This weekend I decided to make my props for bringing in to After Effects. I cut out all my shapes from a cardboard box and some acrylic paints to give them colour. In the case of my waves I wanted them to look painted, but in others it was just to give them colour and I don't think coloured pencils would suffice.
The results where disappointing. My skills with paint are basic at best, and I couldn't get the sea to look good. The waves certainly look painted, but the more I tried to make them look painted the more messy they looked. I used white as an under coat them did blue on top trying to get some of the white to come through but it didn't work, more like smudges of white than streaks. I used a rough cloth to try and bring some of it out but it didn't work.
The background just become a smudge of orange and yellow. I tried to texture it using different brush strokes and thickness's of the paint I applied which gives some variation but it just looks so drab. I didn't really want it to look painted, just rough but aesthetically pleasing.
My pirate ship turned out OK. The cardboard just looks so plain, it's not detailed but then again it is cardboard. It just looks a bit more plain than what I had originally planned. The same with the barrel I made. It's just not what I wanted it to look like, and not because I did something wrong but because I can't translate what's in my head on to the cardboard or through the brush.
I will view my digital options as an alternative while I think about this.
