A (Really) Brief History of Illustration - Proposal

A short proposal to sum up everything that I have already written about in the previous posts:

Proposal

A (Really) Brief History of Illustration

Assignment

One of the final assignments given to us for Context in Practice 1 is to create a short animation (That is between 10 to 30 seconds) based on one of the lectures or seminars that we have attended and taken notes from in the past.

Idea

I decided to choose Illustration as my animation topic (Seeing that the lecture about it was also one of my favorites), seeing that it was an area I had previously studied about in my previous art school, I find this to be a good opportunity to combine the two together. I found it interesting how there are near countless examples of illustration (Eg, Storybook illustrations, pottery, displays, comics, advertisements, packaging, the possibilities are endless) that sometimes they wound up blending in with other areas such as Graphic Design. But when it comes down to it, all illustrations must have a message to communicate to the audience.

My idea is to do a showcase of various examples of illustrations throughout history (While of course I will have to be selective in my choices considering the short duration given), as well the different styles and techniques that are used for them. The easiest way to present this is to do a simple animation of someone walking through a gallery and viewing the showcase, that character however will change in appearance to match time period from which the illustrations (Or the technique used) originated from.

While the animation is considered educational (And also contemporary), the target audience for this animation is for young adults and older, seeing that anyone younger might not understand it without any basic facts or exaplnations being properly provided on screen. To make things simpler, no  examples with nudity will be included.

Process

This animation will be done in Photoshop (Seeing that it will be the fastest), the background will be designed first (It will be as detailed as possible in contrast to the character), I will paint a small segment of it before duplicating it to create the required length. (The character should pass by each section in 3 seconds, so there should be ten sections in total)

Due to the limited amount of time, I wish to keep the animation as simple as possible, the walk cycle will be recycled throughout (Though a different one will be used for the caveman in the beginning), while the character will be a silhouette throughout, his clothing will change to match the illustrations, distinct clothing accessories will especially be chosen so they are still recognizable on a flatly colored silhouette.

After that, everything will be put together in After Effects.