I am Tynan Reeves.
I do a bit of art and play a lot of football.
I also like music.
Enjoy
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 @ 7:26 PM
additional factors
The negative space in the artwork above the head is meant to show the emptiness of others within the character's life. In stage 3 when the negative space is occupied through the demons it illustrates that there is some wholeness in the man's life however his expression and intensity of colour and contrast demonstrates the kind of unhappiness that came with the addition of these personalities. The focus on the size of head portrays the thought that the biggest change through manhood is a predominately of the person's state of mind. The exclusion of the ears across each image incorporates the idea of men's inability to listen, letting any words of advice in an attempt to cheer up the depressing mood of the character useless, making his internal struggle even more difficult. The deepest connotations of the piece however are explained in the artist statement.
@ 7:10 PM
Artist statement
'Femme Fatale' is a personal interpretation of the developing mind of a man during his life. It details how women can become such a trouble within a man's mind changing him from his usual self. The title itself is in reference to the female influence upon men and how they can take on a 'man eater' role in some unfortunate male's lives. An eerie and monochromatic tone has been applied in the attempt to incorporate the frail and unique stylings of Tim Burton. Inspired by the dark meanings behind his works, a naïve approach illustrates the primitive form of a man in terms of appearance, intelligence and emotion. This animation is constructed from 4 different images with the starting image showing the most basic form of this interpretation of manhood slowly evolving into a more perplexed being, where the outside factors (women) can be seen to influence the mental, physical and emotional growth of the man until he advances to the next stage of his life where his maturity and self control induces a self-realisation within himself which helps restore the natural order and stability of the mind. The naïvety of the piece is used as a technique to maintain a more basic approach visually toward delivering the complex connotation of the work. The Tim Burton inspired aesthetics of 'Femme Fatale' is meant to startle and unnerve the viewers in an attempt to evoke empathetic emotions in relation to the troubling effects women can have upon an evolving male's mind.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 @ 9:32 PM
how stage 4 was constructed
I used the shape of the head from Stage 3 as the basis of this image, I constructed the hair in the same was I made the hair for Stage 3. I then erased the mouth and used a 1px eraser of 100% hardness to remove the darkness around the eyes as this illustration was going to show a much more happier character...
Drawing the mouth was one of the most difficult aspects of this image as the feeling I was trying to convey was one of happiness still with the exposure of the emotions and vulnerablilty of the previous stages. To do this I used the same settings as previous along with previous smudge and blur settings...
To finalize the idea of the emotionally and mentally repaired man I added a stitched effect around the mouth trying to aesthetically interpret the connotation as well as adding finishing finer details to improve upon the technical aspects of the image...
@ 9:08 PM
how stage 3 was constructed
For this stage I had to reconstruct the whole head as this part in the animation was meant to show the development of the mental demons and his physical advancement shown in the head size, eyes and hair...
From here I developed the shadows around the edges of the figure using a 3px airbrush on 0% hardness and smudged and blurred using the same settings as before, this was meant to show the dark, melancholy feeling of the character and the overall artwork...
Then I constructed the hair showing that the man and his demons (representing women) are attached mentally, emotionally and physically using a 1px airbrush on 0% hardness...
After this I used only 1 layer of black fill on soft light to intensify the contrast and meaning of the work and I also added a black and white gradient map as I accidently used a purple coloured brush in the process...
@ 8:26 PM
how stage 2 was constructed
Through the use of the liquify and smudge tool, I used the first layer in Stage 1 to base the shape of the illustration in Stage 2, I also erased the eyes as the evolution and expression of this piece was going to mainly be through the head size, eyes and hair...
The formation of the eyes in the next shot were completed using the same technique as the finer details of Stage 1, using an 1px airbrush of 0% hardness and modified using the a 1px blur brush at 50% strength and a 1px smudge brush of 30% strength. The base of the hair was also extended using a 3px airbrush of 0% hardness using the same smudge and blur settings...
The smudged area for the hair provided contour lines to guide myself in creating purposeful strokes for the visible strands of hair taking 6 layers of duplication and alterations in opacity for the best image result...
Splatter brushes were then applied to the forehead which were then smudged and blurred to add to the imperfect interpretation of a man. Once again two layers of black fill were put on soft light to finalise the harsh appearance of the work...
@ 7:24 PM
how stage 1 was constructed
Firstly using a 3px airbrush on 0% hardness with 30% opacity I created a rough outline of structural features of what I was planning with certain edges smudged and blurred to create some depth and tactility to the piece...
The layer was then duplicated to add volume and enhance the outline...
The refinements and finer details were then drawn in using the same settings as the outline, however the brush was on a setting of 1px instead with the zoom tool utilized for optimal precision...
To complete the dark nature of the piece I used two layers completely covered in black using the fill tool with the opacity at 100% and the blending option set to 'soft light' emphasising the contrast and details of the piece helping to finalise this stage...
Several more layers were used in creating these steps to make it easier to manage the errors that I made, but the changes from layer to layer are very minimal so I only showed the substansial changes in terms of tools used to produce the final artwork.
Monday, April 4, 2011 @ 5:41 PM
processing
I was already aware of what the central theme of the unit was going to be about before the class had officially began working on their individual artworks, so I had already began thinking of ideas as to what my piece would end up becoming. The idea of a demonic spirit within someone I found could be a brilliant concept within interpreting the connotation of the work, much like the monsters in the TV show Sailor Moon.
Upon considering including this idea into my artwork, I had decided it would be good to create a more dark artwork, similar to that of Tim Burton. Continuing the Sailor Moon concept, the idea of showing the transformation of the demon from the human appeared quite appealing, so the idea of a normal person being morphed into one overcome with mental demons was the basis for my artwork. The transfiguration concept was adopted from the video below 20 seconds in.
I began with the most complex stage so I could work backwards and make the character modifications easier for myself. Instead of the demon taking the shape of the entire human, I decided it would become an extension of them instead. As the monsters were going to be a metaphor for the character's mental struggles, I thought it was appropriate to have the demons emerging from the head of the original illustration, with the primary character left with a distressed look upon his face, which ended up looking like this...
From here I downloaded a morphing program called Morpheus. I then created another image which then became my first picture of the sequence so I could test the new software. The beginning image turned out like this...
Not only was Morpheus a bad program but the change between both images was too sudden, leaving me feeling like another artwork was needed to bridge the gap. After comparing the two existing images of mine I created a third piece which would be the second artwork in the sequence and it turned out like this...
Upon having three images created I searched for a new kind of morphing software, and I found one in that of Fantamorph which proved to be very simple and effective in creating the animation into an appropriate format, although there were times where the images were skewed due to complications within the program but I ended up fixing them after a while. Once I had morphed the three images seamlessly I needed a concluding piece to finalise the connotation and add meaning to the overall animation, which ended up looking like this...