1980s Collage

For my 1980s collage, I interpret two ideas from the 1980s-time period. During this time, the subways and the streets wall were targeted by illicit painters. The subways wall or the streets wall will be filled with graffiti and drawing. The NBA is also slowing gaining popularity, and basketball was becoming a popular game, so the basketball court is also an idea that I really want to add. Since the two ideas are mainly outdoors, and I feel like it’s something realistic and could blending really well, I combined them together. The basketball in the center and the griffin art wall in the background. To make the wall and the court look realistic, I need the wall to be perpendicular and straight, so it can place the wall right behind the basket, to make it look more natural. I want the color tone to be darker, to match the tone of during the 1980s. Since during that time, conflict was not unusual. The red person on the wall also represent the conflict with the hand up. For the position of the two images, I aligned the basketball court right at the center to emphasis it, and match it with the red part of the wall. The alignment is like a cross, so the audience are focus in the middle. I placed the basketball layer in the back, the wall in the front, then I selected the basket then create a vector mask. I also used the gradient tool, to blend the horizontal line. After blending the two pictures using brush tool and gradient tool on the vector mask, I created an adjustment layer to change the level to make it just a little bit darker.

Sprite 

For my background, my main theme is the basketball court, so I decided to incorporate some kind of basketball element to my Sprites. Back in the 1980s, when basketball just started to gain more popularity, people tend to think black-American were superb at playing basketball. There were no Asian American in the NBA. The players were mostly black. People tend to think that Asian American are just short, book-smart, and not as athletic. I used Stereotypes aspect of the Cultural studies as the main inspiration, so I decided to make my Sprites character Asian (anyone that’s non-black).  For my animation idea, I would make him either dribble the ball, or take a shot at the basketball net.

When I first started to design my character, I draw some sketches for a more realistic design. I have pictures for references, and ideas. However, even though I’m aiming for a realistic design, I still want my design to be simple. The main tool that I used for this project, is the pen tool. I have my drawing and some other pictures in the background as a template, then I used the pen tool to create the curves and the shapes for the body. I separated the piece into four layers, one is for the body shape, the second is for the clothes and shoes, the third is more the face, and the last is for my second Spirt the basketball. For the color of the skin, I decided to use a very light yellow, since the skin color is usually pale. I want to keep the shorts and shirt simple, so dark red, and light blue for pants and shirts. The shoes are black and white for a clean look, and light brown for the basketball. The number 23 and the Nike sign is added for more detail.

Animation

My general idea for the whole project is based on stereotype. The main character is Asian American, and people are doubting him on the ability to play basketball. Most people just assume Asian are only book smart, and can’t play. However, he proved everyone wrong by practicing, and surprised everyone with his skills.

When I first started this project, I was having trouble animating my character from my illustrator. I realized that each part of the body has to be separated into different layers, so I can animate them. So, for the first part of the process, I went back to illustrator, and separate the body part into different layer. After separating the body parts into layers, I then connect the joints together, so for example the right shoulder and elbow are connected to right elbow and hand. I connected the four limbs, and parented them to the main body, so when I move the body, the whole character moves. I used Duik plugin, to connect the limbs, and use the controllers setting, so I can move the body, and each limb separately.

After connecting, separating each limb, I moved on to the animation part. For the first part of the animation, I just make a simple walking animation to the ball. So, I keyframe position each limbs and body separately, but by doing that I have to back and forth on each body part, so the timing is correct, and the movement is smooth. For the dribbling part, I first keyframe position the hand movement up and down, to have the dribble motion, and then keyframe position the ball after, so matches with the hand, the same method is used for the shooting animation. The last part of the animation, I animated the ball up and down, to create the ball bouncing effect. I think the most difficult part of the process, is finding the right timing for each part of the limbs and the body, if the timing is off, the motion would be unrealistic and awkward.