Progress

So far we have started printing off backgrounds we will use and created a soundtrack to play over our animation. The track is in definite need of tweaks as we are trying to layer so many tracks together.

Some black and white images were put in to give an idea of how it may appear as grey-scale for sand on glass.


CAVE

Starting with the Cave Paintings. Looking at our influences, we have decided to use this image as reference for this section of the animation.

For the background I used the reference image for the cave wall. I simply had to remove the paintings from the wall in Photoshop. This will help us bring this specific image to life as this particular photograph is so famous we would like to maintain its level of recognition.

Here are some photos of this process.

What we plan to animate for this section is have the bull walk across the wall as it gets to the center it starts to morph into the bull from this graphic:

We hope to have the metamorphosis show as detailed as this image using the weight of the sand to manipulate the lighter and darker areas of this image. Once the metamorphosis is complete the eye  will enlarge and rotate pulling the surrounding sand into it until all that is left it the eye. 

For Background transition we are considering to gradually over exposing the show and bringing the light up until the colour and shade of the background disappears.. when it is most over exposed we would bring the exposure back down gradually.

EGYPTIAN

For the Egyptian Art we have an interesting collection of reference material that we feel might transform into sand art more easily.

The first images introduces some perspective which would be interesting to experiment movement of flat characters in 3D perspective and would explore how we animate space.

For the Background we will use a simple wall texture. 

Here are 2 examples:

 

Still unsure where we will go in this section. We want to be experimenting first t o see what we can achieve but we are set on a transition from the bulls eye into the Egyptian eye. From here we will take a more intuitive approach. We would like to achieve a transition where the sand blows away leaving a clear frame for the Japanese art to take form.

JAPANESE

The first Japanese art that we will animate following the Egyptian art will by the Hiroshige Atake art piece:

 

                           Original                                              Final Product

 

Using the clone tool in Photoshop.

For this art piece we aim to animate the people walking on the bridge where the rain starts to pick up and the run along the bridge eventually leaving the frame. Another art piece we are really interested in animating is Fujinraijin-tawaraya art piece;

 

 The art style is quite different from the first so it would be nice to show the variation between the geometric and organic approaches in Japanese art. It would also be very nice to bring this piece to life as it already implies so much movement. It may require two levels of sand on glass to maintain the look of some parts like the facials and clouds while moving the rest. The organic flow of this style would transition nicely into art Nouveau.

ART NOUVEAU

  

As a well known image created by the most well known artist from the Art Nouveau period, Alphonse Mucha, this image would be ideal to transform into from the organic Fujinraijin-tawaraya art piece. This Image would also translate well into sand art. Animating movement in the hair will require a lot of thought in order not to over complicate the scene. The papel-de-fumar-job art piece will use the same background as the Fujinraijin-tawaraya  art piece

EXPERIMENTS

As we have been unable to book the equipment and arena sooner we experimented at home with sand on glass to get used to the medium before it comes time to animate. This will help us be fully prepared in terms of what we need such as tools for manipulating the sand and to be fully aware of time it will take to animate the entire minute and thirty seconds we aim for. 

The tools that proved most usefull were paintbrushes and a comb. The comb brushes the sand along to create an even tone from which we then manipulate with our fingers and brushes.

 It was very difficult to achieve as smooth metamorphosis as some parts would develop more than other areas because there is so much detail to focus on. To achieve a coherent transition, we need to focus on changing small amounts over the entire composition. This proves quite difficult as it is less intuitive and proportions need to be established and maintained but we think it is achievable with practice and good reference material.

Here are some images of what we have achieved.