Category: Nuke

We Dress A Certain Way: an animator’s exploration of fashion and people watching. I found this article on It’sNiceThat about Jiaqi Wang’s street style based game, the project started out as a simple walking cycle with twelve characters wearing different outfits based on the animator’s observations of people walking down the street, but eventually transformed into a desktop game: “Sometimes it can be hard for us to connect to an audience with our art, but my making it interactive is like a warm invitation welcoming them into your world.” (Clarke, Y. A., 2024).

I messed about with the desktop version for a while to understand the game and came to the conclusion that it’s a fun and whimsical way to express the artist’s interest in street style, as well as a creative way to invite other people into her introverted world of passive observation over active engagement. I thought it was an interesting way to combine fashion and animation, and while I’m not planning on creating anything similar to this project, I recognise the importance of the starting point being something that genuinely inspires and interests me, while respecting my own limits with regards to engagement and technological ability.

Wang, J. (2024) JiaqiWang. [Screenshot] Available at: https://www.jiaqiwang.org/about/ (Accessed: 07/11/2024). My composition crowding my favourite outfits from the game together.

Yinka Ilori collection brought to life by Jon Frier’s unique stop motion basketball animation, where the basketball enters another dimension on its journey through the net. Ilori’s collection for Autumn/Winter 2023 featured this collection within a collection which was basketball themed, based on Ilori’s experiences growing up around the sport’s culture (Gorny, L. 2023). Stop motion makes sense as a creative choice for a fashion related animation, considering the ease with which textural elements can be woven into the production. I liked the silly character design of the basketball also.

On further exploration I saw that Yinka Ilori is also known for his pop-up shops, where he takes over a space with his full creative force in order to best showcase his design works for the right audience, and his use of bold, maximalist colour serves as an eye grabbing invitation to the uninformed passer by:

Ilori, Y., Reeve, E., (2023) Yinka Ilori Pop-up Shop. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/yinka-ilori-pop-up-shop-product-design-011222 (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Ilori, Y., Reeve, E., (2023) Yinka Ilori Pop-up Shop. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/yinka-ilori-pop-up-shop-product-design-011222 (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Bromley, J. (2023) Loewe X Howl’s Moving Castle. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion/inside-loewe-studio-ghibli-popup-selfridges-b1057158.html (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Loewe have been long time collaborators with Studio Ghibli to create dreamy ready-to-wear and accessories collections based on the animation studio’s most beloved characters, but also beautiful pop-ups around London to welcome these collections onto the scene.

Loewe. (2023) The installations mark the third and final collaboration between Loewe and Studio Ghibli. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/02/22/loewe-studio-ghibli-installations-selfridges-howls-moving-castle/ (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Loewe. (2023) Howl’s Moving Castle Themed Food is Served. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/02/22/loewe-studio-ghibli-installations-selfridges-howls-moving-castle/ (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Loewe. (2023) One installation features at Selfridges’ Corner Shop. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/02/22/loewe-studio-ghibli-installations-selfridges-howls-moving-castle/ (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

It’s not lost on me that these Loewe X Studio Ghibli displays are so effective due to the popularity and recognisability of the Studio Ghibli characters and scenery, but even with this in mind they are my favourite examples in this short research compilation. It’s not just the association with the Ghibli films, but their sheer commitment to bringing it to life, completely transforming the space to best feature the collections, and the whimsical juxtaposition of the titular moving castle against the cold, sterile interior of the ultra-modern Selfridges. The displays are more like set design than visual merchandising considering their scale, commitment and attention to detail.

References

Bromley, J. (2023) ‘Inside Loewe’s Studio Ghibli Pop-Up’, The Standard, 1 February, Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion/inside-loewe-studio-ghibli-popup-selfridges-b1057158.html (Accessed: 07/11/2024)

Clarke, Y.A.. (2024) It’s Nice That. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/jiaqi-wang-we-dress-a-certain-way-game-illustration-project-130324 (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Englefield, J. (2023) ‘Loewe and Studio Ghibli Create Selfridges Installations informed by Howl’s Moving Castle’, Dezeen, 22 February, Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/02/22/loewe-studio-ghibli-installations-selfridges-howls-moving-castle/ (Accessed: 07/11/2024)

Ilori, Y., Reeve, E., (2023) Yinka Ilori Pop-up Shop. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/yinka-ilori-pop-up-shop-product-design-011222 (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Jon Frier (2023) Yinka Ilori – Ojukokoro. 15 November. Available at Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp1wF7vjTas (Accessed: 07/11/2024).

Wang, J. (2024) JiaqiWang. Available at: https://www.jiaqiwang.org/about/ (Accessed: 07/11/2024)

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We also were due to receive feedback today on our projects in progress, and knowing this would be the case before entering the lesson it had truly dawned on me how far behind I was as a result of the personal difficulties I’d been trying and failing to work in spite of. As usual, though, I felt more capable after speaking to Serra about the directions my work could potentially take. Having lived in London for all of a week I’d recently explored some of the city centre, taking particular note of the changing shop displays in preparation for Christmas – a somewhat dull family tradition was checking out the Harrods and Fortnum display windows in the lead up to Christmas for their ingenuity. As a fashion illustration graduate I’m generally inspired by and interested in branding and corporate visual merchandising, and the application of 3D digital animation to these areas of industry, so I’m deciding to move my research and initial ideas in this direction.

A Dior Winter jewellery display in Harrods I particularly liked, London, November 2024

Caroline James (2023) DUTTY JUICEFINAL. 29 June. Available at: Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsPnqOLO6HQ&t=7s (Accessed: 06/11/2024).

I was shown this previous student’s work because she similarly chose to produce animated work relevant to advertising and product design. I actually love it and felt inspired by it, she created a product to be cheeky and silly, produced a fun animated feature of that product which manages to be funny, ironic and frivolous while still showcasing impressive conceptual, 3D technical and animation skills. As an LCF graduate, committing to a project like this which features product design and animation seems much more doable to me in terms of the practical undertaking, and such a project appeals to me more as someone who thinks in terms of product portfolios more than character design.

The two images above are from a 2024 campaign by Gentle Monster, a Korean eyewear brand known for their unique and intensely creative takeover of spaces for the sake of visual merchandising and setting a scene to surround their collections for pop-up sales. By entirely taking over the sales space, Gentle Monster’s innovative merchandising team invite their clients to step into their creative vision and share the inspiration behind their design ideas – it’s a more immersive version of visual merchandising, making a sensory experience of browsing the new collection.

The above three images are also from Gentle Monster’s website but depict their 2022 pop-up display commemorating their collaboration with K-pop group BlackPink’s Jennie – intended to recreate an imaginary, beautiful village scene. This example in particular stood out to me because not only is it similarly immersive like the earlier example of Gentle Monster’s work listed, but because of the level of detail and the way this scene particularly lends itself to animation – it’s easy to imagine what could be done with a 3D scene like this.

References

Caroline James (2023) DUTTY JUICEFINAL. 29 June. Available at: Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsPnqOLO6HQ&t=7s (Accessed: 06/11/2024).

Gentle Monster. (2022) 24 Jentle Garden: Gentle Monster X Jennie. Available at: https://www.gentlemonster.com/int/stories/jentle-garden/popup (Accessed: 06/11/2024).

Gentle Monster. (2024) 24 Collection Jelly Pop-Up. Available at: https://www.gentlemonster.com/int/stories/2024collection-popup?srsltid=AfmBOorZ_Bic3pC_HcrFf7xX4msw0doHtbRBaWWPVOi_34xo1sIeujyZ (Accessed: 06/11/2024).

Serra Ozdemir (2024) ‘3D Computer Animation Fundamentals: Week 7, Dynamic Lighting in UE’ [Lecture]. PU002332: 3D Computer Animation Fundamentals. London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. 6 November.

In this class we had to learn first how to load a project from the Epic Games library, then use samples from the scene to learn some of the fundamental elements of animating a complex scene in Unreal Engine.

We were also shown the difference between Possessable and Spawnable active elements (typically rigged characters) within a scene. Possessable characters are described as non-playable character type additions, and remain visible when working on other elements within the scene. Spawnable characters are the active characters, hidden from view when not an active element within a scene or aspect of the sequence being worked on.

I am unfamiliar with Unreal Engine and find the software intimidating, so I focused primarily on making sense of how to use the sequencer and got to grips with some simple controls such as camera focal length, location, zoom and rotation. I also rendered a sequence which was meant to cut between three different active cameras to demonstrate that this was something I spent time learning to do. Unfortunately, the camera cut function wasn’t doing as I asked – I noticed it wasn’t generating keyframes in the video editing sequencer but had no idea how to proceed. This is something I will return to work on at LCC (my laptop does not have enough available storage space to run Unreal Engine while I work at home).

I was reassured to get the chance to stay behind after class and speak to Serra who told me in clear terms what is expected of me in the completion of this unit, and showed me some previous students’ work as a frame of reference to aspire to. Serra also made an excellent point about choosing something familiar to me in terms of development, and as a graduate of LCF I decided to start drafting ideas based on fashion media, I started considering things I would have liked to be able to make in my previous studies as an undergraduate.