A Visibly Frivolous Day

[tealin]

For some reason, things that are totally, utterly, thoroughly, and absolutely black really tickle my funny bone. It happened with the rock star's totally black ship in one of Douglas Adams' books (Restaurant at the End of the Universe?) and it happened with Mr. Lipwig's "sombre" suit: "the suit was so black that if it had been sprinkled with stars the owls would have collided with it." That's funny.

There is an rule of thumb in animation (and probably painting, too) that you can't colour anything totally black because it will look like a hole in the screen (or canvas) and I thought that would be amusing in the case of this particular costume. What would be most effective, of course, would be to see this "hole in the screen" effect in live action, but that would be far too complicated for my frippery. I drew up a pose and stuck it on a screencap from Hunchback (its Paris is the closest I can find to a ready-made Ankh-Morpork) ...
This one turned out better than the one before where the open silhouette detracted from the gag. And he fits better in perspective. Huzzah for second chances. I'm sure Mr. Lipwig would agree.
(March 14 note: this picture looks way more effective on a thin flat screen monitor, as I found out at work today.)

8:55 pm

A little overflow from Wednesday night's choir drawings... And then the sort of would-be thumnail/early ruff for the drawing seen Saturday.

The backpack stuff is from Thursday. It doesn't count as a page, that's why I didn't mark it "Friday's." Reacher Gilt is prominent here, being a very clear image in my head and therefore making me think I'm stealing him from somewhere. So far I think he's part Alameda Slim and part Ratcliffe with a little Captain Hook thrown in. But dang it, that's how I see him. And there's an extremely cute kid from the bus - he looks nothing like the kid I was drawing from except in cuteness. And then there are cat drawings. My cat. Dumb as toast, but a good model, sometimes.

A leftover cat, and random church choir people.

Comments

[sreya.livejournal.com]

*laugh* You're right, it does look a bit like a hole.

I'm wondering about it being used as an effect in a sci-fi cartoon, though. Not that I can figure out how to describe exactly what I'm picturing... sorry, brain gets a little fritzed when I'm concentrating on schoolwork, and a midterm on peacekeeping operations is about as fritzed as you can get.

I do have to say, though, that when I looked at the image before reading your text, my thoughts were
1) His costume looks strange
2) Wow, she drew that whole thing, I wonder what project she's working on.

He really fits right into the scene, I didn't even know at first you'd spliced him in there, and I'm generally pretty good about spotting that since I do a lot of Photoshop work combining images. There are a few signs once I knew what to look for and really sat with it for a few minutes, but initially it all looked relatively seamless.

I hope that translates well into a compliment. :~/

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

It does translate into a compliment, indeed, thank you!

Splicing animated images is FAR easier than doing anything with photos... after all, all I did was just add to what the original artists did – they placed coloured line art on a painting, and so did I. Nine years later, of course, but that's not important.

The effect I had in mind was basically just a moving blob of blackness, no details in it whatsoever, no matter what the environmental lighting, and occasionally a hand would pass across it or something. Is this the effect you had in mind? It's sort of like the goons in Les Triplettes de Belleville but they are more of a dark greenish-brown, not ambulatory blobs of utter blackness.

[bananabasket.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I like when they turn and they stick together. And the cool music it plays whenever they are on.

I thought of those Mafia creeps, too.