Visual Development (MA)

Master your ability to draw proportionally accurate figures, both nude and clothed, for entertainment art. You'll study anatomy, proportion, foreshortening, construction, movement and gesture, making simple still lifes and tonal self-portraits.

Produce animation for TV, features, games, and storyboards. Working from live models, you'll maintain a sketchbook showing your design flexibility, sequential drawing for animated performance, line-of-action, and volume control skills in a variety of styles.

You'll use cinematic composition, atmospheric use of color, and color continuity to complete a sixteen-frame color script. (This course is cross-listed with VIS 380 and ANM 880.)

Become an illustrative storyteller. Taking a step-by-step approach to story development, you'll study the structural elements of storytelling, storyboarding formats, motion and animation, animatics, and character development.

Learn basic drawing principles for fine artists and illustrators. You'll draw the human head to learn composition, perspective, proportion, focal point, value pattern, and the use of light and shadow.

Create a believable three-dimensional illusion of a figure on a flat surface of paper. You'll study physical flexibility, how the figure moves, various types of folds, and the construction of clothing.

Learn to draw situations suggesting 3D believably. This will include naturalistic environments, lighting, and placement of characters, allowing your audience a full understanding of your stories.

Digital painting is in demand by many of today's art buyers. In this class, you'll use digital painting software as a tool to create graduate-level, professional illustrations.

Master the visual elements of story, including color and design, color theory, staging and composition, camera angles, perspective principles, and typography. You'll also learn film vocabulary.

Explore the foundations of environment. You'll develop cinematic composition and aspect ratios, atmospheric perspective, and architectural design skills to complete environment and prop designs.

For your MFA Midpoint or MA Final Portfolio Review, you'll develop a written thesis or artist statement, story preparation, story analysis, color progression, concept drawing, character studies, environment studies, prop studies, beat boards, and project presentations.