CCA Reflection: See what see?

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Recently, my class was went to the Nanyang Technological University Center for Contemporary Art (CCA). This was the my second time there as I also visited the CCA during my first semester in university. Both times I went there, it was because my enthusiastic professor suggested the idea and brought the class there.. It was a decently good suggestion.

Contemporary art gets a lot of hate. I can understand why. It is not for everyone. Whatever was on display during the entire exhibition of Joan Jonas : They come to us without a word, I was pretty lost. The works were abstract and definitely very weird. Things didn’t make sense. But so do a lot of other things we see outside of this building. A lot of people hate contemporary art because they do not understand it. They think the idiot who made all this shit is just weird fool. They think the whole exhibit is a waste of space. They think that anybody who views this shit is wasting their time. They are wasting their own time. The moment they see it as weird, they shut off and let their hatred take over. Blinded by this they proceed to just walk past everything. I didn’t understand the entire exhibit, but since I was there, I tried to make sense of it. There were some rather interesting ideas around, some pretty nice paintings. The visual performances were mostly weird and very hard to understand as a whole, but they did include some pretty cool ideas in them. The exhibit was pretty okay.

The last bit of the trip to the CCA was a talk on Chinese beliefs on after life and some other stuff. (I cant really recall, since i was asleep for the first 30 mins). But it was rather interesting for me. From what I gathered, the talk was mostly about ghost and spirits. Like how the ghost and zombies are exorcised in Chinese culture. There were small bits on Chinese gods and mythological beings as well. (I think) And some other stuff. (I can’t remember) For the most part, It was quite interesting as I do have interest in myths. So the talk was not all that bad.

Overall, the trip was not bad. I got to learn some stuff.

 

 

Art History: The Terracotta

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Tomb Art has been around for centuries. In the ancient times, the dead were never just buried underground for them to biodegrade and power the next power plant. The dead were well respected. From the catacombs in Rome filled to the brim with early christian paintings to the monuments built for the dead in Greece. It is very clear that the dead were much more then that due to the beliefs and religion of the people during the times. For the Chinese it was also no different. They believed that the dead also needed to be decorated before they moved onto the underworld. This lead to one of the greatest archaeological finds in history, the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, a deep underground tomb where the emperor was buried with hundreds of terracotta figures to escort and keep him company in the underworld. With hundreds of figures, each uniquely crafted, I will be studying two figures specifically. The famous kneeling archer terracotta and the standing general Terracotta.

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Fig A                                             Fig B

The terracotta statues are amazing works of art. The poses they are not done in any random position that would be to the liking of the artist, but these poses are reflective of the status of the respective terracotta warriors. Figure A on the left shows an archer, while Figure B is a general. For the archer, he is seen to be in a high kneel position, his face is looking forward and his left elbow is resting on his left knee. The most interesting part about this statue is the position of his hands, they look like they are supposed to be holding something. That missing item would be his crossbow, a very deadly weapon invented during the Han Dynasty. If the weapon was still there, the trigger of the bow would rest on the right hand, while the left hand supports the barrel and the arrow head would be side ways towards his shoulder. This position is a replica of how an archer during the Han Dynasty would act, while he is awaiting orders or preparing to fire his weapon. The archers usually stood rather closely in rows, holding the weapon a such would prevent the arrow from poking his allies in front of him, or accidentally killing one in the case of a misfire due to faulty mechanisms in the crossbows. On the other hand, we have the General of the army. His position of his body is much more relaxed then that of the archer, just standing upright, however his face is much more fierce then that of the archer. Being a general of over a few hundred or thousand people, the general has to be an unyielding and fearless to command the respects his soldiers, because he knows that if he falters even for a moment, it could greatly affect the morale of the army. During the Han Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang managed to unify china, having capable generals like Lu Buwei and Wang Jian at his side were no doubt compulsory.

 

The 3 iDea™ (beat apple to it)

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iDea One


 

Is it worth it to go to a restaurant? Will you be as satisfied as compared to going to a hawker center?

Is it worth it to break a leg to score a goal? Is it worth it to injure yourself knowing you will be unable to play for months?

Is it worth it to save an old lady? Is it to worth it to die saving her from a incoming car? is it more worth it to save a young child?

This first iDea aims at finding an answer to this (No Guarantee of success). It will be more of like narrative from the protagonist’s point of view. The protagonist is a person who aims at getting the most out of everything. E.g calculating the carbohydrates to dollar ratio in a hawker center, and others that i will make up along the way.

I plan to add in a bit of animation (if possible) for the inner voice, abit like lizzie mcguire (some realy old TV show).

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=lizzie+mcguire


 

iDea Two


 

https://www.youtube.com/user/NCHProductions

The 2nd iDea is the probably a full animation similar to the one of NCH productions or the stickman one. Although I currently have no idea how to make my iDea work at the moment, I am willing to put time and effort into it.

The story will most likely be set in a fantasy world with cool battle scenes and other nonsensical nonsense.

I will make up other stuff as the weeks go by…


 

iDea Three

 


 

*WARNING! if you have read this far… The first two iDeas probably didnt appeal to you. This third one will blow your mind…(That wont actually happen, so I will blow in to your ear, which is connected to your brain, I think…)

There was an iDea…

To bring together the world’s greatest film techniques…

iDea Three will be a story where world’s collide…

As a kid… the Protagonist(Insert Name) has played with many toys…

As a teenager… the Protagonist(Insert Name) has played with many videogames…

As an adult… the Protagonist(Insert Name) has no idea what to play with…

So… It is time for Toys and the Videogames to clash….

(will include stop motion, animation and bad acting)

 

Inspirations for 4D assignment

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My main inspiration for the 4D project will most likely not be my final product, but the idea is there. This is the animations for the different summons from a GameBoy Advance game called Goldensun: The Lost Age.

When I first played this game in 2006, the animations were visually stunning and nothing more. As a kid nothing mattered more then having the game you play look cool. After all these years and learning more about the world, the animations are no longer just appealing visually, but it shows how much work and heart was put into the game. Each summon in the game is beautifully crafted, the developers definitely put a lot of work making sure it looked good down to every last pixel. I hope to be able to put as much work into my 4D assignment.

Below are the spells for the game, which also look equally as badass.

Final Turn!

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*Warning! You are about to read the visual journal of the Hong Li Peng. All the contents of this post are true. The amount of content in this post might be slightly longer as the author has decided to have a 3 in 1 package deal, you will never find another better deal Ina singapore. And Joy.


 

This is the last 2D project for semester 1. The project focused on us as individuals and we were made up of. It focused on focused on 4 main parts of ourselves, with 2 other images that are the contribute to that component.

Me. Which is who we are.

A better Me. Which is how we can improve ourselves.

An Ideal Me. How we envision our perfect form to be.

Me in 5 years. Where we see ourselves in the future.

With a total of 12 images that seemingly can be done in anyway, I started on my concept. The idea was that we are shaped based on the environment and the people we meet in our lives. How others act, react, speak, eat and everything we notice around us. All of this, including how we react to them shape who we are. So for this project I decided to leave the hands of the 8 drawings that make up who I am to the people who shaped my life. My family members and my friends.

Starting with the components of Me.

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This drawing was done by a close secondary school friend. We have been in the same class from secondary school to JC and now both study in NTU. This drawing of his resembles him a lot, like a Sun Wu Kong, he is immortal and resistant to many things. Though is also very stubborn… I believe I have learnt from him how to persevere and keep moving despite any hardships.

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Next, was a drawing by Lynette my little sister. Honestly, is very hard for me to decipher. But the house is probably the HDB which my family lives in.This was also how she changed me when she was born. She brought me the joy of enjoying time with my family, which I didn’t do much of that before her birth. She changed a lot in me and made me look forward to having a family of my own in the future.

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This is me. Look past the family and the strength to persevere. Drawing was a huge part of me. I would doodle everywhere on my school work. There are even some on my notes to help me remember stuff. But drawing was what kept my imagination and creativity going. It was also the start of me finding the answer to the question, ” How can I share this idea in my head with someone else?”.

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This was drawn by another close friend of mine, which I got to know in JC. He is also an ADM student in NTU. He was sort of a turning point in my life. In my years before JC, the arts was always just a past time, it was never ever considered to be a career, But he inspired me to go down that path. I wouldn’t be in ADM or anything art related if it wasn’t for him. The drawing he did is our avatars in a video game working together to defeat a boss. The fun we had, the games we played and his influence on me to go towards animation.

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Next is done by another close JC friend. He drew me a frisbee, which honestly looks like a CD. But he guided me a lot on the physical and emotional side of things. He was a lot older then me so he was quite experienced in the field of romantic relationships and told me a lot of his stories. He was also a very fit person despite having various health problems. He is like a brother and mentor to me, always guiding me along. And with his help I have improved a lot.

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A better Me. This was Me was shaped during my JC days, with 2 close friends that guided me in that direction. I changed a lot during my JC days and these 2 friends really helped me. The better me hopes to keep to my values and continue doing what I love. Hopefully, I can be more courageous and present in front of an audience in shorts and slippers. (Eventually)

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The next two drawings were made by my twin sisters. Being in the youngest two in the family, they have the easiest life. Same as my other sister, they brought a lot of fun and joy to the family. Which was when I decided if one day I will be able to give fun and joy to others. This gave me an answer to the question above “How can I share this idea in my head with someone else?”.

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Games. The Ideal Me was to be a game developer. I have always loved video games since young. In JC this became an possible career choice. My sisters helped my confirm the choice. To me, I have always wondered how can I ever share my ideas with the world. A game would immerse people in to a world and have they play according to it’s rules. It could bring people into my world, see how I see things. A book leaves the world to the readers imagination. A film doesn’t give you the freedom to explore the world. These are the things only a video game can give. This drawing is of a visitor pass to E3, a annual electronics fair for video games. The Ideal me would wish to take part in it every year.

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This was not one of the drawing papers passed to me sister to draw. But it does represent what I want in 5 years time. Which is a happy family and a happy home. There are quite a few family problems going on which has resulted in some trouble internally. I wish for them to be resolved in the near future.

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This was drawn by my younger sister. She takes product design in polytechnic. She draws very well. I hope that in 5 years time we can get the chance to work together in ADM. I also hope that she can be more confident in her drawings in the future, just like these that she gave me.

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Lastly, Me in 5 years. I hope that me name will be heard and spoken around the world. Having a chinese based name always made it quite hard for people to remember my name. So one of my greatest wish is for myself to be remembered by everyone. I want everyone to know me. Hopefully, I do so by being a famous game developer and my name will never be forgotten.

 

The HoldUp: An Unexpected Problem.

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*There will be no warning. As this is unexpected.


 

OWL V1,0,1A 2OWL V2,0,0A 2 OWL V4,0,4C 2

Currently, There are the only 3 compositions I could upload after compressing the file size down. The others are relatively small as well, but currently they still do not fit the 3MB limit. The quality of the photos might have decreased as well due to the compressing…

Lord of the Rhymes: The Hardships of the Rhyme

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*WARNING! You are about to read a post made by The Hong Li Peng. The lack of mastery in English will make you question how the author made it to a university. This online journal contains the visual works of the author as well as his thoughts when he made them. See you Ina class, if you belong to G6.


 

“Three rhymes for G6 Students to choose from,

Seven days a week was clearly not enough,

Nine weeks have past since their journey began,

One deadline never changes,

In ADM, where their future lies.

One Rhyme to stress them all, One Rhyme to train them,

One Rhyme for them to submit and Ina room, grade them

In ADM, where their future lies.”

-Lord of the Rhymes, Hong Li Peng


 

The second 2D assignment was rhymes.

The goal was to create 4 compositions based on the 3 rhymes given.

Humpty Dumpty, Marry had a little Lamb, Old Women.

The each of the four compositions would be tagged with a part of the rhyme they were based on. New lines for the Rhymes could be created if the creator chooses to do so.

Each composition was to be made up of images we found on the internet. The work was basically meant to be abstract. Therefore, any image could be used. You didnt have to use eggs for Humpty Dumpty nor use lamb for Marry had a little lamb. It was up to the creator to decide on what he wanted to do.

For my project, I decided to focus on the Rhyme Old Women.

“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread;
Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.”

Unlike Humpty Dumpty and Mary had a little lamb, there wasn’t much of a story to old women. It honestly sounded more like a description of what she does everyday. So I decided to expand the rhyme and built on was already given.

I focused on what the life of the old women would be like as she followed the children as they grew up, all the way till she passed on. So I began searching for images.

* I will only select a handful of images, because there were too many . But if you do wish to view all of them they should be in the gallery or something.

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Baby

Scary Girl 8

Child

scientistman

Adult

The idea of time passing and the children growing older. I selected a lot of images or babies, to children and adults.

There are a lot of images, because of the way method I used to edit the photos. Threshold.

scientist

Once a nice image, but Threshold doesnt work well on all

Old Man on Baby

Old man Baby

IMG_2991 (1)

halloween__sulley-girl-deluxe-costume SCARY GIRL 3

 

 

 

As you can see, Threshold is quite unpredictable. I ended up with a lot of images because of this reason. The initial image i get could be really nice, but once I started to applying threshold to the image and playing around with the values. There was just no right value where the image was clear enough. It does look abstract, but I wasn’t what i was looking for.

The other thing threshold value. As seen from the images above, threshold can result in really cool effects. Good and evil. Young and old. So most of the images started out with end up with about 2-3 threshold versions.

redfoxprint02mexican gray wolf_ Nagel Photography_shutterstock 3 face_eyes_lion_fur_mane_85403_3840x2160 2

The next set of images looked for was animal heads as I wanted to try out anthropomorphism. It was sort of mixing humans with animals to create some cool and weird compositions. But I didn’t really want to make it random, I wanted it to have more or a meaning. Like the fox and the wolf. The fox is a cunning animal, which will represent the sly and cunning people in the family of the old women. The wolf treasures family, which would be the more loyal and filial children. The Lion represented more of a leader role. All of these will be elaborated on a future post.

Picking out the images took a long time, but it was a fun process. Thinking of how the Old Women’s story would play out if the rhyme continued all the way till her death was challenging. It opened up many possibilities, some of which were scrapped due to time constrains.


NEXT TIME ON LI PENG’S OSS….

Preview…

THE COMPOSITIONS HAVE BEEN COMPLETED…

AND ARE CURRENTLY BIGGER THAN 3MB…

WHAT WILL LI PENG DO?

FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON OSS…

4D Assignment 2: As Seen by the Shin

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*You are about to read and watch content produced by the Hong Li Peng. Be prepared to read writing so bad, it will make you question if the author is Patrick Star. This post documents the authors works and thought process. And Joy.

I thought of this idea on the MRT. I was wondering how antman saw our world, at that size and height. But I fear I would get into some trouble with marvel if I copied their marvellous Idea. So I moved upwards, literally, I went to the feet. So I ran with the idea, and It turned out pretty well.

Below the the first version of the final product, just a test to see whether it would turn out well. And Joy

Also the credits. Never forget the credits.

Jim as Random bystander

Jimmy as Random bystander

Tom as Random bystander

Tommy as Random bystander

Thompson as Random bystander

Thomas as Random bystander

Tim as Random bystander

Timmy as Random bystander

Ash as Random Passerby

Luffy as Random Passerby

Naruto as Random Passerby

Ichigo as Random Passerby

Professor Elm as Random Passerby

Spider Gwen as Random Passerby

Bruce Wayne as Random Passerby

Antman as Random Passerby

Luke SkyWalker as Random Passerby

Ironman as Random Passerby

Kamen Rider OOO as Random Passerby

Hatsune Miku as Random Passerby

Grass as Himself

Bench as Himself

Floor as Himself

Park as Himself

And many others.

2D Assignment Research : Learning the Arttitude

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*You are about to read the research done be Hong Li Peng for an Art assignment. Yes, Li Peng and research was used in the same sentence, there is nothing wrong with your eyes.  The following contains mostly personal opinion and some research written in poor English. You have been warned. And Joy.


I don’t really know much artist. As mentioned before, I have no art background and know little to no artist. Getting inspiration from artist is not a way of learning I personally favor. I have seen many people try out techniques from other artist and the result just looks like their inspiration. That has always been a concern of mine. Inspiration is by no means a bad thing, but many people get lost and instead of using the idea to create something new, they just end up just replicating the art work. People who look at it will say “Nice use of XXX technique” or ” Looks like a work from XXX”. What I want to hear is “How did you do this?”.

The artist I researched on is Leonardo Da Vinci.

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This man inspired my works in a way, such that they are all made by lots of experimenting.

This man was amazing, he very talented not just in Art, but science, engineering and just about everything. He give me a work to replicate, but I learnt his ability to learn. Leonardo observed and questioned everything, anything that confused him didn’t leave him shocked, but left him with a thirst to find the answer.

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And this was what I learnt from him. I observed how my line creating different prints every-time. I questioned why. I tested my hypothesis. And I came to an answer. (Read RPG post for full write-up).

This was inspiration to me. The attitude of how he carried out his works.

And Codex Atlanticus a collection of all his works. It was his attitude that made him a man way ahead of his time.

 

2D Final Assignment : The Product.

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*You are about to look at the final product submitted by Hong Li Peng. Plasters will be given out by the nearest Hong Li Peng as a way to compensate you for the damage you received from reading his horrible use of the English language. This is the final work after a few weeks. As usual, It will contain the authors works and thoughts. And Joy.


 

18 ways of Subduing Paper

It took a while to finish it, but the first 2D assignment is finally over.

I will go over each of the lines created briefly and the reasons behind the emotion it represents.

Starting with the 4 on the top left hand side. Also known as the Beginning of Many Ideas. (BMI)

 

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First is anxious. Kind of like how I felt at the start. Having no art background, the first assignment was abit scary. So I was uneasy, nervous about the start. This is represented by the Father-like stare in the work, like when you do something wrong as a kid, you start to feel a bit nervous and scared of what your dad would do to you.

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Next, was sloven. Messy and untidy. That is  how stuff usually begins. With not knowledge of what is necessary and how to go about doing the assignment, things tend to fly everywhere. This is shown by the crumpled paper. The messy crumpled paper lying around a room. It also represents the start of a project as artist crumple up bad ideas and throw them around.

 

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Awkward represents how I worked at the start. My methods were very weird compared to other people, very abnormal to them. This is represented by sort of a flower like thing. The awkward moment when you want to give a flower to someone and both of you just stare at each other.

 

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Systematic, the end of the BMI and more a more comfortable way for me to work. It is representative of how I work, very logical, everything is sort of planned and calculated. Things do mess up here and there, but I can always calm myself and re-analyse the situation in a logical and orderly fashion. Represented by the towers. Works of not just art, but engineering and architecture. These are shown side ways as well, to represent that even things can go wrong and crumble.


 

Next is the 5 on the top right board, containing the many experiments during first few weeks. This board was named Trying Methods , No Time. (TMNT)

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First of the TMNT is distracted. This is normal for everyone, it gets hard to concentrate on work after a while. For me the main distraction during this time was actually television. I wanted to go home to watch TV, so I kept looking at my watch. This is represented by a sort of a day dream. To me it looks like a martial artist practicing against the waves and other elements. Like me, who wanted to go home and watch my TV show, which happens to be related to martial arts. Distracted….

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Following Distracted was Turbulent. Which as I mentioned in my other post was the path I decided to take. Sticking to my rules and wanting to make something new. It was was followed by many random and abnormal decisions, but ultimately produced pretty good results. This is represented by spirals, making the confused face cartoon characters have when they are dizzy.

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Indecisive is represented by vines tangling all over the place, unsure of where to go. This was how I felt around that time. I couldn’t make up my mine on which artist to research on or whether I should seek inspiration or strike out on my own.

(The past few post state my answer.)

 

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I felt this a little bit when I see other people’s works. Embarrassed of my own work. Everyone had amazing ideas and so many inspirations. It was hard to show them what I had made. This is represented my many many tangled vines, each trying to hid behind another.

 

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Last of the TMNT is fragile. Towards the end of the middle period, I realized how weak my worries were. It wasn’t like me at all. After seeing the results of my work, I had confident that my worries during this period were unnecessary and can be shattered and thrown aside easily.


Next Up is the 5 on the bottom left. The board contains works from the end-phase. Given the name of Every Real Print. (ERP)

 

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First of the bunch was spontaneous. Like the ideas that kept appearing in my head, I was full of energy and strength t carry all of them out. Represented by a wave, suddenly splashing outwards.

 

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Exhausted everyday. Trying out new Ideas was both physically and mentally demanding, but rewards you with an amazing feeling of accomplishment afterwards. This is represented by a dragon, things I dream about when I sleep well after a tiring week. Dragons usually guard treasure, If one succeeds to overcome their challenge

 

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Next up was aggressive. Not all experiments end happily. There are many failures that did leave me frustrated and quite angry. I kinda wanted to throw the chair at someone, sometimes… Represented by a focus point with cracks. much like the marks when you punch glass out of anger.

 

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Nonsensical. What people think I am doing most of the time. It doesn’t make sense to them. But as the line shows, my work is actually pretty will thought out.

Enjoying the music with the other students working on the same 2D assignment. It is good to know that there are other around even though you don’t see them, sometimes hearing them is enough assurance. Represented by the lines. The space between them vary in intensity, some lines may not clearly see others, but they know they are still there.


Lastly, at the bottom right. The final board. Also known as the Angelic Series. Made at the very end of the project.

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Starting with sensual. I see a sort of angel knight, with the black like a shadow over his face and a lady by his side. Representing a sort of lust and love moment.

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After that is ambiguous.The unknown. For me I see the skulls, representing souls, ready to feast upon the new dead coming to join them. The mysteries of the underworld.

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Psychotic. The crazy, like a tower of souls spiraling upwards to form a tree of demonic energy.

 

DSC_0923Lastly bizarre. Lots of stuff going on, but the photo quality is bad. This line is filled with demons, skulls and human faces. Almost like the mid point between the earth and the hell. A truly strange scene.


And that wraps up my 18 lines and how I chose the emotions for them. I apologize for the image quality or you can feel sorry for me, cause it really doesn’t do the work justice.

But over all this was a fun an challenging project. I had a lot of fun experimenting ideas, the process of creating them was just really enjoyable. My only regret was my time management and my final product. I wasn’t feeling well on the day before submission, so I couldn’t redo a lot of the lines. Most of them were first prints of an idea, so they weren’t very organised or fully explored. This was due to my time management as well, I shouldn’t have push some things towards the end, the final was good, but not up to the standards I wanted.