“You can keep peeling that onion and go as deep as you want into it, or enjoy it for what it is.”

The Art Toy Story 3, this book gives so much emothion where they talk about people come and go, one of the member Joe has pass away. It reflects people moving through different passages and moving on by no mean for stopping. All Toy Story movies have been about mortality. The aesthetic of art and design of the movie has been complied into this book. Particularly about Dice Tsusumi, the lighting art director. Showing the amazing colour script, the colour design for all sequence screenplay. Visual language of colour design to tell the time of day and the feeling or emotion of the sequence. A great referencing for planning a story line using particular colour to tell particular story.

Revisiting Childhood

The Art of Rise of the Guardians, the concept artists taking these iconic childhood characters, who are so real to us when we’re a child, and given them their own mythologies and back stories, create this battle between good and evil, and touch upon themes like belief and innocence. Animated films with mythical characters are pretty common but it’s always fun to see different interpretation. Although the storyline might have been complicated, their main goal was to provide each character with their own story and make them likeable and enjoyable to watch. I found that every adult always beloved in these characters at some point; they meant something to them as children regarding from the outlook, the story and the whole tone of the movie grew out that idea. Making us feel the story in order to laugh or to cry.

“There’s something about my characters that goes against the grain of what the culture walks you into. It’s not something I think about. It’s not something that I go after. It’s something that I cant help but feel.”

Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas: The Film, the Art, the Vision. I am still amuse by the art and design for this movie even thought it has been screened decades ago. This is so amazing to look at the Tim Burton’s drawings taking apart from two-dimensional to three dimensional of production set design. Even they have build the set design, they have to make sure that it should looks like the original drawings, the stylized and the feeling of graphical elements. Continuously taking the advantage of two-dimensional design elements into the film. The art department are influenced by ancient cave drawings and gothic stylize, the art direction from Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919). Creating the feeling like off-center stylize of the environments. Interestingly, in order to make their design into more tentative and off-balance, the right-handed artists are using the left-handed to produce the designs. The result was strange but it worked completely into their art direction. Trying to draw in different side is pretty new to me, I believe it would be interesting result for a aesthetic way of children drawings from an adult mind.

“Beauty are all around us, waiting to be discovered, and every artist interprets it on paper in his own particular way.”

One of my early art book for figure anatomy, the book help me so much to become an “artist’s eyes”. Andrew Loomis quote:“Beauty are all around us, waiting to be discovered, and every artist interprets it on paper in his own particular way.” Choosing what to draw or what to show are so important. Most amateur painters try to include the entire details and becoming too much for it, while the experienced painter know where to focus on the most interesting area. Painting is pretty much like writing. There can be so many detailed passages in a book that the reader can get lost in this massive detail and trivia too, and so can the artist. Despite the basic foundation of art base like: design, proportion, colour, values of light, something catching my attention is the “Beauty of Subject”. There are two aspects, one is to give a beautiful artistic interpretation and rendering of a subject, regardless of the material. Another is to seek material which we consider beautiful in itself. The second aspect seems a better choice but in the end of the day, what we care the most is the amount of the beauty the artist can see and interpret.

“So we went to the monster experts: Kids”

One of my favorite film, about The Art of Monsters, Inc. Children seemed to agree that monsters are scary and that they hide in closets, under the bed, and basement. However. They were still pretty much in the dark about the details. Looking to the progress developments with the aesthetic way of drawings, the colours are so pure and yet harmony. A good thing about designing monsters are limitless in design possibilities. “Knowing that our medium tends to make things look realistic, we tried to combine elements and details of real animals with the color sense of a kid’s drawing. Somewhere between those two elements we found the appropriate look for our character” – John Lasseter. Many of the design element directions are base on real animal and kids’ impressions of what they thought monster will look like. I really like the way of how they put the elements together, the design looks and feels so much believable. Guess I need to find some real life texture for my concept character design.

“Life feels more like a giant candy store”

“Life feels more like a giant candy store, all these opportunities, all these things you can do, imagine you can do hundreds of versions for a same character.” said Ian McCaig, the author himself has a fascinating way of telling his character’s background using his aesthetic way of designed visual art. Most of his works belong to the fantasy genre, for some it suit for my children story book’s direction by giving away the imaginative mindset. By emphases the important of a story works for the character, his character designs are so much richness and full of life. Its is something like molding the character piece by piece from a organized layers of mind mapping structures.

“The new technology is the traditional of the future.” it’s remind me that evolving of medium is just part of our life, we just need to adapt on it. It is nothing to do with Art that affect the quality of your works, your ideal, your concept. Without the limitations of a medium, go ahead on my idea and concept is far more important. This idea needs to remind me all the time, where same with my fellow students.

Happy Accident

An art book of the concept art visual development for an alien world. The theme is racing, they had demonstrate so many interesting way such as using “mirror” effect to create generic or unique alien designs in real time. There are so much fun on “Happy accident” and unthinkable results by experimenting with wide range of props in front of camera. This is a great way to realize the design direction quickly, and to determine if that direction should be further developed or not. I am so desperately to try and apply using this method for my character design. Hopefully can create something very unique for the coming project.

“Viewing common objects from uncommon points of view can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary” – Doug Chiang

Perhaps I should start with this book that I familiar with in the category of concept art. Doug Chiang, an amazing concept artist. I first met him few years ago when he came to our college conducting a seminar. He is such a nice guy, so humble and generous. We all love him so much.

This book was amazing, Mechanika: Creating The Art of Science Fiction With Doug Chiang. The concept of “3 seconds rule”. When we watching a movie, the audiences need to understand what they are viewing within just a few seconds. The keys to a good design must have the strong silhouette, an iconic shape that easy to remember and recognizable. A clear design that able to show the personality, functionality, believability in real life and the cool factor that no one seen before. The challenge of science fiction design is a matter of train our self to observe our world in new perspective. My character design will base on these guidelines about shapes and functionality.