More Feedback!

Now Caroline and Leonie have both seen that dark scene that we were working on, and have both okayed it!  So I just added a few more little touches that Bryony wanted and it was all done!

We had a quick sort of surgery with Stan, because we discovered that the images weren't the correct sizes for her film. Luckily the ones I had painted could be easily changed to the correct format.
Which is - Preset - Film and Video - HDTV 1080p - 1920 - Resolution 100 pixels per inch - RGB 16 bit.

So! Here is the first complete, final final, all done, correct size and everything,background image!!

I'm really, really pleased with. And now we know the colours and aesthetic for the dark scenes, I can just bash them out!

Feedback

After showing that image with all of James' notes added to Bry through dropbox, she still thought it was too light, which proves what James said about starting lighter because it's easy to go darker. She wants me to try a few different ways and pop them up on Dropbox over the weekend for Tuesday. Here are some I've revisited tonight -

This was my attempt at making it darker. I made the broken branches and leaves in the very front alot darker, Also the contrast on the big leaves is more pronounced. I've added some blockier, darker shading to the trees, and some foliage to the BG.

This one just has a soft brush of shadow to the trees, and a darker BG colour.

This one is mostly the same, but the trees have slightly darker shadows, and the branches have been shaded more. The foreground branches and leaves have been darkened.

I applied 2 really quick colour layers, just to see how they would be affected.

I'm still going, but I'm trying to keep on track of the feedback and my tests.

Post-James' Feed Back

 Here are my findings from 'DreamWorlds', it was a wonderful book to read, and has actually helped me a lot in my other modules and own work.

So I tried as James said, and it does make perfect sense and has really helped me a lot. Here are the saves I've got so far. I need to show Bryony soon to make sure she likes this way too.

I tried starting lighter like James said, even though this is the darkest scene I have. I also tried to have less contrast between touching colours in the background like he pointed out. 

I've tried to make less of a contrast between the colour and highlights on the trees in the back, I think it has worked. 

She had said that she wanted all this scene to be dark, but I put in the highlights on the foreground leaves and branches to try and communicate the depth better, I think it's worked really well. 

I just have to show this to her now, the very background hasn't been done, but I'm not sure what she wants beyond the leaves, so I've left it for now. James walked past and I asked him to look at it, and he said 'It's looking much better already!' I'm going to try and revisit the other two, maybe try a quick wash over the more detailed parts, but ultimately start those again. 

Applying the Research

  Before revisting the tonal work, Bry sat down with me and went through the last backgrounds I'd done, out lining where she wanted the light, what was good in the last tests that she wanted me to continue doing in the few. She had uploaded more of her backgrounds to the Dropbox account we were using and I went through, making notes to remind myself of what she wanted when it came to colouring. These were the scenes we wanted to work on to get the tone right, as there is one image from each 'light stage' of the film. There is a darkness scene, the introduction of light, and then the discovery of light at the end.

Mostly Dark - the light is covered by the large leaves

A Light source is on the leaf in the bottom right.

The brightest scene of the film.

I got straight into the scene I had already been working on, and made sure that I prepared the line layer with a lot more attention to detail than I had before as I intended these attempts to be the beginning of the finals as we were running out of time. After painting on all 1 layer with the Multiply option, I searched the internet for tutorials on separating line drawing for painting in photoshop. I finally found a method that worked for me, and separated them with the minimal interference, so I went through and erased little speckled and generally cleaned up the sketch. I could now work on layers!! HOORAY!

You have the stages I went through, just to show the different levels, you can see all the detail.

This was the final scene, make a little lighter in the back with the added light source in the foreground.

Here I've added a blue and green colour layer. And changed the layer characteristics. I think this was done using Overlay and Soft Light

I feel that this looks really striking with the character in shot, the colours may be a little too vibrant to merge with her though, as I know Bry wants her to sort of fit with the forest. I'm just really pleased with my Photoshop Progress.

Really really pleased with the trees in the back of this image, I think I've communicated light really well there. Also, the light busting through the hole looks good, not sure how Bry wanted the light to look her, whether she wanted a beam or whatever. I thought this did the job.

This was my first finished rendering, apart from the ground, I always seem to have a hard time with the ground. 

I showed these to her, and she at first went 'Oooooooooooooo' which is good, although she thought the colour needed a little revisiting, but I was just focusing on the tone for now, the colour was just to play around with, I hadn't spent long on the colour. 

The main thing on Bryony's mind was that she hadn't shown these to the lecturers to get the A.O.K, and she was worried that they would say to do something different. We then had a quick chat with James, and he said that he thought the background were really good, although he agreed that we weren't sure how to communicate depth better.

 He said to Bry that she must think less about what is scientifically accurate and what communicates and reads better to the audience. He also said that the detail needs to diminish as we move back, which I thought myself, but Bry wanted to keep the detail. 

James pointed out that in the Pocahontas Corn image we'd been looking at, that closer object has greater contrast between light and dark, and further back, the contrasting colours were closer together. That was really helpful once he'd pointed it out. 

In relation to the detail problem, I suggested applying a wash to try and merge them together better, he said yeah that might work, but maybe you should tackle a fresh one for now. He also said, while looking at the end scene that it might be handy to start lighter than darker, as it's always easier to go darker than it is brighter.
 He also mentioned a book called 'DreamWorlds', which I then promptly took out of the library to look through.

So the next steps were to bring it back on the detail front, worry less about what the scenes would look like in real life, and more about what communicates the space/scene better to the audience, to start the other line background that I hadn't yet, with all of James' comments in mind.

Reference Research

  Bry had mentioned to me that this grey scale technique is used by Disney artists, and that films such as 'Tarzan' and 'Pocahontas' would be good places for me to reference tone and shade in the backgrounds. And so I did a lil hunt on google, and found this amazing blog that has loads of Disney backgrounds, just there for me to peruse.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fanimationbackgrounds.blogspot.com%2Fsearch%3Fupdated-max%3D2010-08-17T01%253A05%253A00-07%253A00%26max-results%3D7&h=tAQExDjQpAQGNtrp6GBpDpS8Osri2X1kg6x0NMr3qtxXe9w

 The images I plucked from her have indeed helped me to think about light and shade, and also to think more experimentally about the colours I could try. I've been really shocked when looking at these backgrounds that I felt that I knew well, seeing the colours and shapes that are present in the images, you need to study to really take in the colours and tones. All together they make amazing, atmospheric images.

These above images are from Disney's Pocahontas. I was surprised to see that the backgrounds are quite abstract in their placement of colour, and the shapes used in the scenery are subtle yet striking. I love the uses of green, blue and purple, and they blend really well together, and these will help me with the darker scenes, but sadly not the lighter scenes, which are the ones I'm having trouble with.

The above 2 images are from Tarzan, in darker scenes, the use of blue here is extremely effective, although there are light sources in these scenes, where as in Bryony's film, the dark scenes are to have no light source. 

I picked about these other 2 images from Tarzan because of the use of green, and also the depth of field present in them. These scenes do have a lot of brown, which I am not aloud to think about. And also, I have been told not to think about colour at the moment but to concentrate on tone. In these images you can see that detail is lost further away from the foreground. We've been having some trouble with a background tree at the moment, but I hope to touch that up the next time I visit the image.

The above 3 images are from The Black Cauldron. I realise that the colours and even vegetation in these images are completely wrong for referencing Bryony's work, but I thought that these background paintings portrayed some excellent examples of distance and depth perception. I'm glad to see that the further away trees are growing lighter in these paintings, as it's what I've been employing in my own paintings. 

After looking at these reference images, I am keen to get back into the tonal paintings. She has started to give me deadlines now, which is good for keeping me on track with all of my other modules on the go. I really don't think I'd be able to help anyone else, or take on any other work for this part of the Professional Practise Module, she has given more responsibility and creative freedom that I initially expected, which is fine with me!! 

Tonal Work

  I got to work on adding more tone and texture to the trees using the grey scale technique. It helped me to focus on the light and tone extremely well, I think I will be applying the technique to my own work in future. I used a small brush from the basic bin, that had freckly sides, and with a low opacity, working in the light, and then going over it with dark in line with the pencil lines.

Here is the textured, highlighted image. This took quite some time, and I'm really pleased with it.

Here it is with a blue and green colour  layer, Bry was really pleased with the trees, and I was also pleased as I'd spent so much time on them.

Here is the scene with the character added, I do think that she would need to be a little darker to fit in with the lighting of this scene.

This is that scene revisited, with a tree added in the gap that Bry wanted me to try, with a darker background and a darker floor, these were things she asked me to visit.

However, I think we are taking a step back, and I'm going to put this image into separate layers if it kills me!