Practical Outcome Visual Mock ups

A very rough guide to aid my drawing

Gathering imagery from tribal ideals of masculinity (spear holding hand), Western ideals (body building, hairy & muscly body), and Chinese masculinity ideals (the head Confucius, a representative of Wen principle: literary & scholarly pursuits).

Sketching 

Having the first and last slide as this I feel confident I've conveyed a message about the state of toxic masculinity, highlighted through the imperfectness of the scanned background and the incomplete sketch, this being drawn as the slides go on I feel is a metaphor alluding to the fact that masculinity itself is a social construction, much like the fact that the drawing is only there because I am drawing it, I am creating it on the page where there was nothing, much like the way societies have constructed something out of thin air. Furthermore the hand drawn feel I think will cut through the ever increasing rise of clean digital design. This trend is so samey, whereas a more handmade approach I feel will not only stand out, but bring things back to a more personal level, connecting with people on a deeper level as it will hopefully visually stick with them, especially with an audience of Millennials who have become so accustom to digital animation.

After visualising the story board I have a lot clearer direction and feel able to start drawing as this is going to be a lengthly process. 

Drawing

 

(Excuse the poor quality due to the effect when taking pictures of a light box apparently)

I've ordered my own light box so I can continue this during the evenings as I know this will take up some time, luckily I find drawing very therapeutic! I'm using layout paper to draw all the frames on, which enables me to trace and adjust the image by centimetres each time, creating a stop motion animation effect.

Animation: Drawing process complete!

Having finished the initial drawing process, I can now review how to adapt it so it's more obvious what its about, from the feedback I received at the last peer crit, they were confused on the subject matter which makes sense as it seems to just be a strange man with multiple limbs falling off...

Reviewing the feedback I got I want to make an audio track to better explain the topic, furthermore giving context visually ties in with my essay title which I will do through use of different backgrounds behind the animation. I want to include colour theory so black, symbolising little boys in Chinese culture and blues in Western and so on, as well as different cultural ideals of masculinity that I have explored in my essay, literary and scholarly pursuits, physical prowess and aggression.

The audio track is similarly going to link my research more to my practical, I plan to take samples from the films I've written about (Die Hard and Enter The Dragon) as well as music from Elvis and Jagger. 

I'm really pleased with the fluidity of the animation so far and quality of drawings, it's a step up in terms of accuracy thanks to using fine liner. Previously I've used black biro as I've always been so used to drawing with it but in order to colour digitally which I've only recently started doing it makes sense to have cleaner more defined lines. It furthermore doesn't smudge at all which is useful as I am very prone to being clumsy.