Tutorial for Calligram in Illustrator

My calligram for Illustrator was to make the letters of my last name look like a dog. Using a combination of small, half opaque strokes of the paint tool, it made the letters look like they had different colored fur running down their sides.

I then followed the instructions to create the dog nose, whiskers, tail, and the claws for the paws. I made these using the pen tool and coloring them in with the paintbrush tool.

I learned how to make the calligraphy on photoshop seem like it has fur, to make drop shadows to make it look like the letters are floating, to create 3-D effects by using the pen tool to outline some of the features like the tail and dog nose.

I did well with the fur and to make it look like it was flowing in a certain direction and to have a bit of shading to the fur.

What I could do differently is to improve the quality of the nose, as it was difficult to make the nose look realistic.

I want to research how to make scales next for my next lesson in Illustrator. That way I could create maybe a scale-like look for my personal logo.  I love animals and I feel inspired by them, so I feel like the should be a part of my logo.

http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-a-furry-calligram-in-illustrator--vector-3965

The Moving Landscape

I utilized the effects of Photoshop, using a blur tool to blur the colors in the night sky and a variety of brushes with added effects such as luminosity to make the stars and the moon have a hint of a glow in the background. I added dog-like creatures to howl at the moonlight. I used a thin brush to try and make thin, nimble, creepy trees and used a chalk-like brush to add the spotted textures to the trees and a transparent dark grey to add in the shadows.
Then, once I uploaded it to After Effects, I moved each layer over at different time rates to make sure that each layer moves at it's own pace. I then used the Puppet Pin tool to make the three dogs howl by moving their snouts up and their ears back. The challenge mainly for this animation was to correctly time the moving of the backgrounds. But I am proud of what I did to make this look beautiful and I'm proud to say this is my own animation.

Google Logo

The logo of Google

The original logo of google had only primary colors planned out to be featured inside the letters in a repeating way, but the "l" in Google was changed to a secondary color to set the stage that Google "doesn't follow the rules". The text is a simple Catull font, with a serif that makes the lettering look elegant and simple. It was first created in 1998, with the logo starting out similar as the present day version, with only color alterations and a much flatter look to the logo. But as time continued and the company expanded into the global icon it is today, the colorful, simple logo has lodged itself into the history of the internet. Now, the logo is nearly unchanged in comparison from past to present.

My Own Drawn Animation

My Dragon Animated

The Drawing

My character is a bipedal dragon with large wings, horns, and spines. I designed it like this to show my own spin on the classic dragon. I've always imagined dragons with two arms and two legs, large curved horns adorning the top of its head, and bat-like wings enabling it to fly.   

The Keyframes

There were a few issues of my character, as I forgot to close off shapes when I first uploaded my drawing, so getting each body part to different layers in Photoshop took a while. I also drew my character on the side, so I had to manually go back into Photoshop and use the rotate tool to shift the images over to the right side up. With Keyframes, the only issue that occurred to me on After Effects was the timing for when my character moved forward. So, by widening my workspace to show frame by frame, I shifted my character across the screen and paused it when the character's legs weren't moving.
Using a variety of different methods, including the Puppet pin tool, Move tool, and Rotation tool, I was able to have my character flap his wings, move his arms, have him walk, and have him nod his head. Pausing the animation every few frames, I copied and pasted repetitive motions for the legs to move naturally, and having them pause if one leg was already moving. The arms, I had moving up and down, using a combination of the Rotation tool and Move tool. I again copied and pasted the keyframes to have the arms move up and down. I had each step take about 15 frames with a couple frames break to show that the character is naturally walking.

The Actual Animation

Three things I learned to have my character walk is that you can copy and past keyframes so you don't have to do every single frame by hand, that you can rotate and move different parts of a character's body at the same time, and that you can resize your animation by making a new composition in After Effects.

An issue that I had making my character walk was to correctly time the keyframes and the actual movement to a reasonably believable way. I had to stop and pause the animation as soon as the foot was first moving up and out to walk and whenever the foot began to touch the ground once again, but after a few trial and error tests, I had done it well.

If I could redo it, I would change my walk to a more natural looking walk. Like the character is real enough to actually walk like a normal person instead of simply moving his legs up and down repetitively.

Even though I would change some of the techniques I used in my animation next time I try this, I am very proud of my animation and how far I've come from last year as an Animator. I'm glad I finally accomplished bringing something I drew and created by myself to bring it to life.

Anatomy of a Font

This week, we learned about the anatomy of different fonts. We took tests to see which font best suited ourselves and complemented our personality. Mine is a font called Young Shark. Utilizing the line and text tool from Illustrator, we were able to type our name using the font that complemented us best, color it, and draw lines to indicate where some of the anatomy was.
The way my font described me was that I was emotional, understated, progressive, and disciplined. For emotional, I believe in something "feels" right. Understated for me is that I do like doing things subtle, and effectively. Progressive ideas are what I love, new ideas revealed at the time they're conceived. I was disciplined in the sense that I could be patient and work through things I don't nessesarily like in order to reach something I want.
I learned that the spine of an S is the main curve of the S, and that a stem is a straight, vertical stroke in a letter. It was difficult trying to learn what some of the differences were between similar anatomies, like between a bowl and a counter. But I luckily found the difference, (Bowls are enclosed spaces in a letter, while counters aren't closed). And I finished my Anatomy.

My Inchworm!

My First Character Animation

I started using After Effects much better to animate this little inchworm and background I started in Photoshop. Using the Puppet Pin tools, I had my worm's torso move up and down like a real worm. Then using a Null Object to direct the movement of my worm, I had it pause between lifting its body and lowering its body to create the effect to look like it's a bit like a real worm. Lastly I copied my worm and flipped it around 180 degrees, blurred, and darkened the copied worm to look like a shadow on the grass. I actually thought I did well on this project! The worm looks like it's moving realistically and well! The challenge was to make the shadow, as I was having a difficult time making the shadow move in equal time with the worm. But using the link tool in After Effects, the shadow trails alongside the worm perfectly.