Amani and Azalee
Amani and Azalee is a children's illustration project developed for the Discipline of Character Design of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. The project tells the story of Amani, a young warrior, sensitive, fashion lover and of the arts that he falls in love with Azalee, a sportsman, strong and equally sensitive.
Well, when my character designer's teacher give us the work to do and I choose the illustration for a child book,
I thought that I have to make a different story from the others and utilize and introduce the gender questions on it. So, I chose to abord the theme with the most subtle and lightest way. Within the set of aspects considered in the illustration process, the choice of the palette of minimalist colors in the scenarios was used to emphasize the existing the contrast between the attitudes and preferences of the two characters and the way society designates the roles and especially the color tones for each genre. This approach was adopted in this work so that through the illustrations the reader understands that we are complex people and should not limit ourselves to stereotypes and socially imposed duties.
I used Krita, a free opensource software for digital painting and traditional animation. Everything was thought to give to the reader the richest and complete experience and bring a real immersion to this binary world that I (des)construct. To make this, I made some drafts to think the better way to pass the message, the position of the characters, the places that they have to stay to conduct the experience softly and stronger at the same time. My character designer's Teacher help me with that, he showed me in my drafts places that got better the composition of the image, and I make my modifications.
I'm an animator, illustration is kinda novelty for me. This is my second illustration's work, and tells a linear history, and is for the children's audience, are three things that are definitely out of my comfort zone, I had learned a lot of this work, without a doubt.
The response for me is the most important thing about making art because everything is done just for the eyes of another person. So I had a great diversity of positive reviews, one friend told me that the script is very common and week, but when you tell a children's history with the limit of sixteen illustrations, you have to synthesize the message and to resort for some cliches. As an animator and filmmaker, I have to know that one of my roles is to simplify and to communicate.
I have to thanks a lot for a great friend named Gustavo Jabrazi for all the help that he gives me intentionally or non-intentionally. I've become more attentive to Lightning and shadow after a discussion with him about his amazing work with digital illustration, beyond the tip that he gives me as a review about the best color to use in shadows and the different tips os lightning and reflections that we can use (that I unfortunately not used in this work). And tell who are reading this, thank you so much for your time and attention and keep your eyes and ears open to the life, it is the real fount of inspirations and possibilities to make art.
