Tag Archives: process

[2D] Ego – Process

Mindmap

I did some 10 cm x 10 cm drafts of all my panels, and tried different styles for the animals, too.

Layout for panda composition

Panda sketches

References for panda pose

Turtle layouts

References for turtle

Layout & colors for hippo composition

References for hippo:

References for iceberg:

Layout for hedgehog

I tried imitating Eric Carle’s style for the hedgehog’s spikes.

Hedgehog sketches

Hedgehog references

 

[4D] Assignment 2: Sequencing Images Part 1

Ideation

My initial idea was about a really smart friend in primary school who was also super tall and pretty, and everyone would say that she should become a model. I then came up with the story that she did in fact become a famous model, and then became disillusioned with the lifestyle and decided to hit the books again.

Qis’s idea was about a friend of hers who was on a downhill spiral but became reformed in NS, while Hui En’s idea was about her friends from boarding school. We sat down and thought of doing something along the lines of plastic surgery as we liked the idea of beauty being important, spun off my model idea, and eventually decided on a story about how being conventionally unattractive affects our main character, an “ugly” girl. We decided we’d want to do something in the fantasy genre, and decided to involve elements of a spell book and face swapping (later changed to complete erasure of a face), as well as magic potions.

Our story is about a girl (Qistina) who loves acting, and wants to be an actress. However, she’s overshadowed by a conventional beauty (Karen). One day, when she’s crying alone, a magical beetle scuttles across the carpet, triggering Qis to knock over a magical book with spells inside on how to absorb the beauty of another. When our conventional beauty, Karen, falls sick, Qis uses the opportunity to “take” her face and become beautiful, and fulfill her dream of playing the lead role.

This is followed by a narrative where the spell wears off, and Qis becomes ugly again. We took the pictures for this, but I personally decided to omit this part as I felt that the story tied up well with Qis finally getting to live her dream, albeit at the expense of another. I also liked the suspense this created with the question of what happened to the now faceless Karen.  Furthermore, I felt that it suited the entire storyline more when I didn’t add in a frivolous detail about the technicalities of the spell, which felt too Cinderella-ish for me, personally, when I was editing and decided to omit this last bit.

Storyboard: https://docs.google.com/document/d/103CYNrfswoT7oI9VMAh6ZuhILPAk2S1_-TE_VqGWPNk/edit

We based the idea of the face swapping off Kasane, a manga with a similar theme of beauty, where a magical lipstick would enable the main character to take on the face of the person she kisses. We liked this idea of face-swapping, but later modified it to face-erasure as we didn’t have enough people such that faces could be swapped without Karen reappearing later as an audience member and it being potentially confusing.

Behind the scenes

 

Challenges faced

1. Location

We couldn’t find a good place to shoot the theater scene – I tried emailing my junior college and secondary school asking if they’d let me use the school stage for the scene but they denied my request due to safety reasons. Hence, we settled on a outdoor stage instead – one beneath my HDB block, more specifically.

2. Costuming, clothes

Realized the bright pink of Hui En’s shirt wasn’t very stagehand-like, so we ran back up and she borrowed my school shirt to wear.

 

[3D] Gaia’s Ikebana II: The Making

The theme I got was… spring! (o˘◡˘o)

I was super happy when I found out I was getting this season because I love spring and all that it symbolizes. I made a mindmap to work out the nuances in the season, and to set a direction for my final models.

 

 

 

 

The scene I was particularly inspired by for my color palette were these scenes from Bambi, like I have mentioned in my mindmap.

 

 

In my mindmap, I thought about what spring meant to me – renewal and rebirth. But in order to make the sculptures personal to me, I thought about when I feel renewed when I eat food: in the morning, when I start my day with Indian food, and desserts at night when I’m rushing assignments. I further broke desserts down into 3 main categories: cake, ice cream and chocolate. This was the point in time when I decided to make two sculptures to represent both of these ideas.

Next, I had to decide on which Indian foods and desserts to use, and how to make some of them.

Some preliminary research on Indian food:

(From left to right)

Photo 1: Dosai (Cone) – Pan fried pancake made from rice and black gram

Photo 2: Idly (Cylinder) – Steamed cake made from black lentils and rice

Photo 3: Vadai (Cylinder) – Deep fried doughnuts made from lentils, curry leaves, onions, chillis

Photo 4 & 5: Kozhukattai (Sphere) – Steamed dumpling made from rice flour, with a filling of grated coconut and jaggery

Choice between Idly and Vadai: as I had already decided firmly on the Kozhukattai SO being white in color to reflect the purity and rebirth of spring, I felt that Vadai would be a better choice in terms of the color scheme, so that both the SD and SO would not be the same color.

Furthermore, I’d like the three items to reflect the three ways Indian food is cooked: 1) steamed (SO; kozhukattai), 2) pan-fried (D; dosai) 3) deep fried (SD; vadai).

Here are some process shots of me making the food; photos 1 shows me making the dosai cone, photos 2 to 6 show the process of me making the kozhukattai sphere (required the most steps and work) and photo 7 shows me frying the vadai cylinder. It was challenging making three different Indian dishes, but I’m super happy I managed to do it and make them really look like those shapes too.


For my second sculpture, I wanted to incorporate all three of my favorite types of desserts – namely, cake, chocolate and ice cream, as written in my mindmap. They truly make me feel anew at 3 am in the morning when I’m finishing an assignment. I picked an ice cream cone to represent ice cream – actual ice cream wouldn’t have been a very viable material to use – a matcha ring cake from Chateraise to represent cake, and a Hershey’s chocolate ball to represent chocolate. Since we had to have 2 SOs and 2 SDs, I added an extra SO in form of a wafer.

 

In order for my dominant branch to be able to stand, it needed a solid base to be stuck into. Hence, I got the foam used for flower arranging and pressed it into my base container. Then, I covered  the edges with double sided tape and stuck cling wrap over so that the foam bits would not fly around and get messy, and interfere with the food.

I had some problems initially with poking a neat hole through the wafer cone so that the dominant branch could be inserted, but I managed to figure it out by using a very sturdy piece of wire to pierce through. I also had some problems with the positioning of the holes so that the cone would balance at the 30 degree angle, so I tried piercing holes in different areas in order to find the right one, pictured in the second photo.

 

I had two types of wafers I could have used: the cappuccino one or the strawberry one. Even though the cappuccino wafer color’s were more harmonious with the color scheme of the sculpture, I felt that the pink of the strawberry was very in tune with the happy, light nature of spring. Furthermore, the color made it stand out as an SO.

[2D] Process: My Line is Emo

 Mark-making Session 1 

For the first session, I scavenged around my hall and brought some items with interesting textures to experiment with.

  Mark making with cereal

Whenever I’d eat my Banana Nut Crunch cereal in the morning, I’d find the texture of the cereal really cool. I’d take a piece and run it between my thumb and index finger, feeling all the tiny bumps.

Hence, it was natural that I’d bring it along for our first mark making session.

I tried rolling over the ink with a roller, but very little of the ink ‘stuck’. Hence, I resorted to spreading chinese ink over the cereal.

I manipulated the cereal by using it whole, as well as crushed into tinier bits.

 Experiments in cling wrap

For ‘frustration’, I tried to get a “glass shard’ effect using cling wrap, block ink and the printing press. The first time I tried it, the print came out too light. I tried again using more ink, and the print came out a lot more distinct. I wasn’t too pleased with the overall effect, though, and vowed to retry using cling wrap should I deem the glass shard effect the final effect I was aiming for.

 Experiments in foam 

I tried using foam to create some marks for “surprise”.  I experimented with a variety of spacings – spacing the foam close together and wider apart to create a range of “explosions”.

I also ripped the foam apart into big and small chunks, hence experimenting with the “weight” of the explosions I was trying to create.

Experiments in wet tissue – printing press

Experiments in wet tissue – manual hand pressing

I also tried soaking the wet tissue in chinese ink and manually pressing over it to see if I could get another type of print from it. It was questionably successful – it did look like cloth, but not to the detail I wanted. I think its texture would be better expressed by using the printing press.

Mark making session 2

Marbling experiments

I tried spreading some white paint on a plate, swirled some black paint over it, and used a palette knife to make the mixing more chaotic in certain areas, like a burst of emotion for euphoria.

I then placed the drawing block over and lifted it off, creating very intricate patterns. I really enjoyed the intricacy and dynamism of this (refer to sketchbook), and decided I wanted to incorporate this in some way atleast.

I tried marbling with the paper from my sketchbook, drawing block, watercolor paper, and newsprint, with chinese ink and diluted black acrylic paint. I got the best results from newsprint, which seemed to take up the intricacies of the swirls the most.

I also experimented with the amount of ink used i.e. how “dark” the marble was, which affected the intensity of it. I felt that for lust, the darker marbles would be more suitable for the headier, sexual nature of the emotion.

 Experiments with Salt

 

I thought about I felt very weak, and dehydrated, when I was feeling melancholic. Hence, I thought about which materials soak up paint, as a metaphor for energy, and it immediately hit me – salt. It dehydrates, sucks the energy out of you (the paint) – I sprinkled some salt on paper and had it form patterns.

 

 

 Gauze

As the previous manual pressing with wet tissue was hardly satisfactory, I tried again with gauze, which has a more distinct cloth-like pattern than wet tissue. Again, it did not imprint well enough, leaving me to finally decide against this method.

 

 Experiments with palette knife

Having had used palette knives for some of the earlier exploration with white paint and swirling, I decided to try using the palette knife for making marks itself. It created fluid, stable lines, which wasn’t suitable for any of my emotions which were unstable in one way or another.

 

 

 

For frustration, I tried scratching the splotches of paint with the paletten knife to create straight, even scratches. I prefer the more “raw”, not straight scratches as I feel that they convey the instability you feel when you’re frustrated.

 

 

 

 Experiments with glue

I wanted to convey the feeling of emptiness you feel when you’re melancholic with an empty background, literally, as white glue dries clear. Acrylic paint broke up into tiny pieces when mixed in with white glue, giving the effect of the fuzziness and buzzing you feel in your head when you’re sad. I really enjoyed this effect, and made a bigger strip to compare against other “Melancholy” composition strips to make a final decision.

 

 

 

 Alginate experiment (failed)

To get the skin texture, I tried covering my hand and pouring alginate over it. Initially, I inserted my hand into a small plastic container, but it turned out to be too small. I then used a bigger pan and completely covered my hand with alginate, to be used as a mould later.

I initially wanted to fill mould with terracotta clay but it dried up, even though the pack was unopened. I then filled the mould with glue, but for some reason, it didn’t dry even after 3 days. I didn’t try again because on consultation, I realized that the cast would cross over into the 3D realm.

Detergent & milk experiments

I’d read about how detergent causes ink drops to travel outwards in a swirl in milk, due to the detergent breaking down the fat in the milk. I tried it with diluted black acrylic paint, but it gave a completely different reaction – instead of swirls, the paint “broke” into smaller bits and travelled outwards. I feel that this would be more appropriate for surprise.

Foam block experiments

I’d also bought a small foam block as I thought that the surface texture could be interesting. First, I spread black acrylic paint on the block, then did a usual pressing down of the block on paper. I enjoyed the print it gave – there was something really rough and raw about it, which might make it a good texture to incorporate into parts of “frustration” or “melancholy”.

Then, I spread some white paint on it into small ovals as I hadn’t done that yet so far for “surprise” – I had made marks that looked like explosions, but nothing that looked like small spots of surprise. The resulting was very interesting, especially with the foam’s texture overlaid on the white spots.

Lastly, I spread some glue on the foam, knowing it would melt it. Indeed, it did, and when I pressed down the foam block on white paper, the resulting print had a bumpy, 3D texture as well. It looked like splatters, but as predictable as the splatters I was used to seeing – the lines were stretched in more random directions, came in clumps – it was a visual treat on the eyes.

Mark making session 3

I went back to the Foundation 2D studio for about 3 hours to experiment more with different materials, as well as try a new range of gestures.

Frustration: punching and scratching

I thought about the actions I associate with frustration: violent ones, such as punching and scratching. I either want to punch someone or scratch my skin out (two different levels of inflicting hurt: either hurting others or hurting myself) so I hence spread some block ink on my knuckles and punched a paper – various times, as different intensities and ways of punching produced different results.

My scratching attempt was wholly unsuccessful and did not look as frustrated as I wanted to be as I had short nails, and hence most of the paint went on my fingers themselves, so I figured it would be better to scratch onto a surface which is already painted.

For frustration, overall, I figured that scratching would be better as personally, when I’m frustrated, I try to contain the emotion and hurt myself by trying to contain it rather than releasing my frustration and hurting others.

 Making my own mark making tools

Washed some milo cans I’d drunk out of and made my own “pens” with satay sticks, masking tape, and aluminium from the milo cans to make more innovative marks.

I felt like I needed marks that were more staggered, unsure, uneasy – for this purpose, I chose to make my own mark making tools. I cut up two milo cans and made five “pens”, some of which are pictured above.

 Other process photos

Gauze Fan brush Potpourri
Chinese ink Melancholy (1)

Process for folded paper

Melancholy (2)

Marbling of Tissue paper

Mark making session 4

Streamer prints

Melting oil pastel with heat gun Making of Thunnoor paste Anxiety – making of paper mache

Image transfer experiments (failed)

The image transfer didn’t work with hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, or aerosol spray – in hindsight, I should have used xylene ( ; ω ; )