Challenge no. 13

May 21 - June 7, 2013


[Sidenote: Excuse the long pause in between challenge 12, part 3 and this challenge. I've been completing projects, and moving between cities, which is also the reason that this challenge covers 3 not just 2 weeks. After that, back to normal.]

This next challenge is one that's based in animation, but is very, very applicable to illustration as well:

Create a background for a scene for a story. 
In other words, stage a character! 

To explain, and when it says animation, mentally substitute illustration, or focal point for action, etc.: 

"Care must be taken in background design so it isn't obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene." [link, exerpt from Animation Toolworks]

 

Two examples of Witch Hazel with Ernie Nordli backgrounds.

"Staging is the presentation of an idea so that it is clear. This idea can be an action, a personality, an expression, or a mood. The key idea is that the idea is made clear to the viewer.

An important objective of staging is to lead the viewers eye to where the action will occur so that they do not miss anything. This means that only one idea at a time occur, or else the viewers may be looking at the wrong thing. So, the main object should be contrasted in some way with the rest of the scene. A good example is motion, since the eye is drawn to motion in an otherwise still scene. In a scene with everything moving, the eye is drawn to a still object..."

"In the early days at Disney all characters were black and white, with no gray. All action was shown in silhouette (to the side), because if a character moved its black arm in front of its black body it would disappear, so the action had to be against the white background. The Disney animators realized that even without this technological limitation action was more clearly visible in silhouette.

Even with modern color 3D graphics, silhouette actions are more clearly delineated and thus to be preferred. over frontal action. An example would be a character waking up and scratching its side, it is easier to understand what it is doing than if it scratched its stomach."
[link, excerpt by Owen Siggraph]

So! Pick your scene or story, and set up the scene so that the background + staging actively tells the story. You don't need to include the character(s) unless you want to.

All three scenes above haven't any characters shown in them, but each has the distinct feeling that something is happening. Try and keep everything as simple and/or necessary to the story as possible.

All submissions due by midnight, Friday, June 7.

Great Pinerest animation background board by Keith Harrison.

Wikipedia link to Ernie Nordli, and another to Maurice Nobel, another Warner Bros. background designer.