June 2012
14 posts
giancarlovolpe liked your photo: Were this any other situation he probably would…
Seeing something like this appear on my dash will never cease to humble and amaze me. Not to mention send me into fangirl shock because holy crap one of the heads of a show I adore liked my silly fan art.
…and with this post I officially lose any semblance of professionalism on my art blog. Oh well…
“Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to Middle-Earth.” —George R.R. Martin (via x-akurei)
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
—Douglas Adams (via quote-book)
Site Redesign and other things
Updated the website today. Thought the old logo was rather boring and needed more balloons. Re-organized my artwork while I was at it since they were rather scattered in the old layout. Still can’t quite figure out what to do with the front page though…
There are plans in the work for an Etsy store to sell prints and stickers after I finish my newest WIPs but that will take some more time… and a heavy bout of research on how to best set up a Paypal and delivery system.
sunny with a chance of madness: Disney's Pool of Light and Background Theory →
sunshinepatch.tumblr.com
Something I’ve been reading up on recently in my quest to provide backgrounds for my drawings is Disney’s focus on pools of light in backgrounds, the idea being that backgrounds, while important and containing valuable information, are set pieces. A background on its own isn’t really complete - it’s a stage without actors. The pool of light refers to the area that is supposed to catch the viewer’s attention, it’s where most of the action in the scene will take place and where the majority of the important information for the viewer is located. Essentially, to continue the theater stage metaphor, it’s the spotlight of your composition.
Cinderella has some really, really excellent examples of this in its background paintings:
These are some more blatant examples, but will work for what I wish to talk about, in that this theory comes down to two things: color and shape.
COLOR
The pool of light deals not just with making an area in the scene brighter or lighter than another, it focuses on contrasts. While dark/light is part of this, there’s also the contrasts of tone, hue, and saturation. In Cinderella’s palette, this is consistently different warm grays used as the light, while dark blues are used as the shadow. When viewed on a color wheel, the colors are often near-complementary, but not exactly:
What’s important to take away from this is that these colors blend into every object, which allows the whole composition to appear consistent.
Of course, the shadows/hilights don’t have to be the traditional warm light/cool shadows. This is just what the example uses.
SHAPE
Secondly, and just as important, is the shape of the light itself - because it shows exactly where the character will be moving, and what we should be focusing on. Even when not in animation, this is surprisingly effective. For example, look at the two screenshots of the stairs - would you expect Cinderella to go down the stairs, or across towards the rafters? Would she bring the breakfast up the stairs, or across the hall?
What’s fascinating is that this is absolutely everywhere in old Disney movies and shorts. Literally every background uses this concept. It’s not something you really think about while viewing the film, but as an artist, the ideas employed by these movies are incredibly useful.
(All screencaps used in this post are from disneyscreencaps, which is also a great place to research this further.)
