Time's Anthology Book

Took three years to get here and look back and collect what I learned. Several assisted this journey in different proportions, to all of them: Thanks.

Thesis Book - Small Version

This project is born from the charge of our thesis work at the Academy: to create a book about ‘The Art of’ something. All the material and content was created in the second half of 2009, up to this submission. At first I thought these ideas would come together into a feature length story, but rapidly I realized that for now it could only exist as a compendium of three short stories. With each, I hope to cover the story deeply enough for it to stand alone, but also allow me to work with it in the future.
The three short stories are about elder people’s stories. one of them may be fantastical, but each of them are what I believe to be realistic stories or anecdotes of what I think and feel must be true of the last years of our life on earth. The style I hope to engender is one nostalgia, and yes some sadness and loneliness, pushing each story towards a more european aesthetic and sensibility.

I plan to continue develop these stories in the future and hopefully feel as though I can say to myself that they are finished. I have tried to detail each one of them, designing and defining as much as possible. backgrounds, characters, some props or vehicles are covered in the project, but I understand more is required. Unfortunately, my background relying on a collaborative environment made me slower and less effective than I expected. I made the decision to focus on one story at the time and sadly I don’t feel as though I finished all three of them, but, I think I have completed the necessary amount of the requested material.

Some common themes, images, and ideas have worked their way through all three stories. The elderly characters, their dress, and certain props I wanted to be present in all of them. This as an aesthetic decision about the symbols of the stories I wanted to tell, and about the common emotions I hoped would ground each story.

The first story is ‘The Dress’ that was planned with more detail in the environments and thought of as a Cg animation film. The narration of ‘The Anniversary’ is planned as a 2D animation and I focused more on the characters in many layers, from the personality of the characters, the backgrounds (both physical and historical) and the visual style and appearance. With ‘good Memories’ I wanted to try something with a more artistic approach, but sadly I wasn’t able to achieve as much work as I wanted, and so it exists more in its infancy. The plan for that story was to work the page using heavy ink areas and watercolor. 

Some improvements

A new version of the Sheltered Deck after some comments from Kenneth Spirduso.

Thanks, much better.

Bernard's car

After looking for a car design that met the concepts, I chose the Fiat 126p as the core design, then pushed until I got this compact model that complemented the character.

Sheltered Deck

Other background design needed for the steamship was, inside the cabin class area,

the Promenade sheltered Deck.

Here are some pictures from the place around 1940's

RMS Queen Mary - Sun Deck

The next background I needed is the Game Space over the RMS Queen Mary, at the Sun Deck. There steamship is huge and now is placed in south California as an Hotel.

In the story a young lady, in a yellow dress, finds the love of her life, a young officer from the UK Royal Navy. This happened at the late 1930's so the place was brand new. I placed that scene over the game space in the Sun Deck, part of the Cabin Class or First Class. Obviously all the pictures from that time are in B&W so I had to imagine the colors or how were the new materials.

Here are some pictures how was the game space in other liners.

And here the painting.

Prop design: Steamer Trunk

One of the other important objects on the story is the Steamer Trunk that is in the Attic. Fot that once I decided the style and the design of it I modeled in Google Sketchup and over it painted in Photoshop.

What I got from Sketchup, the model I made it public here.

Some previous drawings:

 

 

Dress design

These are the tests how the dress looks like after spending many years in the trunk from the attic. Moisture, the years and some other moths have done their damage.

and found it among rugs, triggered some memories on our protagonist, pulling her back on time when the dress was in perfect conditions.

And here some of the designs ideas...

Old woman Studies

Studies for the character of The Dress

Living Room Digital Painting

And finally the Living room, so I finished all the layouts of the interior of the house.

The idea was to keep the very late evening from the window in contrast with the warm light from the fire, it was fun, but took me a day...

His Armchair is bigger, with a pattern and next to a O2 tank, on the other hand it is her chair, more rounded and compact, but keeping both in the same family by value and color. The house is from an old couple that have being living there for a long time, so tried to be very careful on the choices on the furniture and style. The meet in 1920 on a vessel and we are now 50 years later on this old style house. He was a Sailor and thats because all the pictures are ocean paintings. 

I worked to keep the consistency trough the house on the Entrance and Dining Room.

Thanks Ken for the input about the rug for the composition and Anthony for the lighting comments.

Digital Painting of the Corridor

The same house I'm designing for the story that I painted the dining Room...

and the Attic. Next and last step the Living Room.

And as usual some steps...