Heat Death: an illustration animation approach towards literature by Lingfei Zhu

Question - How can an illustration technique applied to animation to enhance literature for

aesthetic and narrative purposes?

As the writer of 'Gravity's Rainbow', the most influential literature work in the second half of twentieth century, Thomas Pynchon’s undistinguished piece of post-modern literature work 'Entropy' has certain literal significance in my personal view. By introducing illustration aesthetic, commonly used in portraying words in still media, to the 3-D entertainment motion media of animation, popular to the wide audience, the aim is to visualize current academic discussion as well as to promote 'Entropy' and work with similar qualities.

Focusing on the production of a short adaptation, the final phase is to separate the animation for the design of an E-book in the post-production stage. This paper will demonstrate the new animation illustration media, and will reveal the importance of combining pop culture elements in publicizing a classical literature piece.

According to analysis up to the present, joining of science and literature is the most important characteristic in terms of its basic structure and concept, which needs comprehensive adaptation in the visualization process. While simple geometries with detailed decorative mechanical patterns and inorganic texture in 3-D software could show scientific quality, carefully mapped painted shading and dynamic movements under certain lighting could raise the ‘organic’ feel needed for literature aspects.

Unifying these with narrative typography, the composition will be conducted with both cinematography and illustration composition principles applied. All is to ensure that the final visual achieve illustration-like ‘unreal’ while maintaining digital 3-D ‘real’ in the meantime -------- a fresh new visual to illustrate a post-modern literature as 'Entropy'.

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