9/10/2020

Puppet Process-  the beginnings 

the final silhouette turnaround. I drew a rough sketch on what her running position may look like but in the end I choose to build my rig from her standing position since I didn't want to flowing curves of her design. 

I duplicated the original turn around and using an eraser would individually cut out all the parts I wanted. Each part was put into a folder so I could make a mask for easier colouring a texturing then the folders would be grouped into larger folders separating them by location for example the thigh, calf and foot would be placed into the leg folder. This was done to help find them easier and the to able reorder the layers if need be.

All the parts were arranged into a running position and tested to make sure nothing would be poking out once I start moving everything.

I started to think about adding colour and texture to my design, though I probably should have done that a lot sooner. I was mostly looking up examples of graphic design from 60's/70's especially when it came to choosing a colour palette. 

What I realised that was the colours that we associate with the 60's which were a psychedelic array of magentas, lime greens and yellows are drastically different to the colours to think when of the 70's which tend to be more muted and earthy with browns, oranges, yellow and darker shades of green. Though fashions don't often change on the spot so you'll often find this bleed between decades as well as a decade sometimes looking a lot different to what it would become in the latter half than it did in the beginning.

However in the end I choose to use mostly black and white with accents of oranges and pink as I already that an image of this very stylish art type in all black with the use of the colour to draw attention to the face and hair. 

Once I had a palette I was happy with I placed into my swatch libraries and AOC file so I could import the palette to other systems.

When it came to the texture I wanted to look as if it was hand printed. While photography was common a lot of graphic design still had I print like quality to them since computers were mostly used to sent people to the moon I suppose, certainly not something that was accessible to the general public.

 I did try to look online at first to find something I could use for free but I still always worried about breaking copyright rules as I find that sort of thing can be complicated. So instead I decide it would be easier and more fun just to get out some of my old art supplies an make texture samples myself. The top one was made by placing acrylic paint onto a small paint roller, thankfully I had just bee repainting my bedroom, I am rolled it up and down across a simple A4 piece of paper. the other one was done using ink pads but since I didn't have any stamps and directly applied the ink pad to the paper instead. once I had some sample I was happy with I let them dry off and scan them into my computer.

Then I would place them into photoshop as a smart object were I could apply and black and white filter over the top and increase the hue and saturation. 

Each part was coloured in and applied the texture to all the layers with the help of the masks I applied to the folders earlier. Though I did have to use the a eraser tool to touch up the mask as masking tool doesn't have a similar anti-aliasing that the brush tool has.

The texture were also I bit of  mess a the only I could seem to get them to work was to open the image up in a separate file and then using the select tool, copy and paste the image into my work space. Though once I had one I just continually duplicated that layer. I used two to three textures for the hair, clothes and skin.

Here's what it look like with a layers take apart.

Added in some ears just so she didn't look like an alien.

The motions-

I don't think it would be too shocking for me to say that it's hard to find examples of real life people running in high heels that don't end in blisters or whatever this is 

 Though thankfully you can get away with breaking the law of common sense in a cartoon.

I image her run would similar to that of the character Sailor Moon, running in long strides with front leg being quite straight.

I might to do more research into different character runs but that all depends if my first idea works or not. (it usually doesn't)