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.