Oil Painting/Modern Art Animation

[cgrotke]

I'm wondering if anyone has ever animated an oil painting? I've seen older computer animations where photos and paintings break apart or come together. If so, any thoughts worth sharing? Anything to avoid?

I have a modern art styled painting of an abstract person being surprised by a toy-like creature with two heads - a bird and a snake (sort of) (see https://thomasbrodhead.com/theme/chroma ... y/surprise) that I plan to do something with. The art is digitized, plus I have been sent the actual painting.

I've taken it apart and rebuilt it in layers and pieces. The background is its own layer. Each of the circles and shadows up top (and everything else), for example, are cut out on their own layers.

Things I'm pondering:

How to handle the shadows... they don't follow normal rules. You'll notice the snake shadow starts only on the grey, not blue, background.

How to handle the overlays - the hat and the ring around the snake have those color effects.

What to do with the two headed creature? The little guy is pretty obvious and easy - he can bounce around.

How to make an oil painting animation interesting? I can start with an empty scene and move all the pieces into place and have it settle. I can start with everything as it is then bring it to life. I could combine live action and animation, perhaps.

I'm in no hurry. This phase is gathering suggestions and ideas. If anything comes to mind, let me know...

c.

[synthsin75]

How to handle the shadows... they don't follow normal rules. You'll notice the snake shadow starts only on the grey, not blue, background.

It does have a shadow on the blue, but it's much closer to the blue so less offset. The background is spaced out in different z-depths.

How to handle the overlays - the hat and the ring around the snake have those color effects.

Blend modes?

[slowtiger]

(The posting title is a bit misleading - I expected something like Aleksandr Petrov's work.)

Well, this looks like a fairly simple cutout job - all elements are nicely isolated already. I'd create the shadows as a separate shape so I can control its properties.

[hayasidist]

My opinion: you need a story with a beginning, middle and end. At this stage a simple "one line" will do - and that might be all you ever need. Once you have that, you'll know which direction to take. Dealing with the colours / motion etc is a technical issue you can crack when you know if the story is about the painting being assembled then coming to life or jiggling around with minimal action or ...

Three examples from me of an aminated "painting"

• A sleepy day on a rocky landscape. The fungi are dormant. Then the red one explodes spores that wake the others. https://youtu.be/AR1rgS-eNno -- the art (done in Krita) with additional elements in Moho (the spores - the ripples on the water - ...)

• Paris prepares for the World's Fair. Seurat is taken by the half-built tower and produces his painting. https://youtu.be/sU_ijdZ0De0 -- all Moho - except the painting which I processed in PS to produce colour-separated masks

• She goes to an exhibition, expecting to see something, but discovers that "art" can be the absence of anything except your own imagination -- https://youtu.be/JwzmQMD5Q2I -- mixed live action and animation of surrealistic art - action in Moho, art in png/jpg; actress green screened and action directed knowing how she was to interact with the images (which, ofc, she could not see!). The whole comped in premiere.

And one of how to recolour a greyscale image:

• the chameleon image was originally in colour -- I used PS to convert the jpg to greyscale then used Moho (overlay blend mode) to animate the colours.. https://youtu.be/AyGucbnnLGI (oh - story: Chameleon. It wiggles and changes colour. The end. )

[cgrotke]

It is correct that on one hand it is a simple cutout. I'm looking for ways to make it a bit more than that and your suggestions (and examples to check out) all help. I am looking for that simple story, and also some twist or a way to plus it a bit more, too.

Thanks all. Having a few animators to discuss it with is more useful than talking it over with the cats. ; )

[slowtiger]

Yes, cats are terrible at storyboarding, and their timing is always a bit too fast.