Create a series of illustrations (at least three) that “narrates” a piece of recorded audio. The audio can be anything you like; movie or tv dialogue, spoken word poetry, a song, your own voice etc.

The illustrations you create will be used as keyframes for an assignment in your motion graphics course next term.

Specs: Dimensions are 720 pixels by 480 pixels (standard definition television format). The audio length can vary, but I recommend that it be between 10 – 30 seconds.

Due Date: April 9th

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There are a many free resources for the digital illustrator available online. And not just tutorials, but rights free imagery, textures, brushes, etc. Here are just a few links to check out. See this previous post for even more.

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials

Free Stock Photos – great for reference.

Free Hi Res Texture Photos – plus some great Photoshop tutorials

Free Photoshop Brushes – and more tutorials.

Free Photoshope and Illustrator Brushes – and even more tutorials.

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One of the biggest hurdles to illustrating comfortably in a digital environment is overcoming the awkward transition from drawing on paper to drawing with a pressure sensitive tablet. The following video discusses how to set up a Photoshop file and your Wacom tablet to make that transition a little easier.

Sketching in Photoshop

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Assignment: Create an editorial cover illustration for The Georgia Straight Magazine.

Choose one of the two articles from the links below and create an illustration based on that article.
Pro Olympics article
Anti Olympics article

Specs: Dimensions 10″ x 15″. Please leave room for magazine’s masthead. To be completed with either Illustrator or Photoshop. Use of the Olympic Rings logo is “okay” for this assignment only.

Please have at least two sketches for review in week 2.
To view some recent Georgia Straight covers click here.

Due Week 5 – Feb. 5th

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The following two videos discuss the creation of video for the web. The first deals with the creation of a movie, that can be played and paused (like you would find on Youtube), and then brought into Dreamweaver.

The second shows how to export video with transparency so that you could use the movie in the heading of a website or a banner ad.

Video for the Web using After Effects

Transparent Video for the Web

Filed under: After Effects, Motion Graphics, Web/Interactive Design by Shayne
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Here is a quick video describing how to export your movie from After Effects.
Exporting a Movie from After Effects

Once you’ve exported your movie you can send it to me via yousendit.com. If you can’t remember the steps to send me the video please refer back to the following video.
Sending your file via yousendit.com

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Here is a set of video tutorials to help you get started with After Effects.

Importing Illustrator file into After Effects

Animating in After Effects

Nested Animation in After Effects

Previewing Your Movie

Filed under: After Effects, Animation, Illustrator, Motion Graphics, Tutorials by Shayne
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For all of you who are just itching to start playing with After Effects, I’m working on a video introduction to the program.

For those of you who can’t wait please take a peak at this fantastic training series developed by Video Copilot. This series of 10 videos will take you through the process of learning After Effects.
Video Copilot After Effects Basic Training

The lynda.com After Effects CS4 Essential Training series is also good.

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So you’ve found the perfect sound clip, the only problem is that it’s part of a youtube video or some other media that makes it difficult to extract a usable audio file. Unfortunately the Mac OS doesn’t allow for recording of the sound your computer makes (also called system audio).

What you need is a program like Audio Hijack Pro.

Watch video on using Audio Hijack to capture audio

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Here is the first in a series of tutorials about our next assignment. The first discusses how to setup your Adobe Illustrator file.

Setting Up Your Type in Illustrator

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