First of all, I actually DO NOT want this project to be ALL-ABOUT-ME. It's just that the only stuff I have to show is my own stuff.
Some conceptual ideas n content for possible local Television artistic content.
It's hard to just go up to a creative person and be like: Hey I want to do something creative, and artsy, would you like to do something too?
Because: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
Well, I'd LOVE to go to a number of locations in Local New England and shoot there, but I'm also open to shooting creative things in a studio setting as well.
Here's loads of my own stuff, but I honestly don't want it to be ALL-ABOUT-ME!
So, I have cosplay characters, costumes, poetry, Shakespeare sonnets, and a lot of other ideas.
I like doing whimsical things, experimental art/film/photography, but I can also be deep, emotive, quirky, and comedic.
1 of several audio recording renditions of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29:
My Cosplay Pirate Character (Marshall Kändiß The Pyrate) whom is a quirky megalomaniac, is one I had worked on the most over the years. My blog is found HERE.
I had mostly enjoyed doing her character in the fall.
It was fun to play her because she's sort of self centered, full of herself, self important, but she's quirky so it's not abrasive, but funny or comedic. I actually never got around to creating her baton because she's a French Naval Marshall which outranks an admiral. (Yes. I did tell you she was a megalomania. It's NOT enough for her to be anything less than the top, but she sort of stumbles into these things, taking credit for it. So yeah, Moral Relativism... And, I'm also a Stephen Chow fan. )
She's selfish, but if it suits her purposes (ego/pride) she'd be generous, and Robin Hood-like.
But, she also has her down times, and when I explored her character further, I did things like quoting poetry, and drama. Especially Shakespeare, but other ones as well. AT times it could be EMO/Emotive, Gothic, dark, or deep.
I also had other concepts for her in Raves, and Pirate Pebbs & This Character went to cross dresser events, night clubs, raves, karaoke, fairs, festivals, conventions, parties, events, etc.
Pirate Pebbs n I were both in some parts of this film documentary (also the trailer):
I have also heavily dedicated A LOT of my time to Boho Chic, Bohemian, Gypset, Mori Girl, Hippie-ish stuff, and other free spirited styles including Tribal Fusion Bellydance & Rave.
My Animation Experimental Film Final Spring 2017 UMASS Boston
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These are several of the things I'd been coming up with. Much of it is VERY personal, and VERY emotional to me, and it's VERY difficult for me to put myself out there with. Much of it is still crude and unrefined. The "Blue Fairy" melody was one I'd composed when I was 6 years old. I'd used it throughout my life.
And the other songs about dragons are incredibly personal, that I often cry when talking about it. It comes from the animated film/series I want to produce and had originally started creating in 1998, and well into 2004. But, the economy destroyed my hopes & dreams and I did not pick it back up until 2015 because I'd felt as tho' I was literally loosing my mind, and it was very painful.
I started taking walks in the woods and I started hearing the music inside of my head, which was really scary. But no matter how much I fought it, I couldn't win. When I stopped fighting it, the music came out of my throat, and and next thing I knew I was in a mania of jotting down the lyrics, and recording the crude stuff coming out of my throat. I was very happy with what came out.
(Just in case u were curious or interested, this is the concept art/work for my Dragon Film: HERE I'm not in any particular hurry to go into full production yet, tho.) (Concept art for "Eyewitness" series which I'm also NOT in a hurry to jump into full production on: HERE )
Honestly, I DO NOT WANT the Artistic work on these projects to be ALL ABOUT ME. BUT, I DO need to at least SHOW what I mean, and it's pretty broad. So, most of what I have here is ME, because I'm the ONLY model available to me all the time, since my daughter won't model for me anymore. But, I am getting old.
Eventually I would LOVE to shoot in Morocco, but I'm not in a rush to do that either. I'd VERY much like to create collaborative content that is artistic, whimsical, beautiful, and eye catching.
But, I see no reason why New England can't be a beautiful place to shoot.
I'd been working on an independent film (The Holy Maple Tree) since last year, and I got promoted to do the graphics, motion graphics, animations, and editing. So, the first graphics I made were for "Heaven & Hell TV", but the director wanted Hell graphics.
I actually made quite a number of them actually:
Incidentally I do not own the rights to these. The Rights are owned by the director Roland Khorshidianzada.
I'm actually NOT really an expert at Adobe After Effects at all. I'm always still learning. It's an overwhelming amount of things that can be done with the program. I had originally learned to use After Effects around 1999-2000-ish, and didn't fully use it until about 2001. It's definitely more advanced than Adobe Premiere. I had used it off and on in the GW Bush era, then I totally forgot how to use most of it. I had to start over in 2016, and it's NOTHING like it was back in the day, even tho' it can do most of the things it used to do, and way more. I'd originally only used it for text motion graphics. It's also incredibly frustrating if you're coming strait form Adobe Premiere. But, if you stick with it, stay patient (because I've lost my temper a lot with it), it's actually my favorite program aside from Premiere. Photoshop is also good, and I have 5 versions of Photoshop on my computer, of which I mostly only use 3.
So, I wanted to do the Heaven graphics. In the screenplay there's quite a lot of spiritual type and Biblical type things mentioned, and this fake TV channel, ironically shot/filmed at an actual TV station studio, should have the Heaven bits as well. (Don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything in the film. It's still in production.)
Most people on the film enjoyed my graphics, but when I finally hunkered down and made the Heaven graphics I got strong reactions from people that were NOT on the film. I was actually REALLY surprised because it's so simple and basic. Anyone could do this.
Here's the basic Process:
This is the basic "angelic being of light" I made. it's super simple, at least by my own standards, with minimal line-work and details. I doodled out a halo as a kind of mental note to myself as to how I wanted it to look, which make no sense to anyone else, because the main ideas are inside my head.
I ONLY drew ONE wing because I want it perfectly symmetrical.
The angelic being is also androgynous and genderless, and is robed & hooded like medieval &; Byzantine art styles. There are no real defined arms, legs, or facial features except for a few lines, which is almost Asian-like actually, and even draws from Buddhist Bodhisattvas, and even design tricks like Sanrio's (the Japanese design company mostly known for Hello Kitty products). And, I also drew inspiration from Stained Glass Windows in Gothic Cathedrals.
A common trick I have often used, regarding applied drawing theories, is that I trick the brain to see things that aren't actually there. When the human eye looks at the image, the brain fills in meanings that aren't even on the image. I also use a similar method with color theory applied to colors, that I will somewhat explain when we get to the colored versions.
(BTW this graphic is available on the Creative Commons license on DeviantArt is you want to use it. Just don't use the colored versions. Those are for the film, and I don't own the rights to those.)
The reason I drew the figure this way is because I wanted to do a simple, basic, butterfly flapping style animation in Adobe After Effects CC.
Here's the first Clean up:
(This one is also available licensed to the Creative Commons if you want to download it and make your own version for free. )
After I cleaned this scan up, I had to chop it up to make the puppet pieces, because this style of animation is also a newer variant of "puppet animation" but in Adobe After Effects CC. Original puppet animation was done either as a flat 2D cut-out style puppets, or models that were sculpted, and shot in stop motion animation. However, now, due to digital CGI We can get a sort of "2 & a 1/2 D" hybrid that merges digital 3D animation with layering in Adobe After Effects.
I personally refer to this as motion graphics, but it's also puppet animation, but not the stop motion kind.
These are what the actual coloring of the wings looks like:
Even tho' I created a "being of light" I specifically DID NOT MAKE IT WHITE. The line-work here is actually a dark brown, and the feathers were actually painted in cool tones and hues that were unsaturated including: greens, blues, and purples, but slightly on the gray-ish side. NO bright colors. I also tilted the wings on the Axis so they are no longer slanted like the sketch is.
There are 2 applied glow effects on the wings: Outer Glow which is a pale unsaturated Yellow, and Inner Glow, which is a pale cyan/turquoise blue. I had played with a number of colors, but eventually went with these colors.
A lot of this has to do with Color theory but regarding RGB pixels. When everything becomes layered, and composed within Adobe After Effects , the layers and effects I use will actually trick the human brain into seeing a bright light being, even tho' it's not white. If I had used white, it would get too white-washed by the time I was done with the layering, and it would be too faded, or too bright. But also that's why I don't use true black.
If you ever get the change to look close up at a Rembrandt painting you would be surprised at just how many colors are actually used, and yet trick your brain to see colors that aren't even there.
Here is the Angelic Being of Light colored:
This one has so many layers in it. The circle halo is actually 2 layers, that are the same layer, but 1 is flipped. Then there are more halo layers, aura layers, and a "blush" layer which is a favorite comic book trick I like to use. (I used to briefly work at Top Cow Productions Inc. in 2005 so some tricks I learned there, and other tricks I learned from an CALARTS artist on DeviantArt that used to run a website called Nethersphere.com that had a number of awesome tutorials, but no longer exists.)
There the blending options Outer Glow, and Inner Glow in the exact same colors as the wings, but the other layers (aura, halo, and blush) are using the Screen blending option with Opacity variations, and those layers are deep RED-ORANGE and warm tones that are VERY SATURATED and BRIGHT. This is why RGB color theory is much different than pigment painting.
Also, it's important to note that I have made these images set on a gray background so you can fully get the effect, and actually SEE it. If I had use a white background you would not be able to see it and fully FEEL the effect. But, I never actually USED that gray background in the animation. It's just for presentation, so I could post these images online.
Also, the digital coloring techniques I am using are NOT new, but very old and vintage techniques. I have also applied these techniques to photography and photo manipulation for years, as well as to video editing in Adobe Premiere.
As for the background, I made my own galaxy, outer space graphic.
(If you would like to use this graphic, I have also licensed it for a free download on the Creative Commons)
Making a space or galaxy in Adobe Photoshop is one of the OLDEST tutorials I can even remember, and is ultra common. If you type into the search bar on YouTube you can find a variety of many artists interpretations of how to teach this, and altho' they're all very similar they can vary incredibly.
I knew how to do it, but I was so curious to see people make them in the new Adobe Photoshop CC versions and watched several for almost 2 days, because I wanted to follow along and see their way of doing it.
Here's one:
Here's another one:
There's so many. And lots of good ones!
Anyways, in my opinion I'd rather make my own one. But, if anyone wants to use mine, it's there if you want to use it for some project if you want it. Just go to my DeviantArt gallery and download it.
Then, I just imported the Photoshop files into Adobe After Effects CC 2018 version and played with it until I got what I wanted. I also used several layers of colors which I used blending options and opacity to blend the colors together. It keeps the color theory cohesive.
I played with this a number of times. here's the first few renders:
Test with Texts Motion Graphics
1st Sparkles effects test
After a number of people eager to give feedback I reprogrammed the "flight path" so to speak, and here it is:
Based on the Director's input we're re-cutting it with the Hell Graphics. I just don't have that hard-drive at the moment. He's doing the dialogue audio in 2 scenes this will be a part of.
The fog was a set of free video overlays shot in 4K in a controlled studio. And, I used layering techniques with that as well.
I used: Particles, Wiggle-rama, Motion Blur, 3D layers, a virtual kind of camera layer and programmed the camera to my liking at a 50mm equivalency, and the video file is 1920x1080 HD standard size. And, the layers move, and are animated similar to an old multi-plain camera.
The halo layers spin, and the various glowing parts also shift opacity. I had to program/animate the flapping by had, because I cannot figure out how to program the slider feature, and no one else knows either.
Those are all pretty basic and standard things to do in Adobe After Effects, but if you are totally new to After Effects it's incredibly overwhelming. It took me a long time to figure this kind of thing out on my own, because many users of After Effects don't have a traditional animation (nor a 3D animation) background and don't understand what I mean, and even if I show them an outdated version of After Effects tutorial no one could answer my questions.
I had to sift through a lot of tutorials, message boards, and blogs since 2016 to figure a lot of the After Effects things out on my own. I spent hours and days looking up After Effects Tutorials in December & January. Oh, well, that's just how it goes.... C'est la vie.
Other contributing factors that also added to this was the Art History class I took at UMASS in the fall 2017 semester.
As it turns out, Art History tends to be a cultural documentation of the history of Religion(s) as well. I learned about how images, lighting, the use of space, and certain motifs effected the human experience of a religion start from Cave paintings in Europe, to Zigarats and the City of Jericho, to Pyramids, to Egyptian Mausoleums, Greek & Roman Temples to Cathedrals, and funerary art.
There are so many things that I incorporated from that class into creating this. You can actually go through the timeline and see where each style and technique came from, and were incorporated after that, and passed on. Eventually it became ingrained into the human psyche that certain motifs actually evoke specific reactions in the observer of the art.
Another thing to point out is that it also has a New Age-ish & Hippie vibe. I'm not a New Ager anymore, I'm a Secular Agnostic Apostate Heretic Philosopher, but I actually quite loved a lot of the things they go ga-ga over. AND, after I made the thing, I'd realized it kinda looked a tiny bit similar to Doreen Virtue angel artwork. WHOOPS! Totally didn't intend that!
I mention this, because everything I'd incorporated is pretty standard basic knowledge, techniques, styles, motifs, etc. yet when I shared the images and videos, I was surprised at the comments I got from even non-religious folks, and fellow artists.
Messing with Adobe After Effects 2018 to do an animated Logo for my videos/films etc.
I'd lost the original files of the re-colored version... in fact, I've had a persistent issue with these files. I'd colored & re-colored this sketch so many times, and had to start over multiple times over the years. There's multiple color versions of this in my gallery.
The lighting effects were done in several layers in various versions of Adobe Photoshop:
6.0, CS5, CC 2016, CC 2017, CC 2018.
But, this one started with a partially colored version, which was the only one I still had left on back-up in CD-ROM DVD-ROM. I thought I had it on my thumb-drives, but couldn't find it.
Pretty much all these are Photoshop techniques that can be applied in layers in Adobe After Effects. I can do it in Premiere also, but After Effects is MUCH BETTER.
I wanted to play with particles, so here's the first one:
I've also done similar Adobe After Effects motion graphics/effects animations with other old Photoshop artwork files. I had to re-paint and edit them for HD in the new Photoshop CC 2018.
I will most likely re-cut this, for a more graphical looking video/animation. It's a bit to dynamic yet frozen in mid movement for such a slow piece. This is the downside of my art/drawing style... I'm kinda dynamic.
Misc. Notes:
* My Fursona is the Black UniGryphon (BlackUniGryphon) but she actually has a name: Valour Nikee. I just often don't use her name.
* The Black UniGryphon, Valour Nikee, is actually a shape-shifter character.
* She also had a Goddess shaped version
Honestly, I DO NOT WANT the Artistic work on these projects to be ALL ABOUT ME. BUT, I DO need to at least SHOW what I mean, and it's pretty broad. So, most of what I have here is ME, because I'm the ONLY model available to me all the time, since my daughter won't model for me anymore. But, I am getting old. 
