One of my favorite paintings is “Spring” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1894). It depicts a procession through the streets of Ancient Rome during a spring festival. Besides the great figurative painting in the picture and marble, stone and metallic textures of the buildings, what I like most about it is that it is a tall, thin, vertical painting with a changing perspective. If you look at the bottom of the painting you’re looking down at the scene, half way up the view is straight on and at the top of the painting is an extreme up shot. This forced perspective gives a movement to an otherwise static single image.
When painting the inspirational art to Rocktasia, The Movie, I found myself using this same technique of changing perspective. I have seen it used often in animated films when the camera would pan along a long background that changed from a down view to an up view or vice versa. When the camera is seeing only a very narrow range of the background the changing perspective is subtle and the perspective can get pretty extreme. For a single image it needs to change gradually or else it starts to look distorted.
I wasn’t consciously aware I was designing my illustrations in this style until they were all done and I saw them all together. What I discovered was that even as a painter I still think like an animator. If you’d like to see examples see “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, “Fifth Dimension”, or “The Court of the Crimson King”.
When painting the inspirational art to Rocktasia, The Movie, I found myself using this same technique of changing perspective. I have seen it used often in animated films when the camera would pan along a long background that changed from a down view to an up view or vice versa. When the camera is seeing only a very narrow range of the background the changing perspective is subtle and the perspective can get pretty extreme. For a single image it needs to change gradually or else it starts to look distorted.
I wasn’t consciously aware I was designing my illustrations in this style until they were all done and I saw them all together. What I discovered was that even as a painter I still think like an animator. If you’d like to see examples see “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, “Fifth Dimension”, or “The Court of the Crimson King”.
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