Animation Context: Finishing the Article & Conclusion

May 14, 2017 I started out the finishing of my article by developing the design for the second double page spread. I firstly flipped the design of the layout horizontally and vertical. To get a reverse of the front spread. Below is the initial comparison:

I have opted for a less multicoloured colour scheme on the second pair of pages, as I want to try and incorporate a look of post-modern psychedelia (such as Vapourwave), that I had talked about in the final half of my article. I had utilised a multicoloured hippie-moment look for my first pair of pages to match the topics I had been discussing in that section, likewise was the aim in the latter half.

I used images such as these for reference. The colour scheme in vapourware focusses mainly of cyan and magenta shades, and sometime pastel colour schemes (The Japanese that appears on my artwork translates to: 'psychedelic'):

I then took the image from my statement of intent document and changed the colours to suit an array of purples, magentas and yellows:

I added in some glitched-out imagery as well as smudged the Japanese text. I really was beginning to love the trip looking results. I was sure to put call outs to the artists and animators I had researched and referenced in this article, within the artwork: Tame Impala music video:

Becky and Joe:

Trevor Jackson:

If one looks closely, they'll be able to see where I have collaged each of these post-modern, psychedelic motifs.

Brummbaer's fractal imagery manipulation:

Voncle Collins' Malice in Wonderland:

Deeply Artificial Trees:

These images were both to be used as the background imagery for the text of the article to appear in front of.

Because of this I followed what I had done with the first two pages of my layout and blur the imagery out as well as smudging them together.

I added some exposure so that the text would be easier to read once placed over the imagery.

and with that I had both sides to my article's artwork complete, now was just the matter of formatting the text properly:

The following day I began to import the redrafted version of my article, with the citations added and spelling corrections made. I realised it was extremely difficult to see the white writing against the vividly coloured backgrounds:

I decided to use a 1px stroke on my font. This created a black outline that made the writing much more visible:

With that it was simply a matter of readjusting a few images and font sizes and this was the final result of all my efforts:

I also arranged my reference list alphabetically:

I am extremely pleased with the end result of my context article. It has turned out differently from what I initially imagined but all in all has held true to my original intentions. In conclusion, this has been a particularly daunting task for me. I have always considered myself an academic type, who was well experienced in writing essays. I took English Language and Film Studies at A-Level, and found that writing came very easily to me. However in this particular task, the writing did not come as easily as it once had. This could be down to a variety of reasons... I may have been rusty, I may have been scared of the real-life university referencing... but I really think I was scared of failing at the task. What I mean is that I chose a topic that I was passionate about that unfortunately didn't have many hard-book sources to research about. I may have made life a little bit harder for myself in that respect, but that is not the main point. I think I was scared of under-performing and not doing this topic justice. This also came at a graphic design point of view. like I said before, English and Film should've helped me with the academic side, and in that respect, my third A-Level in Graphics should've certainly helped in the magazine layout side of the project. I think I may have put too much pressure on my own abilities and in the long term suffered for it. I put this task off for quite a while in favour of other modules. I've learned a lot about how my actions may have effected the quality of my work now. That's not to say that I am ashamed of what I have produced. I just wish I had some more time to develop my layout design. This has been a helpful learning experience in realising my own psychological barriers that I put up for myself when assigned tasks that really should be tailor-made for me. I think I really need to learn how to accept failure within my experimentation, rather than instantly aim for the finished deal. This IS A MAJOR issue I have, especially being passionate about subjects that require that sort of risk-taking mind-set. Although I realise first-year was a time for this mind-set to develop, I feel like I must hone in this skill over summer before the start of second year. This module as a whole has helped me realise a lot of flaws that I need to work on and also discover some skills I didn't realise I previously had... I'm grateful for that. I'm excited and anxious to see what this module and year as a whole will have done for me, and I'm interested to see my marks for it.

What's more I'm also interested to see what others have written for their own articles. I realise as an animator my best source for improvement comes from my classmates, that's a major thing I've learned this year, in fact. Another skill I must improve upon, if I want to, one day, become an animation director, is to realise the potential in my peer. I think through this mid set, I will end up improving myself and those around me, through what is essentially basic teamwork. I can no-longer be solitary in my creative process, I need to and have to branch out to others.