Exercise 2: Groups of figures

At the moment we are in lockdown, even if we wasn’t we still have social distancing in place, the spirit of a crowd is lost when they have a 2 metre gap between them, I had to rely on photos for this exercise, I wanted to explore the interaction between the figures, the way that space between them is reduced, sometimes uncomfortably, I searched for crowds, groups etc but they came up with some pretty generic characterless photos, I decided to be more specific, riots, paparazzi and football crowd. these came up with some imagery that offered some more drama and some characters.

Riot

Using a grey and black brush pen , I tried to capture the aggression and movement of a charging crowd, people jumping, changing direction, I attempted to use the two tonal values to suggest numbers, this is more of a quick sketch, although I feel it would make for an interesting image if I was to have worked this up further into a more finished piece.

Papparazzi

I liked this image, the way the off balanced characters all contorting and defying gravity to lean back for a well composed shot. the details here add to the bustle and the faces that aren’t obscured have a stylised sense of character. I could have easily have given these characters which are exaggerations of their real life counter parts nick names, again I would like to make a finished piece where the viewer could peruse the crowd, finding small details and hints at their characters and back story’s.

Football stand

Another quick study with brush pen, I really wanted to capture joy and movement with this image, the photograph I used while it does capture a frozen moment in time, has less to offer than a drawing that tries to show the kinetic energy of a moving shaking mass of bodies wedged together, I tried to use the two values of brush pen here to give a shaky look to it. I think back to some of the animations in my youth that used a scratchy style of animation such as rhubarb and custard or even to a lesser extent the animations by Gerald Scarfe featured in The wall, the changing lines and textures giving a moving, vibrating effect. I have added the videos below to further demonstrate the effect I was trying for.

Even when standing still the character’s seem to be moving, almost as if they are made of ants.
Pink Floyd’s the wall has also has an interesting effect due to the approach taken with the style of “textured” animation

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