#And then I have a point of comparison of seeing if the flats/simple renders match the feeling of that level of darkness

[thedailyvio]

Day 253

[tratserenoyreve]

Why did you think KH3 "paled in comparison to KH2" and what's so great about KH2 in your opinion?

lemme break it down like this:

-while graphic fidelity is definitely much higher in kh3, many cinematic fights are not as well choreographed as those within kh2. it often looks floatier or more rushed.

-kh3’s combat attempts to slim things down to the point that it doesn’t feel like you grow beyond just having different equipment. once you have a weapon, you can do every move it has, and every single one is floaty feeling. i often felt a lack of control when fighting in kh3, and yet that combat was absurdly easy. i only “died” once, against that annoying flying boss, due to misunderstanding it and not actually taking damage myself.

kh2 meanwhile has extensive customization possible, between drive forms, magic setup, and abilities which let you dictate even how many swings you do in a combo. the control is tight, the parries and dodges feel impactful and important to the flow of combat.

-kh3’s plot is... poorly done, in many ways. the most universally acknowledged flaw is that of how useless the disney worlds feel. there often is literally no reason for you to go to these places and as you finish each one you wind up feeling like you gained nothing as plot happens in the background on other worlds. yen sid insinuates sora needs to recover his strength but your strength never actually scales in a way that reflects this. i felt the difficulty was not there, and that i never grew more powerful.

many characters have incredibly disappointing involvment in the game too. riku is set to the side, and often rendered laughably useless. he gets a full outfit change and haircut and is still a benched character. meanwhile, kairi, who was given buildup for years of becoming more battle ready, is immediately put on a bench and then fridged *twice*.

conversely, kairi and riku were CONSTANT active influences on the plot in kh2. riku is a tangible character who is there across multiple worlds, and even becomes a teammate who fights beside you at the end. kairi is present from the start and is actively pursuing her friends herself. they are vocal and have a level of depth to their behavior and reasoning we don’t get to see at all in kh3 on any similar level.

-kh3 has better banter, but worse characters. sora interacting with donald and goofy is the cherry on top of a sundae made with sugar free ice cream and oily whipped cream. that trio is absolutely at their best in kh3, which is what highlights how neglected the destiny trio’s relationships are.

in kh2, sora, riku, and kairi were always thinking of eachother. each of them. sora was looking forward to rescuing riku and bringing him home so they could BOTH play together with kairi again. riku was defending sora and doing his best to quietly guide kairi cuz he felt guilt for, in his mind, failing BOTH of them. kairi refused to hold on to just memories of riku, upon remembering sora was determined to save him, and made sure they BOTH got home.

instead, in kh3, we have the most bizarre behavior where nomura somehow wants us to believe their friendship isn’t the same?? even tho this is after multiple events that solidified the trio’s love of one another more and more??

-i’m still traumatized by the scene-by-scene recreations of tangled and frozen, god... dammit. monsters inc. world is golden, it does what kh2 had done, take a story setting and establish a original twist involving kingdom hearts. kh2 was lengthy as hell, but at least we had frequent original involvment in each setting. i absolutely love the hollow bastion/radiant garden sections, and it is something missing entirely from kh3.

we have these worlds that are gorgeous but shallow. each one is a one-and-done deal, where, as i said before, you feel so... uninvolved and unnecessary.

-the endgame content of kh3 is so goddamn disappointing and odd. the fights are so fast and simple, with the floaty combat i both felt out of touch and untouchable. roxas literally ends the fight with saix for you. in under 20 seconds. the mob fights are conceptually cool but wind up being a cluster where you pick each member off with little resistance or fanfare. also, the behavior of the characters does not match up with the experience of play. aqua can kick vanitas to a curb in battle but then cutscene comes in and says she struggled, which i did not feel at all seeing his health melt like butter beneath the heat of my firaga.

kh2’s endgame is an aesthetic and tactile treat. the scenery is so goddamn good, the boss fights are so well spaced, and they can kick your ass too and paired with the writing every angle of it screamed ESCALATION.

there is no actual tangible escalation in kh3. just a flat line and a sudden skip to The End once you hit the Badlands.

i can ramble for ages on this i guess, i didn’t intend to be so lengthy, but really in more ways than one kh2 is just... satisfying in ways kh3 isn’t. the plot, the writing, character development, action choreography, gameplay... you feel so involved in kh2 and it is famous among livestreamers and speedrunners for good reason, its a ride, its fun, its silly and weird but makes you feel invested, its what i wish every kingdom hearts could be.

[touchmycoat]

I love you and your writing and I hope you have a wonderful day! Not sure if this is hardcore enough, but can I ask for Sabo and Ace being super possessive/jealous of Marco after they find out Marco and Shanks have a past?

ksjdfnsd hi anon filling this prompt was a Full Journey of Self-Discovery™ and that self-discovery was that a bitch! can’t! write! jealousy! you can literally pinpoint the exact moment I decided this wasn’t going to progress further without emotional resolution first ksjdnfksjdnfksdjf

So. Here it is. Marco/Ace/Sabo, past-Marco/Shanks, rated M for all kinds of grabbiness.

“It’s not that,” Sabo said, Ace’s knife pressed to Marco’s throat, “we’re jealous.”

It was a testament to the progress of their relationship, Ace thought, that Marco never even flinched. When the knife first came out, Marco might’ve even looked a bit excited, gaze like soot-strewn rocks with molten seams emerging from a forest fire. Now though, there was a dust of ashy confusion across his eyes, as his pupils searched Sabo’s face. Should I play along? the posture of his hands was telegraphing to Ace. Ace wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Of… what, yoi?” Marco finally asked, when neither lover gave him further clues. The knife sat just at the base of his Adam’s apple, angled up and lethal. But not to Marco, of course. Without the silver going black, Marco would, in a sense, remain ultimately unaffected by whatever Sabo did to him.

And that was the crux of Sabo’s upset, which Ace understood only too well. This was not a new feeling, wanting to gouge his mark upon the world. It wasn’t until Marco (and Sabo, but in a slightly different way) that Ace felt so keenly the desire to gouge his mark upon another person (after all, he and Sabo already carried each other under and over their skins—ink and scar tissue).

It was Ace who answered, tone laced with strangeness, “you and Shanks.”

The frown that twitched onto Marco’s face spoke of genuine perplexity before transforming into confounded comprehension. That was good.

“Oh—you mean…?”

In a deft and fluent motion, Sabo flipped his grip on the knife and plunged it into the wall right by Marco’s neck. Marco flinched, because Sabo had turned the knife, scoring a harsh line across Marco’s skin; the mark rapidly filled with red, but was kept from going blue.

Then, those fingers, gleaming with angry black chrome, transferred from dagger grip to Marco’s hair, knotting themselves in and yanking. Toward the blade. Its dull back bit and Marco bit too, incisors gritting in pain and defiance. Sabo was relentless—the diamond cutter’s insistent whet of gem on polishing wheel.

But Marco was no crystalline composition, just a man through and through (well—plus and minus some mythological bird bits and ocean magic bits). He was full of things like axons and myelin, while Ace, since youth, has always been pure action potential. Ace surged forward, clung flush to Marco’s torso before generously applying teeth, sharing Sabo’s mission to redden. They gave Marco marks of matching color on both sides of his neck. Fucking red all over.

Marco’s first gasps came out shocked. A hint of pleasure. However, the noises quickly deepened to affront.

“He told you?” Genuine aggravation was such an uncommon and delicious tone on Marco. Ace felt like he could eat it up directly, tongue lapping right against the buzzing vocal chords. Marco didn’t mean, of course, the simple fact that he and Shanks had slept together. He meant—

“Every detail,” Sabo confirmed. When Shanks had been the one here (alone; it took two of them to fill one Yonko’s sandals), it hadn’t been a small dagger, but the whole of Shanks’ sword. Ace worked really, really hard to not think about the symbolic comparison.

“We asked him to,” Ace added in a sullen mutter against Marco’s collarbone. Remembering Shanks’ tale, told to him and Sabo over drinks, Ace quickly plunged a hand down the back of Marco’s trousers. Buried his fingers into flesh until a groan stuttered out of Marco. “We had to know.”

“There’s nothing to—”

Marco’s denial stuttered out with a dull dark flush; he didn’t make a habit of lying to his lovers. He got a pinch on the ass for it from Ace, and Sabo tugged at his hand until it obliged the direction, curling over the back of Ace’s neck.

“He said,” Sabo reminded as Ace felt the grounding sting of his hair being pulled, “you were rough.”

“Did he now.”

“He said,” Ace’s turn, nails scoring in four jagged aisles down the center of Marco’s chest before rubbing warmly at his belly, “you only got gentle in the end. Was that how you wanted the second time to go?”

“Would you have kissed his wounds better?” Sabo muttered as he did just that. Finally relenting his grip, Sabo’s mouth now found the knife mark he’d painted on. From where Ace held himself against Marco he could see warm blood under Marco’s skin touching one side of Sabo’s lips, cold steel the other. He could see the soot-eyed slip of tongue filling the gap between.

Breathing beneath him, Marco shuddered in and out of focus. The hand Sabo placed on Ace wasn’t pulling, instead cupping, a warm sheath of need holding Ace close. Marco’s other hand had found its way to Sabo’s belt, fingers hooked in and clinging. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t rough; they’d deviated from the script of Shanks.

“I was—” Marco once again fizzled out, his frustrated sigh sounding like water poured over burning charcoal. “If he told you everything yoi, then you know.”

“Do we?”

The tone of conversation had taken such a turn that Ace had to pull both hands free of Marco—for just a moment. Marco’s wrist though, soon fit snugly in his grip, and Ace pressed a discontented kiss to the center of Marco’s palm.

“You wanted—” The dagger came out of the wall with a generous jerk from Sabo, and it felt like the opening of veranda doors. Everyone all suddenly had more exits, should they need one. Marco looked peculiar, while Sabo looked hunted. Ace wondered what his own expression told them. “—a second time. Unless he lied.”

The roll of Marco’s eyes, when it came, was long-suffering, and in that, intimate. It did nothing to calm the race of Ace’s heart.

“He doesn’t lie.” Years. It must’ve taken years for that tone of Marco’s, when talking about Shanks, to ferment. Uncorked, the sound was so cloying that it put a frown on Ace’s brow, a sneer on Sabo’s lips.

Marco must’ve caught the unhappy scent too. Splitting a pleading look between Ace and Sabo, he kept his hold on both their bodies, willing them not to take off.

“Alright,” he exhaled. “He’s got his turn, is it mine now yoi? Every detail.”

They—the three of them—were way past the point where every little dissatisfaction, every seam of insecurity rendered a frighteningly brittle portrait of their futurity. Ace had to make sure Marco knew that they knew this though, so gathered Sabo in one arm and crowded them all much closer. Like seabirds huddling for warmth, an alcove habitat of surviving tissue.

“Yes, it’s true.” Marco sounded much more settled now, and Ace could take comfort in that. “I offered a second time yoi. I offered more than a second time. He turned me down.

“But it wasn’t—” The continuation was insistent, though not too emphatic that Ace would doubt the earnest entreatment of Marco’s hands, Marco’s eyes. “—something large. The way Red Hair wanted me was as an opponent yoi, and the way he treats his opponents and rivals? Like they’re not that at all. Just look at Mihawk.” It’s not like this was a painless interlude in Marco’s life though, both Ace and Sabo could tell. They silently offered support in the still of their bodies, and Marco peeled away from the wall, leaning gratefully in. “That’s not something I can stand, not for a serious relationship. I knew that going in, I did. But I offered anyways.”

“But only,” Sabo added on slowly, “the smallest slice of feeling you could give, ‘cause you knew it probably wouldn’t work out?”

That got a chuckle out of Marco, all three of them feeling the vibrating sound waves in their touching chests. “I do try to be careful, yoi.”

“Actually,” Ace confessed, “Shanks told us you’re the one who turned him down that second time.”

“He would put it like that, wouldn’t he?” That eye roll again. Ace felt a bit better prepared to weather it this time.

“But we knew, right?” This was the same, unspoken knowing Marco had been the first to bring up. “We could read between the lines. We know you.”

We know you fell for him, and you turned down his offer of a second night stand to protect yourself.

“Yeah—” A dark flush had crept its way up to Marco’s ears, and Ace traded incredulous looks with Sabo when Marco glanced off sharply to the side. “—but it’s embarrassing more than anything else, yoi. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re right. Falling for Shanks is embarrassing,” Ace and Sabo managed to say in perfect synchronized stereo. What followed was a truly violent scuffle as Marco went full phoenix and tried to fling himself out the nearest window; Ace became a blockading wall of fire, while Sabo just fully jumped on Marco’s back to wrestle the bird back to earth. Even after he was pinned, Marco maintained all his dangerous talonpoints until Ace, exasperated, plopped a kiss to the top of his head.

“Okay, so we were a little jealous. But it’s fine. We get it now.”

Since Sabo was still sitting on him like a huge, self-satisfied cat, Marco just kept lying flat on his front, forehead and nose mashed to the ground.

“Do you.”

“I mean, we’d fuck him too,” Sabo shrugged. The speed at which Marco’s head shot up and the sheer temperature of the glare he shot Sabo were what finally soothed the last dredges of insecurity in Ace’s chest.

“Don’t you dare, yoi.”

But Sabo wasn’t going to be cowed by Marco; there was still something he wanted. Setting his knees on either side of Marco, Sabo pulled Marco up by the lapels, and Ace wordlessly slipped in from behind.

“Only if you make it up to us.”

“Make it up to you for sleeping with Shanks once, before I’ve even met either of you?” The words were sarcastic, but Ace heard only intrigue in Marco’s tone. He slid a hand back down Marco’s pants, the front this time.

“Shanks told us you left marks on him that didn’t go away for weeks,” Ace whispered conspiratorially into Marco’s ear. “Sabo’s been huffy after that.”

“Huffy,” Sabo scoffed, as his hands traced Marco’s neck. The transformation into phoenix had successfully rid Marco of all previous marks. When Sabo ducked it under Marco’s jaw, it was only to lick, not to leave more red. “I’m only trying to right a grievous injustice.”

“Revolutionary,” both Ace and Marco muttered, in matching tones of faux-sympathy.

“…Well.” The way Marco shifted between them felt like the relighting of a pilot flame. Ace saw Sabo being pulled closer by a hand on his back, and felt a matching grip on his own thigh. With a sinuous grind back into Ace’s hips, Marco pulled Sabo down into a kiss generous with tongue and suction. Ace conveyed his own pleasure at this sight with a stroke of his hands, and felt Marco sigh against his chest.

And then Ace, impatience getting the better of him, took a handful of Sabo’s hair. He pulled, and Marco laughed, obliging the order to get on with it already, applying teeth to throat.

“I’m sure we can fix that, yoi.”

[shailendrablr]

7 key principles that make a web design good

1. Keep your design balanced.

2. Use the network to compartmentize your design.

3. Choose some base color for your design.

4. Try to make graphics together well.

5. Improve the typography of your website.

6. The elements emerged by including the zeros area around them.

7. All elements are connected.

Everyone and their grandfather (and canine) now have a website. The web is fast becoming increasingly busy, in fact many websites are being included as you have read this article. The majority are getting to see between the parties.

Without a doubt, web design is an imaginative process for a huge degree and in this way more workmanship can be called science. But since it is naturally a mechanism of introduction, some standards (or possibly standard) apply. By following some straight points, one should most likely to create an externally satisfactory design and defame one close proximity. Okay, this is not so basic, and the potential and experience make a difference, however no one can turn their landing page into something prettier within minutes.

So, what's cute? It's not Flash. To say that there is no validity of the flash, rather Flash alone does not make a design decent; Some awesome flash websites are out. Similarly, creating an attractive design does not have to be an incredible artist. Instead, see web design as a beneficial interaction of various elements. No single component does most checks; Rather, the completeness of elements makes a design fabulous.

1. Keep your design balanced.

Balance is connected to the fact that your design does not tip on one side or the other. It resembles the balance of load in completing homogeneity or inequality.

Examples:

Take a Gander in the Canine in the realm of the lost header of the Subtract website of Khoie Vinh. I took this example from Jason Beard from The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. Jason indicates how the cross makes for extra visible loads, which gives the puppy to the left. It is not yet irrelevant. See the cross with your hands and hide it with your hands.

This is what we call Lope Balance, and this is the thing about which is balance. In case you are not cautious about how you spread things, the design will become increasingly unbalanced. You can control the visual load of the design from many points, for example, with the expansion or removal of shading, measurement and elements. If you try to make a cross in some way, then say energetic orange, it will be very heavy and will probably make the format stand again. Balancing the complete loops is a particularly sensitive issue that separates the opportunity of adjusting and to actually draw the eye ready to a certain extent.

Here is another case of symmetric balance below, this one by The First Twenty. Regardless of the fact that the header is realistically balanced (will you be able to figure out how it is done?), Whatever the remains of the design are symmetric sections. More work can be done to pull the toopy-turvy balance, though it will normally make a design progressively difficult.

You will find that you think every design is very good, a very built balance is fundamental. Apart from this, every design is highlighted on each of the seven standards we have tested. So, stay for a moment and see everyone with their eyes, because they are all martial.

2. Use the lattice to compartmentize your design:

The idea of ​​latitude is strongly identified with balance. The matrices are the progress of flat and vertical rulers that help you to "compartmentize" a design. Consider the sections. Sections enhance consistency, simplifying the content of a page to maintain it. Using dieting and rules of thords (or comparative golden ratio) reduces eye on demand.

For example, the rule of Thords and Golden Ratios shows why the sidebar is about 33% of the width of the page and the basic matter area is generally equal to the width of the design divided by 1.62 (equivalent to phi in science). Why would we do this, it will not be noticed, yet it seems that it is stable. It is additionally that the subjects in pictures taken by the specialist are not normally placed at the crossing point of a nine-square framework (three by three, two even and two vertical lines) in the center.

Examples:

The matrix gives loans specifically to medium designs themselves. Why Derek Puns Allen Performs 5 Thirty-One:

While the design is not externally great in itself, the precise organizing of the elements makes it simple on the eyes. The left section is generally doubled in the right sidebar, which only makes sense and there is something to consider when creating your own design.

3. Choose some base color for your design:

Consider this possibility that you changed the Base Red on the First Twenty website (above) to lure the green. Would it look great? No doubt. Since there is no space with the same shading palette (and clearly not the easiest shading to work with lime green color). For example, there are color lover, which should be as it should be. You cannot just blow your color Rambo-style, firearms. Some colors look good together, not others. There is a large part of the connotations on the colors and their blends, including monochrome and traditions on different plans, yet one-ton boils for a good decision and it is a pull for it.

Find for yourself who collaborates. Under the circumstances, any number of websites can be designed, for example, include those who have been included on any website such as the CSS Website website (Best Web Gallery), so that it can be known as color one How to collaborate with others. Choose some base colors for your design, and then use tint (which are mild, mixed with white) and colors (which are dark in color, mixed with these base colors) for the palette where Are important.

Examples:

Bains Kucson's website has its own shading scheme style. It is essentially monochromatic (colors and colors of bisexual shading) and colorless (excessive contrast) with a shading (red) to emerge:

Excessive asymmetry passes on the chic and the specialist, while the red contains flavor, which emerges some elements and looks sluggish by designing the design; Obviously, something other than Lal makes this design intriguing. Incidentally, an organization specifically promoted this style.

4. Try to run graphics together well:

Well, incredible design does not need to be bothered with extraordinary graphics. Nevertheless, bad graphics will harm a design. Graphics add to the visual message. Websites like web designer wall have remarkable settings, while others have been downplayed.

Examples:

Tim Van Damme uses a bunch of graphics on his website Max Volter, though he executes them with the best ideas and care. There are two non-Nose foundations and a sophisticated crown graphics. Outwardly, they are not very surprising, but they all add to the look and feel of the website, and no place is a weird one.

For quite a while, Max Volter has appeared in comparison to an unexpected design. In any case, for two months which it was on the web, it was effectively one of my top picks. With these lines and in the light of the fact that the use of graphics is so laudable, I chose it on the latest rendering.

5. Increase the typography of your website:

The characteristic of the sort is a precarious topic to discuss in light of this fact that it includes such important elements. Although it can be seen very well as a part of the design, a person can spend the majority of his vision for a lifetime. It is not a place to give a total typographic context, so we will keep our discourse limited to the time that will benefit you for the time.

6. Make the elements stand out by adding white space around them:

What to do with white space, or negative location, what is not there? Like measurements and pioneers, white space gives some breathing room and spatial peace to the text. You can make the elements stand out by adding white space around them. For example, copy should not be tight. To ensure readability, make sure there is enough padding in the paragraph.

Perfume advertising - or any advertisement for a luxury product for that matter - is known for the use of white space ... its weight; And a serif typeface for good measure.

Examples:

I think its time for a shameless plug. The screenshot above is my own website Shift (px). The structure depends intensely on typography and blank area. White space probably takes about 50% of the page. White space is one of the easiest (because you are not really adding anything, are you?) And the most effective ways to create a visually pleasing and readable design.

White space adds a lot of classes to a design. Do not be afraid to leave some holes open, even the interval too. Inexpensive designers are tempted to put something in every small corner. The design is about communicating a message. Therefore, design elements should support this message, and not add noise to it.

7. All elements are connected:

The connection here refers to a web design that has both unity and stability. These two features display the professionalism of a design (and thus its designer). They have very extensive properties. One design should be in line with the use of its colors, in the range of fonts, with its icon, etc. All these aspects; A design may look great and still suffers from anomalies.

When a design is inconsistent, its unity on the user can be lost. Unity is slightly different from stability. Unity implies how different elements interact in a design and fit together. For example, do colors and graphics match? Does everything contribute to an integrated message? On the other hand, consistency is found between the pages of a design.

Unity is probably more important than both. Without unity, it is hard to be a good design. Incompatibility, although it may seem a bit "slimy", cannot make design "bad".

Of the seven principles addressed in this article, the connection is most important. The connection is to do how all the elements come together: balance, grid, color, graphics, type and white space. It's like a glue that binds everything together. Without this glue, the design is different. You may have a beautiful type and a great and carefully chosen color palette, but if the graphics are awesome or just do not match or if everything is crammed together, the design will fail.

This is the hardest part of designing. It is not something that can easily be taught or read as necessary. A little natural ability and experience is required. But this is what it is, and it finally looks a good design.

Examples:

We praised Nick La's web designer Wall because of its cute graphics, but this is a good example of connection. When you normally look at graphics and style in general, then everything is a hand drawn water color: images of images, background color images, hand-made doodles and icons, pole Styling, and prompt Meditation on detail makes this design excellent.

Great website architecture isn't constrained to the seven key standards talked about here. Aspects like accessibility, readability and usability also play a role.

This is why web design is so hard. Wetting your feet in design is easy, especially today, so many content management systems, blogging tools and themes are easily available. But actually, it takes time to master all facets of web design and, let's be honest, talent. The ability to prepare beautiful designs is just one aspect, but one is important.

Thursday 31 Jan 2019

[lindyhunt]

The Ultimate Guide to SEO in 2018

What is the first thing you do when you need new marketing ideas? What about when you decide it’s time to change the way you keep the books finally? Or even notice a flat tire in the car?

My guess, you turn to Google.

But did you know that 89% of B2B buyers and 81% of online shoppers do the same?

Faced with a problem, challenge or even a choice, they google it. Simply.

And so, it’s a cold, harsh truth that without at least some presence in Google, your business is unlikely to survive long.

In this guide, you’ll discover a strategy to build this presence – Search Engine Optimization (SEO.)

You’ll learn what SEO is, how it works, and what you must do to position your site in search engine results.

But before we begin, I want to reassure you of something.

So many resources make SEO complex. They scare readers with technical jargon, focus on advanced elements, and rarely explain anything beyond theory.

I promise you, this guide isn’t like that.

In the following pages, I’m going to break SEO into its most basic parts and show you how to use all its elements to construct a successful SEO strategy. (And to stay up-to-date on SEO strategy and trends, check out HubSpot's Skill Up podcast.)

Keep on reading to understand SEO, or jump ahead to the section that interests you most.

When asked to explain what SEO is, I often choose to call it a strategy to ensure that when someone googles your product or service category, they find your website.

But this simplifies the discipline a bit. It doesn’t take elements like different customer information needs into consideration. However, it does reveal its essence.

In short, SEO drives two things — rankings and visibility.

Rankings

This is a process that search engines use to determine where to place a particular web page in SERPs.

Visibility

This term describes how prominent a particular domain is in search engine results. With high visibility, your domain is prominent in SERPs. Lower search visibility occurs when a domain isn’t visible for many relevant search queries.

Both are responsible for delivering the main SEO objectives – traffic and conversions.

There is one more reason why you should be using SEO.

The discipline helps you position your brand throughout almost the entire buying journey.

In turn, it can ensure that your marketing strategies match the new buying behavior.

Because, as Google admitted themselves – customer behavior has changed forever.

Today, more people use search engines to find products or services than any other marketing channel. 18% more shoppers choose Google over Amazon. 136% more prefer the search engine to other retail websites. And B2B buyers conduct up to 12 searches, on average, before engaging with a brand.

What's more, they prefer going through the majority of the buying process on their own.

For example, in recent survey from HubSpot Research, we found that 77% people research a brand before engaging with it.

Forrester revealed that 60% of customers do not want any interaction with salespeople. Further, 68% prefer to research on their own. And 62% have developed their own criteria to select the right vendor.

What’s more, this process has never been more complicated.

Source: Forrester Research

Finally, DemandGen’s 2017 B2B Buyer’s Survey found that 61% of B2B buyers start the buying process with a broad web search. In comparison, only 56% go directly to a vendor’s website.

But how do they use search engines during the process?  

Early in the process, they use Google to find information about their problem. Some also inquire about potential solutions.

Then, they evaluate available alternatives based on reviews or social media hype before inquiring with a company. But this happens after they’ve exhausted all information sources.

And so, the only chance for customers to notice and consider you is by showing up in their search results.

How Does Google Know How to Rank a Page?

Search engines have a single goal only. They aim to provide users with the most relevant answers or information.

Every time you use them, their algorithms choose pages that are the most relevant to your query. And then, rank them, displaying the most authoritative or popular ones first.

To deliver the right information to users, search engines analyze two factors:

Relevancy between the search query and the content on a page. Search engines assess it by various factors like topic or keywords.  

Authority, measured by a website’s popularity on the Internet. Google assumes that the more popular a page or resource is, the more valuable is its content to readers.

And to analyze all this information they use complex equations calledsearch algorithms.

Search engines keep their algorithms secret. But over time, SEOs have identified some of the factors they consider when ranking a page. We refer to them as ranking factors, and they are the focus of an SEO strategy.

As you’ll shortly see, adding more content, optimizing image filenames, or improving internal links can affect your rankings and search visibility. And that’s because each of those actions improves a ranking factor.

Three Core Components of a Strong SEO Strategy

To optimize a site, you need to improve ranking factors in three areas — technical website setup, content, and links. So, let’s go through them in turn.

1. Technical Setup

For your website to rank, three things must happen:

First, a search engine needs find your pages on the Web.

Then, it must scan them to understand their topics and identify their keywords.

And finally, it needs to add them to its index — a database of all the content it has found on the web. This way, its algorithm can consider displaying your website for relevant queries.

Seem simple, doesn’t it? Certainly, nothing to worry about. After all, since you can visit your site without any problem, so should Google, right?

Unfortunately, there is a catch. A web page looks different for you and the search engine. You see it as a collection of graphics, colors, text with its formatting, and links.

To a search engine, it’s nothing but text.

As a result, any elements it cannot render this way remain invisible to the search engine. And so, in spite of your website looking fine to you, Google might find its content inaccessible.

Let me show you an example. Here’s how a typical search engine sees one of our articles. It’s this one, by the way, if you want to compare it with the original.

Notice some things about it:

The page is just text. Although we carefully designed it, the only elements a search engine sees are text and links.

As a result, it cannot see an image on the page (note the element marked with an arrow.) It only recognizes its name. If that image contained an important keyword we’d want the page to rank for, it would be invisible to the search engine.

(Pro Tip: If you want to see how search engines see your pages, use this free tool – SEO Browser.)

That’s where technical setup, also called on-site optimization, comes in.

It ensures that your website and pages allow Google to scan and index them without any problems.

And the most important factors affecting it include:

Website navigation and links

Search engines crawl sites just like you would. They follow links. Search engine crawlers land on a page and use links to find other content to analyze. But as you’ve seen above, they cannot see images. So, set the navigation and links as text-only.

Simple URL structure

Search engines don’t like reading lengthy strings of words with complex structure. So, if possible, keep your URLs short. Set them up to include as little beyond the main keyword for which you want to optimize the page, as possible.

Page speed

Search engines, use the load time — the time it takes for a user to be able to read the page — as an indicator of quality. Many website elements can affect it. Image size, for example. Use Google’s Page Speed Insights Tool for suggestions how to improve your pages.

Dead links or broken redirects

A dead link sends a visitor to a nonexistent page. A broken redirect points to a resource that might no longer be there. Both provide poor user experience but also, prevent search engines from indexing your content.

Sitemap and Robots.txt files

A sitemap is a simple file that lists all URLs on your site. Search engines use it to identify what pages to crawl and index. A robots.txt file, on the other hand, tells search engines what content not to index (for example, specific policy pages you don’t want to appear in search.) Create both to speed up crawling and indexing of your content.

Duplicate content

Pages containing identical or quite similar content confuse search engines. They often find it near impossible to determine what content they should display in search results. For that reason, search engines consider duplicate content as a negative factor. And upon finding it, can penalize a website by not displaying any of those pages at all.

2. Content

Every time you use a search engine, you’re looking for content — information on a particular issue or problem, for example.

True, this content might come in different formats. It could be text, like a blog post or a web page. But it could also be a video, product recommendation, and even a business listing.

It’s all content.

And for SEO, it’s what helps gain greater search visibility.

Here are two reasons why:

For one, content is what customers want when searching. Regardless of what they’re looking for, it’s content that provides it. And the more of it you publish, the higher your chance for greater search visibility.

But also, search engines use content to determine how to rank a page. It’s the idea of relevance between a page and a person’s search query that we talked about earlier.

While crawling a page, they determine its topic. Analyzing elements like page length or its structure helps them assess its quality. Based on this information, search algorithms can match a person’s query with pages they consider the most relevant to it.

The process of optimizing content begins with keyword research.

Keyword Research

SEO is not about getting any visitors to the site. You want to attract people who need what you sell and can become leads, and later, customers.

However, that’s possible only if it ranks for the keywords those people would use when searching. Otherwise, there’s no chance they’d ever find you. And that’s even if your website appeared at the top of the search results.

That’s why SEO work starts with discovering what phrases potential buyers enter into search engines.

The process typically involves identifying terms and topics relevant to your business. Then, converting them into initial keywords. And finally, conducting extensive research to uncover related terms your audience would use.

We’ve published a thorough guide to keyword research for beginners. It lays out the keyword research process in detail. Use it to identify search terms you should be targeting.  

With a list of keywords at hand, the next step is to optimize your content. SEOs refer to this process as on-page optimization.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization, also called on-page SEO, ensures that search engines a.) understand a page’s topic and keywords, and b.) can match it to relevant searches.

Note, I said “page” not content. That’s because, although the bulk of on-page SEO work focuses on the words you use, it extends to optimizing some elements in the code.

You may have heard about some of them — meta-tags like title or description are two most popular ones. But there are more. So, here’s a list of the most crucial on-page optimization actions to take.

Note: Since blog content prevails on most websites, when speaking of those factors, I’ll focus on blog SEO — optimizing blog posts for relevant keywords. However, all this advice is equally valid for other page types too.

i. Keyword Optimization

First, ensure that Google understands what keywords you want this page to rank. To achieve that, make sure you include at least the main keyword in the following:

Post’s title: Ideally, place it as close to the start of the title. Google is known to put more value on words at the start of the headline.

URL: Your page’s web address should also include the keyword. Ideally, including nothing else. Also, remove any stop words.

H1 Tag: In most content management systems, this tag displays the title of the page by default. However, make sure that your platform doesn’t use a different setting.

The first 100 words (or the first paragraph) of content: Finding the keyword at the start of your blog post will reassure Google that this is, in fact, the page’s topic.

Meta-title and meta-description tags: Search engines use these two code elements to display their listings. They display meta-title as the search listing’s title. Meta-description provides content for the little blurb below it. But above that, they use both to understand the page’s topic further.

Image file names and ALT tags: Remember how search engines see graphics on a page? They can only see their file names. So, make sure that at least one of the images contains the keyword in the file name.

The alt tag, on the other hand, is text browsers display instead of an image (for visually impaired visitors.) However, since ALT tag resides in the image code, search engines use it as a relevancy signal as well.

Also, add semantic keywords — variations or synonyms of your keyword. Google and other search engines use them to determine a page’s relevancy better.

Let me illustrate this with a quick example. Let’s pretend that your main keyword is “Apple.” But do you mean the fruit or the tech giant behind the iPhone?

Now, imagine what happens when Google finds terms like sugar, orchard, or cider in the copy? The choice what queries to rank it for would immediately become obvious, right?

That’s what semantic keywords do. Add them to ensure that your page doesn’t start showing up for irrelevant searches.

ii. Non-Keyword-Related On-Page Optimization Factors

On-page SEO is not just about sprinkling keywords across the page. The factors below help confirm a page’s credibility and authority too:

External links: Linking out to other, relevant pages on the topic helps Google determine its topic further. Plus, it provides a good user experience. How?  By positioning your content as a valuable resource.

Internal links: Those links help you boost rankings in two ways. One, they allow search engines to find and crawl other pages on the site. And two, they show semantic relations between various pages, helping to determine its relevance to the search query better. As a rule, you should include at least 2-4 internal links per blog post.

Content’s length: Long content typically ranks better. That’s because, if done well, a longer blog post will always contain more exhaustive information on the topic.

Multimedia: Although not a requirement, multimedia elements like videos, diagrams, audio players can signal a page’s quality. It keeps readers on a page for longer. And in turn, it signals that they find the content valuable and worth perusing.

3. Links

From what you’ve read in this guide so far, you know that no page will rank without two factors — relevance and authority.

In their quest to provide users with the most accurate answers, Google and other search engines prioritize pages they consider the most relevant to their queries but also, popular.

The first two areas — technical setup and content — focused on increasing relevancy (though I admit, some of their elements can also help highlight the authority.)

Links, however, are responsible for popularity.

But before we talk more about how they work, here’s what SEOs mean when talking about links.

What Is a Backlink?

Links, also called backlinks, are references to your content on other websites. Every time another website mentions and points their readers to your content, you gain a backlink to your site.

For example, this article in Entrepreneur.com mentions our marketing statistics page. It also links to it allowing their readers to see other stats than the one quoted.

Google uses quantity and quality of links like this as a signal of a website’s authority. Its logic behind it is that webmasters would reference a popular and high-quality website more often than a mediocre one.

But note that I mentioned links quality as well. That’s because not all links are the same. Some — low-quality ones — can impact your rankings negatively.

Links Quality Factors

Low quality or suspicious links — for example, ones that Google would consider as built deliberately to make it consider a site as more authoritative — might reduce your rankings.

That’s why, when building links, SEOs focus not on building any links. They aim to generate the highest quality references possible.

Naturally, just like with the search algorithm, we don’t know what factors determine a link’s quality, specifically. However, over time, SEOs discovered some of them:

The popularity of a linking site: Any link from a domain that search engines consider an authority will naturally have high quality. In other words, links from websites that have good quality links pointing to them, work better.

Topic relevance: Links from domains on a topic similar to yours will carry more authority than those from random websites.

Trust in a domain: Just like with popularity, search engines also assess a website’s trust. Links from more trustworthy sites will always impact rankings better.

Link Building

In SEO, we refer to the process of acquiring new backlinks as link building. And as many practitioners admit, it can be a challenging activity.

Link building, if you want to do it well, requires creativity, strategic thinking, and patience. To generate quality links, you need to come up with a link building strategy. And that’s no small feat.

Remember, your links must pass various quality criteria. Plus, it can’t be obvious to search engines that you’ve built them deliberately.

Here are some strategies to do it:

Editorial, organic links. These backlinks come from websites that reference your content on their own.

Outreach. In this strategy, you contact other websites for links. This can happen in many ways. You could create an amazing piece of content, and email them to tell them about it. In turn, if they find it valuable, they’ll reference it. You can also suggest where they could link to it.

Guest posting. Guest posts are blog articles that you publish on third-party websites. In turn, those companies often allow including one or two links to your site in the content and author bio.

Profile links. Finally, many websites offer an opportunity to create a link. Online profiles are a good example. Often, when setting up such profile, you can also list your website there as well. Not all such links carry strong authority, but some might. And given the ease of creating them, they’re worth pursuing.

Competitive analysis. Finally, many SEOs regularly analyze their competitors’ backlinks to identify those they could recreate for their sites too.

Now, if you’re still here with me, then you’ve just discovered what’s responsible for your site’s success in search.

The next step, then, is figuring out whether your efforts are working.

How to Monitor & Track SEO Results

Technical setup, content, and links are critical to getting a website into the search results. Monitoring your efforts helps improve your strategy further.

Measuring SEO success means tracking data about traffic, engagement, and links. And though, most companies develop their own sets of SEO KPIs (key performance indicators), here are the most common ones:

Organic traffic growth

Keyword rankings (split into branded and non-branded terms)

Conversions from organic traffic

Average time on page and the bounce rate

Top landing pages attracting organic traffic

Number of indexed pages

Links growth (including new and lost links)

Local SEO

Up until now, we focused on getting a site rank in search results in general. If you run a local business, however, Google also lets you position it in front of potential customers in your area, specifically. But for that, you use local SEO.

And it’s well worth it.

97% of customers use search engines to find local information. They look for vendor suggestions, and even specific business addresses. In fact, 12% of customers look for local business information every day.

What’s more, they act on this information: 75% of searchers visit a local store or company’s premises within 24 hours of the search.

But hold on, is local SEO different from what we’ve been talking all along?

Yes and no.

Search engines follow similar principles for both local and global rankings. But given that they position a site for specific, location-based results, they need to analyze some other ranking factors too.

Local search results look different too:

They appear only for searches with a local intent (for example, “restaurant near me” or when a person clearly defined the location.)

They contain results specific to a relevant location.

They concentrate on delivering specific information to users that they don’t need to go anywhere else to find.

They target smartphone users primarily as local searches occur more often on mobile devices.

For example, a local pack, the most prominent element of local results, includes almost all information a person would need to choose a business. For example, here are local results Google displays for the phrase “best restaurant in Boston.”

Note that these results contain no links to any content. Instead, they include a list of restaurants in the area, a map to show their locations, and additional information about each:

Business name

Description

Image

Opening hours

Star Reviews

Address

Often, they also include a company’s phone number or website address.

All this information combined helps customers choose which business to engage. But it also allows Google to determine how to rank it.

Local Search Ranking Factors

When analyzing local websites, Google looks at the proximity to a searcher’s location. With the rise of local searches containing the phrase, “near me,” it’s only fair that Google will try to present the closest businesses first.

Keywords are essential for local SEO too. However, one additional element of on-page optimization is the presence of a company’s name, address, and phone number of a page. In local SEO, we refer to it as the NAP.

Again, it makes sense, as the search engine needs a way to assess the company’s location.

Google assesses authority in local search not just by links. Reviews and citations (references of a business’s address or a phone number online) highlight its authority too.

Finally, the information a business includes in Google My Business — the search engine’s platform for managing local business listings — plays a huge part in its rankings.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg. But they are the ones to get right first if you want your business to rank well in local search.

What is Black Hat SEO?

The final aspect of SEO I want to highlight to you is something I also hope you’ll never get tempted to use. I mean it.

Because, although it might have its lure, using black hat SEO typically ends in a penalty from search listings.

Black hat practices aim at manipulating search engine algorithms using strategies against search engine guidelines. The most common black hat techniques include keyword stuffing, cloaking (hiding keywords in code so that users don’t see them, but search engines do,) and buying links.

So, why would someone use black hat SEO? For one, because, often, ranking a site following Google’s guidelines takes time. Long time, in fact.

Black hat strategies let you cut down the complexity of link building, for example. Keyword stuffing allows to rank one page for many keywords, without having to create more content assets.

But as said, getting caught often results in a site being completely wiped out from search listings.

And the reason I mention it here is that I want you to realize that there are no shortcuts in SEO. And be aware of anyone suggesting strategies that might seem too good to be true.

SEO Resources & Training

This guide is just a starting point for discovering SEO. But there’s much more to learn.

Here are online training resources to try next:

The Hubspot SEO Academy

Google Analytics Course

SEO That Works course

You can also pick SEO knowledge from industry experts and their blogs. Here are some worth reading:

SEMrush

MOZ

Yoast

BrightLocal (local SEO advice)

Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Watch

Search Engine Land

Bruce Clay Inc.

Over To You

Without actively positioning its content in search results, no business can survive long.

By increasing your search visibility, you can bring more visitors, and in turn, conversions and sales. And that's well worth the time spent becoming an expert in SEO. 

[zak-graphicarts]

‘Mugen’ Analogue Experiment

In this session, I’m creating a flashing character design walk cycle, inspired by the works of animator Oscar Barany.

In response to my research into freelance animator Oscar Barany, I wanted to create a flashing character walk cycle, inspired by his ‘Mugen’ example. 

The sequence is essentially a one-man exquisite corpse of exciting and rich character designs, drawn digitally in photoshop. Oringially, I had assumed the artist used the program to create the actual animation, but after chatting online, I found out that this wasn’t the case. Barany created a normal walk cycle in After Effects, using a character rigging tool named DUIK. ‘Once I'd got a nice looping walk cycle I rendered it out and I put that into photoshop and redrew each frame using the walk cycle as a guide.’

It Never Ends. (2017). Oscar Barany. Mugen.

I asked why he chose to create a walk cycle of this experimental nature for the project, if it was a stylistic choice or out of budgetary reasons. The artist chose a walk cycle due to limited time he had in which he could create a visual that would have ‘a lot of impact’. The project had no budget, Mugen was a music experiment from the start and so Barany was working on the sequence alongside other work. He used different styles for each frames because he wanted to ‘use it as a quick illustration challenge, and as an excuse to test out a load of different drawing styles’.

Oscar Barany. (2018). 

Looking at the animation, I can see this. There’s a range of experimental character designs but they alll evidence new approaches and drawing styles. They’re all digital illustrations, of course, but the approach to character is different every frame. The collective used the different frames for different single covers out of economy - ‘the creative director realised we could use the different frames separately, so they were used in various campaigns for the project’.

Finally, I mentioned how I’m asking animators in the industry for an opinion of my work. ���Looks like you’re on the right track practising walks, deffo read through the animator’s survival kit there’s a wealth of knowledge in there. A lot of people start with the feet and legs, and then do the rest after’. Here, Barany suggests that a walk cycle is a great challenge to start with, and the work I’m creating is interesting, atleast. His last comment, though, is something that I’ve never considered before: animate the legs first, and then add the torso, arms and head. This allows us as animators to focus on the leg and foot placement first, and then isolate the other parts.

What I find the most exciting part of Barany’s walk cycle is the very concept of it. Having the animation feature variations of a character design isn’t something I’ve seen before, and it’s very visually stimulating and engaging to us an audience. The flashing character designs asks us to pause the video, and appreciate each one. It’s almost like a challenge for the viewer, and that’s inherently engaging and fun. The flash of colours and styles give the animation a lucid feeling, matching the overall tone of the track It Never Ends very nicely.

I’ve already explored this digital, clean approach to character designs in my FMP, looking at my experiments in Character Animator for example. In response to this research and analysis, I wanted to create a flashing ‘mugen’ style walk animation, but challenge myself to use a range of traditional, analogue mediums and materials.

The process began, however, by creating a simple walk cycle using Photoshop. Like Barany, I wanted to create a looping walk animation that I’m happy with and then use these as a guide for the final frames. It was important that this walk possessed a different character from my other experiments, however, so sketched a few designs in my sketchbook. These were simple thumbnail sketches just exploring potential shapes and proportions, settling on a large, circular body, small head and long legs.

I wanted a design that contrasted my Michael walk animation in shape and proportions, and this did just that. Happy with this basic design, I moved into Photoshop and created a quick walk cycle, using my understanding of the movements that I’ve been able to grasp through my FMP. For the walk, I’m using a traditional frame by frame animation technique, just on a digital workspace rather than punched paper and a Lightbox. I’m not worried about any character design or perfect line quality here, just about getting a smooth walking motion that I can then use as reference.

Oscar created the template walk in After Effects with a rigging tool, but here I wanted to develop on from my photoshop animations and continue with the hand-drawn, traditional technique.

Whereas my Character Animator pieces were reserved in movements, with Michael having his hands in his pockets, and my stop motion tests showing a rather slow and tired character - I wanted this walk to have an excitement to it, almost like a leap from each step. It’s quite a smooth motion, but I was able to create this dramatic effect through empathising the extreme poses so my character raises his foot very high off the ground.

With this completed, I exported the animation frame by frame and printed these off, to use as a guide. Before jumping to the animation stage, I wanted to explore some potential ideas, materials and styles for the frames. In my sketchbook, I created some quick sketches of my character in different drawing styles and materials, sticking to a primarily analogue approach.

I found the crayon and charcoal sketches to be the most interesting here, due to the textural quality of the medium. In this animation, I wanted to create a clearly hand-drawn aesthetic, and I think embracing the obvious mark making style of these naive materials will help me to achieve this.

After setting a Lightbox up and some paper, I began re-drawing each frame, in a variety of styles, mediums and drawing approaches from biro to oil pastel.

In this process, I was able to create frames using traditional drawing styles using pencil, biro and finaliser, but also more experimental technwieus such as continuous line and charcoal markings. The point of this was to work fast, treating it as an excuse to play around with drawing tehcniwus and mediums that I’ve neglected to explore so far in this project. The purpose was to explore a range of drawing processes and mediums, and embrace the textural quality in comparison to the flat, minimal character designs I’ve already created.

I was able to record myself creating these frames, as a way to visually document the process instead of discussing each one at length. Personally, though, I feel like the oil pastel and charcoal frames were the most visually exciting and interesting, due to the inherently textural quality of the material. There’s a physicality to the medium that I’m really engaged by, and it’s this grainy, visually rough aesthetic that communicates hand-drawn and ‘analogue’ the best, I think.

Having produced these, I then scanned each of these into Photoshop, cleaned them up using a simple Levels edit and compiled them into a frame by frame sequence. This was the result, a collective walk cycle exploring a range of analogue mediums and materials.

The textural quality of the animation is what stands out to me as the most important element of the sequence. If we compare this to my digital animations, or my zoetrope experiments, there’s a rich physicality to the marks I’m making here. It’s what has the most potential, I think, in terms of development.

The flashing character designs work well, with the audience still being able to understand the character’s walk cycle. It’s an exquisite corpse of character designs, analogue materials and styles ranging from a crayon-coloured superhero to a loose charcoal sketch. The flashing character designs work to make the animation visually engaging to the audience - it hooks your attention straight away, and asks you to take a closer look at each one. I’ve been able to successfully convey the ‘leap’ walk from my digital reference, and the animation loops smoothly.

Fellow student Jack mentioned the effective quality of the animation, and how it successfully represents my project as a whole. The experimentation of analogue drawing materials is something I’d neglected to do until now, and the use of oil pastel and charcoal is something he identified as exciting and visually quite engaging. This is something I wanted to explore - up until now my animations themselves have been singular pieces, which I want to curate into an exquisite corpse. Here, however, I wanted to take a more simplistic approach to the idea, putting a focus on the walk whilst also being a frankensteins-monster of character designs.

The sequence, though, isn’t without it’s problems. The most glaring issue for me was the brush frame, which juts out from the others due to the bold and large brush strokes. It’s a little jarring, I think, and the blend of a digital Illustrator-based frame doesn’t really fit with the sequence. On the whole, though, its quite entertaining and the walk animation itself is successful. I’ll be using this in the final animation, and the textural quality of the oil pastel frames inspired me to explore the medium further.

As a development of this animation, I sat by the beach and produced a series of quick observational sketches using the material. I’ve been told to draw people at cafes, but I’m not quite that confident yet, and drawing people down by the beach has brought me success already in my FMP, so I thought I’d continue.

The sketches aren’t realistic - there were no green or red people walking down the beach - I was focusing on their body shape, proportions and poses mid-walking. It was a way to continue to explore a walk, but also get inspiration for more character designs - drawing from life in the process. The sketches I created aren’t accurate to life, but they serve as an interesting document of the people I’ve seen, to refer to for character designs. From this, I was able to capture a range of shapes, sizes and proportions and was developing on the rich textural quality and bright, colourful nature of oil pastels as a medium.

Having created those, I then produced a walk cycle using just oil pastels, using the same walk cycle as reference. It was a quick process, but I feel that transitioning from this sequence to the flashing design animation would work well when compiling a final reel. The bright colours evoke a childlike sense of creative, fun and life with clear mark making and rough, granular texture that we as an audience can almost feel.

The combination of these two sequences creates a singular exquisite corpse in itself, flashing between varying character designs and drawing styles whilst also bringing focus to the walk itself. It’s an entertaining piece of animation, challenging my digital predisposition in place for a textural, experimental and naive appeal.

The purpose of this session was to explore experimental materials and drawing mediums, and create a more exaggerated walk cycle animation in the process - responding to Oscar Barany’s ‘mugen’ example. In the process,  was able to talk with the artist about his approach and the Mugen Project, explore oil pastels as a drawing medium for quick observational sketches and produce a sequence that effectively represents my project as a whole.

This session was about me putting a heavy focus on analogue materials, and experimenting with different drawing processes whilst also producing an animation. It’s something that I’ve somewhat neglected to do so far in this FMP, sticking to pencil and pen for the most part. Having looked at oil pastel amongst other mediums, and created an animation with a rich textural quality I’ve been able to do just that. 

After speaking to Barany about his process, I want to explore Adobe After Effects and character rigging within the software. It’s a digital animation program with a completely different approach and mechanics to Photoshop or Character Animator - and it’s a program that I’ve always felt a little intimated by, due to the extensive controls and user interface. After speaking with Oscar about using the software for a walk cycle, however, and discussing with my tutor about rigging characters using After Effects, I want to challenge myself to learn the program, in an attempt to ready myself for the industry.

After Effects and motion graphics are quickly becoming the standard in commercial animation, and even narrative-based animations from studio Animade. My next move is to play around with the software, and attempt to create a walk cycle exploring a new approach to animation.

Producing these analogue animations has resulted in some exciting pieces here, however, and I want to look further at traditional animation as a process before I continue with my digital exploration into new software Adobe After Effects. 

Actions

Explore traditional animation further, create a sequence using punched paper and a Lightbox