Unit 1 - Arts Awards Silver - Rodney Peppe Exhibition - Inspiration for Character Design

UNIT 1- Arts Award Silver 

 Rodney Peppe Exhibition - Inspiration for Character Design



What did I attend: 
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Rodney Peppé Art exhibition


Where did I attend it :
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 at the Ruthin Art center , Wales


 Why did you attend it?
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I wanted to learn more about a real life author, animator and artist and hopefully learn about his inspiration and process to create his artworks.


How was your experience? 
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It was brilliant and much more informative than I expected at first. I enjoyed it so much I went back a second time to get a closer look. Will write more in another post about that.

My Learning Log :

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What did I learn about/ try out/ attend/ practice?

• I went to a exhibition on Rodney Peppé, a cartoonist, author and automaton maker. He's famous for having some of his stories turned into children's animation series for the TV. 

Gallery Entrance to the Rodney Peppe Exhibition

A chance to look at the storyboarding ideas of Roger Peppe for his animated movies

What did I find out ?

• I found out about how to make models for drawing reference and how to story board  better. It was interesting to see how for each story he wrote he made a model for either the characters or objects in the story, for instance: he made a model of a shoe house for his book "The Mice Who Lived in a Shoe". The mice in his story lived in a shoe full of holes so they decided to build a house inside the shoe and patch up all the holes in the foot ware. The concept of the mice building their own things was successful and he made five other books with the mice using this idea.

  

here the model for the shoe house

 here a picture the story book design of the show the mice started out with

• He made models to draw from and the first ever model for reference he drew was an elephant called Henry, he used the Henry model to draw from for his books on Henry such as "Henry's aeroplane". 

here the elephant model he made out of wood in a deckchair prop

• The second one he made was Huxley Pig, the model itself was used for reference for making a stop motion animation model for the BBC animators to use. What surprised me was actually how big the models Rodney Peppe made are, i would have expected them to be about as big as my hand but they're about double that size. 

 character design sketch of Huxley Pig as Rodney Peppe imagined him to be

the model he made of Huxley Pig and the airplane to help with developing

his character design and help sketching from it for his books

 

he also made models for some of the major props that appeared

in his stories to help him draw in perspective

here a story boarding picture showing how 

Rodney Peppe used the bed as a prop for Huxley pigs adventures

What did I like about Rodney Peppe's work ?

• I really liked the Kettleship model because i was inspired by the way he made models to help with his illustration of his books. a Lot of detail went into making these models that helped with illustrating them in different positions later on
  
  
  
   
  
  
   my favourite
  
  
  
  
  
• I liked the models he made of Huxley Pig and the elephant and Mouse because they inspire me to make models of characters before drawing them and developing their character for my animation stories.
  
   
  
  
  
  
• I liked the Flying Basket and the way he used normal cast off objects from around the house to recycle them and create a new prop for his story and a vehicle r house for his various characters
  
  
  
  
  

the flying basket prop 

the Travel Machine prop for his book 

The Mice and the Travel Machine

the Moon Flying Space Travel Machine Prop for his book 

The Mice on the Moon 

I loved this prop made out of an old egg carton for another character design in his moon book

I loved that all the original artworks and story boards for his character designs where on display and I enjoyed sketching and making notes for my ideas . I liked that Rodney Peppe both wrote and illustrated his own stories as well as help create animated films of his story books.

there was also a fun activity offered that asked me to think about a way in which I would use objects to create story props

What did I not like ?

• I didn't like the huge amount of people there at the exhibition , it made it harder for me to focus. I was a little disappointed that the automatons movements were jerky and looked non-fluid and i couldn't learn much from the animation point of view. What I learned and saw I will write in another post

What do I want to investigate further ?

• I liked the idea of being able to view different positions and photograph a model to import into photoshop. Also the idea of making models out of found objects such as things you might find lost or washed up at the beach. And possibly making models out of clay. 

More to come about my second visit to the exhibition to learn more and get a chance to see a workshop in place.



Unit 1 - Arts Awards Silver - Rodney Peppe Exhibition - Inspiration for Character Design