Research Brief Outcome: Mami Wata

Outcome 

My initial thoughts were to make an online date advertisement as if it were posted by Mami Wata, making it almost like a myspace page aesthetic with over the top garish animated text and emojis. This would be fitting as myspace to us is seen as ancient, as is the legend of Mami Wata.

Another concept was to make Top Trumps style cards of Mami Wata, possibly make a series of three if they aren't too time consuming using other Goddesses of Destruction. Peer feedback agreed the top trump concept was better as it would look great as a series on Instagram and I could incorporate more of the research I've done on other Goddesses and by making it into a game it's more interactive and accessible to a wider audience/ ages.

Brief

Make a series of animated top trump style cards using the Goddesses of Destruction.

I want to try out animating these in After Effects in order to push myself as I'm so used to hand drawn animation this software has always scared me but I think it would look really effective with simple moving backgrounds to each card, focusing on those Goddesses' elements they associate with, earth wind and fire.

I took the traditional layout of a top trump card, emphasising the historical aspect of these legends I'm going to use on them; nostalgic as if they were from our childhood.

Typography 

retro 8-bit game characters 

I chose Invasion 2000 as the header typeface to be used on each card as I felt it was the most in keeping with this retro kind of 8-bit aesthetic which was used especially in video games, as my cards will be animated I felt this was most appropriate and I could really utilise the 3D effects on after effects easily and effectively with the blocky nature of the typeface.

I felt Blood and Blade also fit this tacky 90/00s feel, looking quite Juicy Couture which would go with the 'feminine' aspect, but was too decorative and illegible especially if I was to make it 3 dimensional.

I watched many a youtube tutorial and managed to manipulate 3D text and animate the background so it looks like the ocean for Mami Wata (mother ocean).

Considering how I'd like to portray the characters themselves I thought it would be more original to recreate my own versions of them, how they could be percieved in the modern day but still with a retro feel in keeping with the garish 'myspace aesthetic'. I originally tried just image tracing and playing around with some traditional iconography but didn't fit my visual concept:

I remember loving playing with Sims and similar character building software Imvu. I used this to create mock ups of Mami Wata to work on as a base of her character.

I made her into a high fidelity photo and began altering so she's more herself, adding a snake for starters.

I played around with Mami Wata trying out different snakes around her neck with different poses that were available through Imvu. I set a high inner bevel on all the elements included in the foreground to accentuate this tacky old school game play vibe. The middle card featured above I was using initially I then found didn't really match the rest of the animated background mainly down to colour difference. I asked my peers wether or not I should have any kind of background to the characters within the square and they agreed I should have some sea life/ caves etc but still have elements of the background maintaining fluidity in the design, with just the character it looked too empty.

To the original background I added some bubbles and spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to animate the text; now I've played around with After Effects so much I feel loads more confident in using it in the future and feel making the other cards in the series for this outcome will be much quicker.