Journal 3/7/2006

My style frame didn't turn out exactly as I hoped; it looks really cartoony whereas I was hoping for more realism, and more abstract forms rather than the more defined lines in cartoons / videogame sprites. The problem was there weren't any good pictures of monsters or demons. I suppose for the final piece I can make up my own drawings and then tween them with Adobe Imageready.

I was able to use After Effects, which was a great help with the keying of the demons' faces. There are some things I should have been able to do in Photoshop, but, having just learned the procedures for After Effects, they were easier to recall than trying to relearn Photoshop.

I haven't decided whether my face is going to be abstracted or not. I think it would be easy to do with rotoscoping and layer modes; I was experimenting with these but didn't come up with anything I was happy with as of yet. I'll probably practice After Effects a little more before I really start working. I've decided I won't need green screen -- I can just rotoscope and layer the images right on top of the footage, and use feathered masks/mattes. The real difficulty is going to be animating the "characters."