem, along with a genre (comedy) and a time period (from 1990 to the present). It's worth mentioning that Nursery Rhymes are poems or songs commonly found in European countries, especially England. In this case, we got Hey Diddle Diddle. For someone from a different culture like me, it didn’t make much sense—it felt like an assonant poem.

Hey, diddle, diddle, ​The cat and the fiddle,​ The cow jumped over the moon,​ The little dog laughed to see such sport,​ And the dish ran away with the spoon

We decided to set the story in America, inspired by many sitcoms such as:

The first scene introduces the five characters, who are all friends except for two of them, who are a couple. They are inside a car on their way to a festival themed around cutlery. The protagonist drinks a strange beverage and begins to see everyone as animals—except for the couple, who transform into a fork and a spoon. The characters would be named Derek, Felicity, Zac, Kristall, and Sebastián. In this episode, Derek would be the protagonist, but that would change as the series progresses It would also be set in the 2010s, a time when festivals were at their peak. Events like Coachella, where attendees dress according to the year's theme, and Tomorrowland, a techno festival where the theme is reflected in the stage design and festival architecture, were especially popular. As usual, people would take photos for social media or even make vlogs to upload to YouTube.

Coachella is known for being attended by famous people, in addition to being very expensive and located in the Colorado Desert in California.

And these would be some photos of Tomorrowland stages over the years. As a group, we thought about merging different festival elements. I suggested creating a background inspired by these festivals because I remembered some vlogs I saw on YouTube from one of my favorite streamers, elrubiusOMG. He used to go to festivals with his friends, recording himself enjoying the moment and messing around.

One of his videos is:

This book is illustrated by Raoul Deleo, who began his career as a freelance illustrator in 1993.

Besides illustrating, he also worked as a graphic designer, animator, and art director. In recent years, he has focused on fine art, increasingly creating and exhibiting works developed from self-initiated projects. His work revolves around illustrating nature and the idea that 'lately, no one can assure you of anything.'

I chose Terra Ultima as a reference book for my sketches and landscapes. It felt quite strange to try a different drawing style that wasn’t mine or even close to it, but it was also fun to experiment with his techniques.

Since most of my drawings were trees or plants, I studied the trees he created—very beautiful, but definitely challenging. In the end, I liked the final result.

I also looked at some of his animals to design the flowers for my trees in my new world.

This week, we've had a lot of things to do, and I think most people were really tired—you could definitely tell. So, Yvonne and Paul took us to People's Park.

I have to say, the park is really beautiful, and it even has its own gallery inside—a little museum. There were cherry blossoms, fir trees, bushes, and more. I took a ton of photos both in the morning and later in the afternoon after university.

It was obvious that I had to draw, so in the morning, I made some very quick sketches with a lot of colors—that was my favorite part.

After spending time in the park around lunchtime, we headed to the city library, where they showed us the two sections of the library: the downstairs area, which is open to everyone, and the upstairs children's section, which had tons of illustrated books.

I was completely fascinated by some of the book illustrations, and even though I only chose two, I also really liked another one about rock and roll music with its chronology.

The two books I selected are called ``Dragonology and Terra Ultima´´, both of which had a similar or almost identical style. They featured fine ink lines, a very fantasy-like aesthetic, aged tones, and animals.

At the end, I chose the first book because it was much stranger and had more vegetation that I could use as a reference for drawing. Finally, I made this sketches with the reference of the book.