Evolution

This is an animation series called La Linea (The Line). is an Italian animated series of about 100 episodes created by Osvaldo Cavandoli in 1969. Its awesome stuff, very professional as you would expect, but with really quirky and interesting stories to it



This is a morphing line drawing Amber should be interested in because there's a dog in it.



And this is more what i'm currently working on except without the shapes. This is quite a small and basic video but it works nicely for what it is.

The Cube

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out...

End Of Module Evaluation

1. What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them

The practical skills i have developed are how to research more, to experiment with form. I haven’t developed many practical skills i didn’t already utilise.

2. What approaches to/methods of problem solving have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

The one particular method of problem solving i’ve learned this module is how to move from the subject into another that is more suitable to the brief and to develop that idea rather than sticking with the original topic. This has meant that when i got stuck i let the idea develop away from what i thought it would be. I have also learned to experiment more, and base my ideas on my research rather than the other way round.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

Similar to above, i think the strengths in this modules work was being able to move and develop my ideas into something completely different and not stay on the one idea.
In future projects i hope to be able to explore the tangent ideas and to let my work develop rather than having an idea and just doing it.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

My biggest weakness was struggling to get to the place described above. I got to a point where i didn’t know where to take my work and stangnated for a while. It took a fair while before i discovered how to change my idea and let it flow more. In the future i will try and reach that point sooner/implement that way of thinking from the start.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Work with more enthusiasm - a greater appreciation for my work
2. Work faster - produce a larger body of work
3. Develop my ideas before reaching a final decision - hopefully my work will be of a higher standard and quality
4. Not waste so much time - get more done
5. Manage my time more effectively

Are there any things we could have done differently that would have benefitted your progress?

Not particularly

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
(please indicate using an ʻxʼ)

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

1 2 3 4 5

Attendance 5

Punctuality 5

Motivation 3

Commitment 4

Quantity of work produced 3

Quality of work produced 3

Contribution to the group 4

Way Of The Gun

What Is A Line SOI:

Right i'm going to be concentrating my efforts on continuous line, a la my drawings posted earlier. I intend to experiment with different shapes and not just squares, in pictures and possibly film, looking into line drawings that then become animation. Also i plan to investigate the natural forces at work with line, in portraits and the like but again using the technique i developed before.
And thats about it. We'll see where that goes.

Crank

Ok so now i think i've cracked what i'm going to do. Finally. After discussions with various people i've settled on the faces thing. Hope it works now.

While i was sleeping

Right about now i'm sat with a quizzical look on my face whilst i attempt to stare down my ever mounting mass of papers and cut outs, trying desperately to pull some string of coherent thought out of the mess. And it's not going too well. After hitting a mental block the size of a small mountain for about 2 weeks, i now have 3 semi-formed ideas for my final book. The problem is, none really relate to the theme of 100 (although that can be fairly easily rectified - just do a hundred of whatever), the problem is these ideas are fairly small/basic and i have no idea whether my execution of any would yield results that are even lightly comical let alone interesting. I, friends, am stuck.

No change there then.

The first idea started as a flip chart of face parts, each face part having 6/8/10/12 versions (to correspond with dice that have said numbers), so the reader would roll a die, consequently selecting a face part, and so on throughout the face.
How to apply it to 100? Have 100 faces! Easy. So it cuts out the dice part, so what, thats called idea development.

Then Phoenix showed me this:



Someones already done it.

Numero 2: A Q&A book, but one where you roll a dice to select a question, roll a dice to pick a page and then again for an answer, so in the end you get a completely wierd, yet highly comedic, question and answer session. The only problem is i thought that up yesterday so i have basically no interviews. Ah.

Trois: a flow(ish) diagram or dice-directed turn page book involving actions/daily events.

So now i'm just confused. And they told me i have to work wednesday. Bummer.

Shanghi Kiss

Something that struck me from the opening ceremony for the Bejing Olympics was the mass uniformity of the dancers and particularily the rather impressive drummers. They stood, all in long rows, hundreds of them, banging out the same beat, which im sure did nothing for the old Western stereotype of "they all look the same". Haircuts, clothing, instruments, all near identical. No facial hair either.





Thinking about this now, and with my post about american football, it got me wondering about other sports and cultures where uniformity and lines are involved.

Naturally there is the Armed Forces, both current and times past, whose form on parade, and indeed during the 18th and 19th centuries on the field of battle, were regimented and strictly uniform occasions.


WW2 soldiers preparing to be shipped off to the fronts.


The most famous historical military structure was the romans, whose lines of soldiers doubled for solid protective defence.

The Bourne Ultimatum

I actually prefer the credits to Bourne Supremacy, but i couldn't find it, but its very similar, maybe a bit more linear.



Again with the Spiderman credits they're all very similar, but i like this one especially because it references the first film in a kind of round up. Its done by Imaginary Forces who i've mentioned a few times already, but they are awesome, and capture the essence of webs and spiders in the sequence.
On an aside they also did the Transformers sequence which is unbelievable, and a new Pepsi ad which is brilliantly simple too. Check it.

Walk The Line

Here's some stuff i've been trying out using a technique i use mostly when doodling - basically only horizontal of vertical lines following clockwise from each other. Its just an interesting way, i think, of shading/drawing.

The Butterfly Effect

This is a guy i looked into last year, and his work is fantastic, he's called Mark Grotjahn, and his pieces are all pencil drawn straight lines. There's so much detail its unbelievable, bearing in mind these are usually about 5 - 6 ft tall and 3-4 ft wide.
Check out http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/madison-avenue-2008-02-mark-grotjahn/#/videos/1/ for his latest exhibition video and pics.

Man On Wire

If this isn't a line i don't know what is....



This is Phillipe Petit who in 1974 tightrope walked a wire that was illegally rigged between the twin towers, then the worlds tallest buildings. Born out of a dream and an idea, Petit and his team of accomplices spent eight months planning the execution of their ‘coup’ in the most intricate detail. Like a team of professional bank robbers planning their most ambitious heist, the tasks they faced seemed virtually insurmountable: they would have to find a way to bypass the WTC’s security; to smuggle the wire and rigging equipment into the towers; to suspend the wire between the two towers; to secure the wire at the correct tension to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings; to rig it secretly by night – all without being caught. Not to mention the walk itself…

The Hole

This is a guy called Andy Gilmore







And something a little more...basic

The Escapist

I don't know if you've ever seen a tube station escalator but they NEVER look like this



they're always PACKED more like this:

Domino

Here's another couple of advert i liked. I think as a way of getting an original idea out there there's no better way than adverts. After all you have a mass audience who can't change the channel cos its adverts on every other channel too, so to breal the mundane of air freshener and bank commercials something interesting and memorable can really capture the audience's attention. So here's a famous one -



I think the line relationship is obvious so i won't explain...
And here's a more recent one that is just a lot of fun -

Le Mans

Production lines, lines of cars, lines of traffic, car parks, and what we've been seeing a lot of recently rows upon rows of cars on disused air strips.

This is the new Porsche museum in Stuttgart and, naturally, being German, the architecture is distinctly solid and straight. The exhibition includes prototypes, early turn of the century originals and classics such as the 911, the 917 driven by Steve McQueen in Le Mans, and the 550 Spyder, the model James Dean had a fatal accident in.