Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Finding the Frame

A Reflection on Design

Once in a while you find yourself doing some work and all of a sudden “eureka” a moment of clarity comes along; well that did not happen to me last night, but what did happen was that I reintroduced myself to cropping. I was setting up the files for theses dogs illustrations and I started to play with cropping, When… the light went off and told me this is some really powerful stuff be careful. No kidding!

Sure you do the thumbnails, or at least some do, and you think I’ve got it! Then you look at the composition that you spent hours on and it just doesn’t dance, it doesn’t sing, it doesn’t even talk, it just doesn’t want to say I exist. And that hurts!

In animation it is all about story telling and I think these different cropping can illustrate how four different lines around an image can make and image sit on a wall as a print, be in a magazine, or look like a still from and animation.

These four lines are strong story telling tools.




The Dogs

This is a series of 10 illustrations for an online magazine, C-Heads, as soon as they are published I’ll post the link. They feature photographers and illustrators. I’ve seen some nice photography work on their previous issues.

I have to honesty say that this project has been a stepping stone for me. I used knowledge that I gathered in the last year, and I can see myself growing. So here are the Dogs…

A stepping stone: one of the most powerful tools that I find myself playing with is shape variety and thank god for The Illusion of Life. I have that page stuck in mind. It saved me on an incredible number of occasions, why am I saying this now? I can almost say that I’m starting to digest the idea; I feel like I’m starting to make those decisions subconsciously, and that is pure pleasure. Even more when you hear yourself saying out loud “I’m finally starting to design.”

Feed-back is more then welcome. As a matter of fact one of the basic reason for which I decided to start a blog, so be honest and let it rip.











Friday, October 13, 2006

Happy Halloween

Halloween is knocking at the door, so Happy Halloween! Here you have this year's invite to my annual Halloween festivities.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Getting Things Started

I just came back from LA and I finally decided to get this up and running. I figure that I can start by posting some of my past work. So here it is.

For those of you that want to see more this is my site www.cephalopod.tv and a pdf version of my work is at www.cephalopod.tv/portfolio/C_Asaro_Portfolio.pdf

Style Test

This is a style test for a series of posters that I will be doing in the next weeks. I was quite pleased with the production time on the test, I’m really looking forward to this project. I’ll be posting updates on this.

Life Drawing

A taste of what truly relaxes me the most. Life drawing is without any doubt the best way to go. You get better at doing, it’s fulfilling and it does not bip at you if you make a mistake, and yes it’s cordless.

One Way

A background for a short that I made this year in Halle, Germany at he European Animation Masterclass. I ended-up not using this bg, but I like the way it came out so here it is. This is the link to the short, not an oscar winning film but considering it is my first I’m quite proud. One Way

Pennyland

One of a series of posters I made for a fictitious theme park that does not exists.

Ah Ah Maquette

Here you have a sculpture of a character that I developed, there is an idea for a short behind this little guy.

Spaceman Jax

This is an idea for a TV series that I am developing on my free time, here you have the logo designs and a web screen that I made for my website.


A Monster Morning

This is an illustrated book that I wrote and illustrated about a year or so ago. Here you have the cover design, and spread.