27 May 2008

Metamorphosis

I've been really busy lately and I hadn't had the time to post as much as I wanted to. I was revisiting a uni project in which I've used a figure:



I love working with vectors. I like crisp, clean, clear shapes. I like things that look cartoonish. Maybe I've been spending to much time flashing. Although I've used the figure in a Flash project, I started to play with the shape in Fireworks ( I find it faster than Photoshop for simple tasks, and I just wanted to quickly explore an idea ). I was using the Edit Multiple Frames function and notices that all the frames of the animation ( a figure raising arms ) composed into something that looked liked a winged man.



(Note to self: If you compress time in image recordings the static result is more interesting than a display of images in a liniar timeline. ) Entrapping a simple figure in time allowed me to toy with it and make it go through a process of metamorphosis.




I was intrigued by the forms created from positive and negative space, so I continued. With each iteration I developed the form into something recognizable. The objects chosen came to mind as I worked through the shape.



Since I've restricted to a couple of tones I thought I should restrict myself to a handful of tools in Fireworks, just the basics: select, copy, paste, scale and repeated the process. I've intentionally left the shades of gray to reveal the simple process.



Although I've been coding a lot lately, I can't really figure out why I've chosen this method. I guess it was the digital version of playing with paper cutouts: less time, less waste but less fun also I guess.



Repetitive patterns in nature draw my attention most of the time and I still regret not paying enough attention to my Maths classes in high-school ( I've promised myself to reserve some time for Maths as well ). The next step is most likely a series of experiments in Flash, but that might take a while, because the I've still got a lot of projects to finish.



to be continued...