Things I like: E4 Stings

E4, a TV channel run a competition to find Stings to run on air. Having had a look at some of the finalists from 2011, it's my hope that I'd be able to create something that's good, or up to a decent standard.

  E4-HIT SUPER COMBO!  

By Andrew Baxter

Probably my favourite, done in a 2D style and obviously inspired by Anime and Fighting games. The way that the logo is brought in is clever, because it has an excuse to be in there rather than just appearing. The actual quality of the animation is really good, as it's authentic to the frame-stealing which was common (And still is, for not for budgetary constraints) in Anime, particularly from the 40s well into the late 90s.

The attention to detail is in fact so great that film grain has been added to make the clip look campy and vintage. The character designs are stereotypical and are clearly influenced by something like Street Fighter, as the protagonist of the piece bares a striking resemblance to Ryu, the villain wears his oddly coloured hair up in the most amazing flat-top which is reminiscent of Guile from the same series of games, further cementing it's roots in fighting game culture.

The palette used is very bright and colourful, and the effects are very flashy as there it's lots of light and special attacks which is common of the genre, having a bright palette also helps to make it visually interesting as compared to lots of other E Stings, it is eye-popping but keeps the adherence to purple which seems to be a theme with E4.

  E4 Man  

By Tim McCourt

A different pace from the other one, this one is themed after an advert for hair products. Another clever way to introduce the logo, as "E4" is the name of the product, so the logo is seen on bottles and boxes, so it's presented in a way which is less conventional than just showing the logo.

The animation it's self is very good, smooth and well drawn, very stylized to be funky and evoke a smooth nature. This is complimented by the colour palette which is not as bright as the previous one and follows more of a pattern, with the colours being darker and subtle to try and reinforce the notion that E4 man is a cool guy, in addition to wearing different clothes to fit the different backgrounds, finally ending on the sort of gradient background which is common of hair product adverts, this is where E4's trademark purple tone is introduced. The detail is quite nice as the movement is smooth and the characters are expressive, with the women emoting more because they're supposed to be in awe of E4 man, and E4 man himself being nonchalant and cool.

I like how stylized this one is, it's an interesting sting not just because it looks good but also because it thinks outside the box, and the retro charm adds a lot of personality to it.

  My Kingdom for a Horse  

 By Benjamin Howell

I'm.... not entirely sure I can explain this one.... And I think that's the point. It's one of those things which is so nonsensical and crackers that you just have to laugh, or be scared, or react in any way. The point of it is that it has no point. The fact it's so off the wall will help to confuse every viewer who sees it, and this will make it memorable because it's so different.

The colour palette is bright, the drawings are simple. It gives me the impression that it looks not dissimilar to the american cartoon shows that E4 plays, it's meant to look edgy and simplified, with a bright palette. E4's logo is this time used as a shield, which is good presentation because the logo is not just shown to you. It seems to me that all the finalists use more than 2 colours, and all present their radical idea with the logo being part of the scenery or the plot, rather than it just appearing. 

I don't entirely know what's happening here..... I need a lie down.

  E4 Super Fuel  

By Onionterror

The first 3D one on this list. This one is the one with the least diverse colour palette, but that's not a bad thing because the variations on purple within the scene are a good thing, it doesn't need all the flashy colours because it helps to create a quirky and somewhat uniform environment for this robotic character.

The actual animation of the robot is great, it only races forward but it's quirky enough because it's all the robot needs to do to get the point across, the face it's self is expressive despite the fact it's just some dials and some teeth, but the use of teeth is enough to show the robot getting a but from the insane fuel. The way the camera is set up to take the impact of the robot adds a level of audience participation as the robot is going to crash into the viewer's television, and the fact that the it turns to static in the last second offers a good segway into whatever is on next.

 The logo being presented as a fuel is a good way to work it into the plot and literally interacting with the character, it provides a quick route to the end of the advert as something quick and simple which does the job. The quick cuts also help to reinforce this idea of speed, and mean quick action leading to the apex of the action, where the robot crashed into the viewer.

 A Different Kinda War  

By Olyolyoly

The only stop motion sting on this list, but nonetheless very interesting.

 The soldiers are brightly coloured in contrast to the rather plain background, which helps them stand out, the logo is presented just as is unlike the rest, but the background of all the figures used is pretty neat.
The use of toy soldiers is quirky, I don't really think it needs a plot, it's just there to entertain and provide something pretty to look at. The use of stop-motion and all the soldiers is a clever idea and probably not one you'd expect in an age where the average person has the tools to create 2D and 3D animation which can be professional level.

Artists I like! Tyson Heese

Tyson Heese (Often known on the internet as Rittz) is an artist who I've admired for quite a long time, I first discovered him through his webcomic Boxer Hockey. Currently Tyson is working on covers for a comic series based on Bravest Warriors, a cartoon series by Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time.
The reason that I like his work so much is partly because of how well-done it is, but also because it seems to combine a pretty good comic book style with human proportions and some adherence to realism, but with cartoony elements to make something that can be serious when it needs to, but it can get as over exaggerated and silly as cartoons but without it getting in the way of the plot.

Actual presentation of his comics is something I really enjoy because his comic boxer hockey is cinematic during the actual matches (Of a sport names Boxer Hockey) and it's able to encorporate humor and more serious elements. Heese's work is always theme-appropriate and he also knows how to tell a pretty well-thought out story, as well as often providing little mini comics and other goodies to his fanbase.
Heese often lays out and draws on paper and then inks, colours and shades his comics and pictures in Photoshop, but he can animate almost entirely in flash and produce the same level of quality in his drawings, also with fluid motion and as much characterization as can be found in his illustration work.

You can watch the short film "Switch" on Youtube:

SWITCH. A Short film

Artists I like! Adrian Johnson

Adrian Johnson is an illustrator and Animator from Liverpool who I really like because of the very geometric style his work has. It's always very colourful and clean and often, while looking as clean as something produced digitally, has a very traditional look to it. One of the reasons that I like his work so much is that it seems to harken back to animation styles from the 60s and 70s, the characters look like paper cutouts who have been made from tissue and textured fabric. I'm also fond of the cartoony aspects of the work, but the fact that it seems to also encompass more art deco elements in some cases and presents things in a somewhat simplistic style really appeals to me.

Johnson is also an animator and has taken his simplistic style and has translated it into movement in a very compelling way, many of the handmade looking quirks from his illustration work have been brought over to give the same fun look whose main charm is that the work doesn't need to be complicated and is able to create fun characters and a colourful atmosphere.

Adrian Johnson Mastercard Advert

Adrian's work can be found at: http://www.adrianjohnson.org.uk

and also at http://www.bigactive.com

You can also find an interview with him at: http://vimeo.com/41941597

Artists I like! Nigel Dobbyn

Nigel Dobbyn's an illustrator whose worked in the illustration and comic industry for a number of years. Working on thing such as 2000AD, Sonic The Comic and various other works for Egmont, Panini and more.

Dobbyn's drawing style is distinctive despite often working with Licensed characters and therefore having to stick to certain guidelines. Some work which I think best shows some of his prowess is the Knuckles strips he did for Egmont Fleetway's Sonic the comic, as well as his work on 2000AD because his work with more traditional media has a very good attention to detail not just in the characters but also in the backgrounds as he has often exploited interesting brush techniques such as very watery brushes to let the color diffuse together to create very dirty, rusted robots. Or flicking white paint onto a background to create stars for a space scene.

Although Dobbyn is very skilled at traditional work, he has also become accustomed to more digital methods for creating comics and illustrations now.
While his pencilling is still done on paper with pencil, he has taken to using Adobe Illustrator to ink his drawings and give them a very clean and crisp look thanks to the vectors of Illustrator. He masks of many mistakes and then imports into photoshop for colouring where he actually more often than not uses Gradients to create shade and tone. At the demonstration he gave at the Canny Comic Con, I was quite surprised that it's a process which seems very technical compared with his earlier work in comics that I had read previously.
The result is a very clean looking illustration, however it doesn't look machined as Dobbyn's drawing style is still there and his work in illustrator is so well detailed that it gives the impression it was inked more organically. His uses of custom brushes also help to create something which looks more like photoshop inking but at a much higher resolution, which is obviously better for being able to rescale prints.

All the work in this entry was created by Nigel Dobbyn and can be found at http://handtoeye.deviantart.com.

This is intended for educational use as it's a college blog, so I hope that Nigel doesn't take any offense to it, I'm not intending to rip anyone off.

Art academy! Batch 1

I quite like art academy, it's very good for painting despite the fact the DS has a screen resolution that's pretty tiny, but it's very intuitive and it actually behaves more like real paint and brushes than Photoshop does, also being able to just paint on the go on a small screen means I can sit on the couch and just doodle or make something.

This one was just messing about, didn't really have an idea of what would come out of it so I just kept adding details until something that I likes emerged from it.

This one was a request, obviously a bit more structured. My favourite part is probably the clouds and some of the lighting on the grass, overall I do like that both of the landscapes don't really have a lot of structure to them so I've just came out with something that doesn't quite adhere to the laws of physics, and that's pretty cool.