Transitioning from Traditional to Digital Media
Script for student presentation @Culminating event 5/24/2023
Slide #1:
When we started this program, it felt like we were on a roller coaster. It was stressful and hard to work fast without relying on reference. While the process is nerve wracking – you eventually get used to other people seeing all of your mistakes and unfinished drawings.
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A really important moment, after exploring shapes, proportions and line of action – was breaking down anatomy and different facial expressions. Being able to rely on certain rules helped us feel safer and more sure of our drawings, and everyone in our group really got into how our bones make us shaped the way we are. Next Slide Please. Now that we understood basic proportions and how to use them to make more convincing bodies and faces, we could begin to explore how small details can completely change a character’s mood or general vibe.
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Now that we had a sense of what is possible, and a little more confidence – it was time to begin imagining and sketching a story for our characters to live inside of. Using storyboards helped make clear narratives that showed us who our characters were. Then we began doing iterations – multiple possible versions, making changes along the way that allowed us to make choices and get really specific and original, both with our stories and the character designs. It was exciting to imagine stories that would have an emotional impact on our audience.
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When we began design the environment our characters lived in, that was the first moment we were asked to bring our drawings to life on the computer. It involved a lot of experimenting, research and initial confusion and mental blocks for some of us. While it was a little uncomfortable at first, it was surprising how strong and impactful our environments were.
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After working everything out on paper, we had a much clearer and more thorough plan for how we wanted everything to look – so we weren’t just blindly working on a computer. Getting to translate our characters into a digital format was really clarifying, to see them fully embodied with colors and details that made them feel real and specific. It also allowed us to see the progress we had made in our ideas from initial sketch to final design. Since our school is graphic design focused, we all have certain kinds of experience working digitally and some familiar habits took over at times, shifting some of our original design details, but because the stories and worlds we had created were so clear, nothing was really lost.
Last Slide Please.
The whole process allowed us to explore things like characters and environments that go through a transformation, a variety of different underwater characters and environments, punishment from various ocean and sky gods, sea and land creatures that suffer from negative impacts to our climate, communities coming together in the face of destruction – all the kinds of stories that we would want to watch and read and play.
Thank you.
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