4D: Text & Image (Advertisement)

I was given chicken cup noodles as my food item and hence began ideation for it. My overall concept stems from how cup noodles are consumed when one is extremely rush at work, making the food fast yet delicious. Hence, I wanted to show how there is a team of culinary staff preparing the meal while the guy at the background is doing work.

Since I wanted to show that the cup noodles is prepared fast yet fresh and delicious, I staged people carrying freshly grown vegetables to the making of the noodles. The caption, “3 minutes, that’s all it takes” further reinforces that a scrumptious meal will be prepared without you even knowing.

The whole set up was staged which means I created a photo shoot for the miniature world created by the food items.  I chose this manner of execution simply because of my personal desire to have a more tactile experience creating this work.  I also want to experiment creating a world through construction of  the vegetables.

4D: Strange World

The strange world I created was one in which our society’s minority group becomes the majority. Hence, the minority group I chose was people with special needs, particularly children.

This whole idea was inspired by my experience teaching in a school with a significant number of special needs children and realizing how a cohesive learning environment is beneficial for both parties.  Each of the character embodied a certain area of concern that was more memorable for me during my teaching experience.

The first child is one with slight autism. His condition meant that he would have days that he doesn’t behave like other kids, and will often produce shrilling screams. His condition has caused others to view him in a different light and not see him as who he really is, hence covering up half of his face. It’s as though his true self is masked by his special need.

The second child was inspired by a student who could not converse in English. His inability wasn’t exactly a special need but it has lowered his learning abilitly tremendously. His lack of ability to communicate explains why the 2nd child’s mouth is covered by black paper. This is to show how the child is treated like  mute in our society.

The third child is intentionally placed upside down because it was inspired by my encounter with a kid with severe dyslexia. And since dyslexia results in incorrect writing of letters and having incompletely accessibility to our daily conversations. I flipped the character the other way to show how differently a child with dyslexia perceives the world.

4D: Paradox

My paradoxical space was created through an unrealistic manipulation of the bulldozer along the hawker centre at the soon to be demolished Old Woodlands Town Centre. The juxtaposition of size seeks to communicate how Singapore’s extremely fast development results in the loss of landscapes that embodies the nation’s culture and heritage.

I also enhanced the brightness of the bulldozer to make it even more striking and out of place, increasing the level of dominance it has in the image. I also included people whom are struggling to keep afloat as the bulldozer approaches them.

I remembered some key feedback for this image:

  1. The bulldozer was  missing a person controlling it – possible to add someone and show him being nonchalant and ruthless towards the people it’s drowning away.
  2. the landscape chosen should be more iconic or have a clearer indication of where is the place exactly.

4D: Image, Sound & Memory Process

Since the central theme of the project was “Memory”, I wondered whose memory did I want to play with for this project. I was looking for something uniquely localised, close to my heart and really, just a sincere piece of work.

“Lover’s Tears” is an oldies song that gave rise to my motivation of capturing a memory that was related to the lyrics of the song and befitting of that era. I decided that I would construct the sequence by which it will begin and end with the same song, giving a sense of continuity to the 10 images.

 

So I initially wanted to step into the shoes of my grandma, and walk down her memory lane of my Ah Gong.As I explored the idea visually and planned some of the shots I wanted to take, I realised that there was a sense of detachment to this piece of memory. It was almost impossible to shoot and record the series through the eyes of my grandma. Hence, it prompted me to tweak the direction a little, of which it is the love story between my grandma and I.

I made use of my grandma’s 3-room flat and old Macpherson estate to portray the oldies vibes. I wanted to portray the character of my grandma through the things she used and the dialect she speaks. These became visual and audio cues that gave the viewer/listener an idea of the era where my grandma grew up in and also the kinship that me and my grandma shared.

 

It was a constant process of re-thinking and re-arranging of images, ensuring that the image and sound played complementary roles to each other. It was also slightly challenging for me to constantly question if the chosen image was crucial in portraying that part of the story while ensuring a match with the recorded sound.

The sounds I used were a mix of recorded and found sound tracks, either which contributed to the narrative of the sequence or simply as asynchronous sounds to reinforce the homely vibes I wanted to give off.

4D: Sequential Thinking Research & Development

Upon receiving the project brief, I was excited by the level of playfulness that could be included in the series of images. Since most of my 4D projects had a inclination to visuals or techniques that are less modern, I decided to continue with this streak by playing with old Singapore toys.

IDEATION
The very first part of my process was to draft out my idea. I drew out some of the key transformations in the sequence and went ahead with the production as soon as I was able to visualise the images in a clearer manner.

PRODUCTION

I went on a shopping spree for old Singapore toys and even set up the stage for shooting in my room. This was probably the best part of the project where I get to play and craft out the scene for the shoot. The toys where arranged in a way that the overall composition was balanced and pleasing to the eye. Even the wrapping paper at the back was chosen for the “vintage” vibes that it gave off.  It was also super fun when I get to involve my sister for the scene with bubbles blowing.

A tedious process of constantly shifting the character inch my inch and calling upon my sister to blow the bubbles, it was truly a fun process where I, as an artist,  was involved in every way possible.

(learning point) I didn’t set my camera to shoot continuously at first, which made the bubbles movement a little choppy.  However, I managed to resolve the issue towards the end of the shoot which resulted in a smoother transition.

EDITING

There were post production edits that I did to enhance the element of play in this series of images. Above were just some of the images that I had to digitally piece the elements together. Once these images were edited, I proceeded to string them together through a video. 

Project 2: Ego Final

The overall concept of my ego is actually explaining (visually) how I re-imagine Singapore’s local landscape into something dreamlike and childlike. I hope I can divert the viewers’ attention to the seemingly insignificant fragments of our everyday Singaporean encounters through the frames of my imagined outcome.

All of my last frames has a same younger female character in it to highlight the child-like quality of the imagined outcome. This character is actually inspired by my younger self (such EGO) where I used to always tie 2 ponytails, had a very bad fringe cut (cos my grandma cut it) and had a very iconic looking kindergarten uniform (green checkered dress with 2 ribbons).  The female character is seen to be unrealistically situated in the composition to reinforce the surrealistic nature of the imagined outcome. 

Since I really love to draw, I usually have to go out to find drawing content. This means bringing my camera out and going to more unconventional/ unexplored places in Singapore. My exploration, unlike many others, is for the sake of drawing more realistically grounded pieces. Hence, I will use the photos taken and  turn them into dream-like, surreal landscape. I chose to use the Old Woodlands Town Centre landscape as my final imagined outcome.

I really love to drink Teh-Bing, Teh-Bing with less sugar to be exact. Loving such a drink also means visiting coffeeshops very often. I always felt that that the coffee/tea making kitchen scene is very uniquely Singapore and decided to play with it after watching Beauty & the Beast. The movie had a talking tea pot and tea cup which then inspired me to bring it over to our local coffee making tools. The female character is seen sitting on a stirring spoon and flying around like how harry potter flies on his broom.

Since I don’t stay in hall, I have long bus rides to school and to home everyday. These bus rides are usually extended snooze time for me which explains the visuals on the first frame. However, taking a bus ride on a day with heavy downpour can be really really cold. It’s made worse when I don’t have a jacket with me. This inspired me to create a snowing bus and it was a scene set at the stairs going onto the upper deck of the bus. The female character is engineered to move as though she’s jumping from one step to another. 

The snowing bus is actually one of my favourite frames because it felt like I gave a new life to a seemingly insignificant part of the public bus. It is also this frame that will continue to spur me on to re-establish insignificant parts of our everyday lives into something special and dream-like. The last panel is one that explains and sums up the reason behind my inclination to illustrate images in a child-like manner. The first frame captures me at my favourite daydreaming spot at home which is in the kitchen. I often stand at the window to face the scenery outside to get a mental reboot before returning to work.

My daydreaming tendencies turned into something more than just a dream after I discovered the world of children’s illustration books. These books became a living proof of the potential direction of my artistic style and inclination. Artists like Ah Guo, Jimmy Liao & Shaun Tan became my main sources of inspiration to bravely venture into the world of illustration books.

Hence, the last frame has the older me hugging the younger me, showing how I have chosen to embrace and accept the child in me through my artistic pursuit.

 

P.S. I think photos of my drawings don’t portray the colours rendered at their best but oh wellz, the best is seen when it’s live.

2D Project: Ego Research & Process

I knew I wanted to use water colour right from the start, but to be honest, I only started using this medium earlier this year so  I am still pretty new to it. Mimi suggested Iraville as a visual reference and since I was familiar with her style too, I decided to go ahead with it.

These were some key takeaways that I took from Iraville:

  • Her use of warm, earthy hues. Almost every colour had a tinge of warmness to it
  • Her strong use of shadows adds depth the composition
  • Her method of painting human skin (I never painted skin with water colour before!!)

Iraville was a visual reference for my water colouring technique. On the other hand, I had another artist that was my content reference.

Ah Guo is a local water colourist that I chanced upon this year, and his manipulation of local landscapes to something dreamlike and surreal was the biggest source of inspiration for my body of works. His use of familiar landscapes motivated me to apply them in the frames for my imagined outcome.

Hence, combining Iraville’s water colouring technique together with the visual content of Ah Guo became the direction I was heading towards for my “Ego” project.

2D Project: Research on Movie Quotes

I started with a range of movie quotes to choose from, wondering which one was I able to visualise it in my head.  I personally have a habit of writing down impressionable movie quotes but I realised most of them were too abstract. They mostly consist of words that didn’t have a literal representation to it.

Hence,  I concluded that I needed to find quotes that had words which could be portrayed literally yet give me enough space/potential to add meaning to it.

 

2D Project: Process

QUOTE #1

I honestly quite liked this version of my design because the symmetry of this composition was really pleasing to the eye. However, the mountain against the black backdrop made them look similar to some sort of cosmic stones which wouldn’t have been the right association.  Furthermore, I realised that have grey tones wouldn’t be possible for silkscreen so I had to re-evaluate my designs to find one which would still create a successful threshold effect. 

FINAL DESIGN 

The above was my final outcome for the quote “The mountain always has the last word”. I decided to use the threshold version of the final composition since it was 1) what I used for my tote bag 2) it had a more imposing vibe since it was only black and white.

Using this composition made the addition of the human being redundant because they could not been seen. Furthermore, personifying the mountain as a monster-like creature was already enough to reflect the concept of nature triumphing (in a bad way) behind my quote.

QUOTE #2

The scene where this quote took place is as follows:

Guy: What’s the tune that you just played?

Girl: That’s a secret

The tune was a secret and it’s actually called “Secret” because it is a tune that helped the girl travel through time. She traveled 20 years into the future and met the guy which she eventually fell in love with. Hence, the secret was more than just the piano tune but also how the girl is actually not real.

FINAL DESIGN

This was my final piece for the quote “It’s a secret”. One key change was the create multiple layers of the female character. They layers changed from clear facial features to faded off distortions to just a white fill layer and lastly to just an outline.  It’s as though the female character is gradually fading off to the background, reinforcing how her presence is not realistic at all.

Another very obvious visual addition was the Art Deco inspired frame which might not have been the best decision. However, the intention behind adding the frame actually sprang from my insecurity that the piece wasn’t retro/ vintage enough. Hence, I decided to link the Art Deco period to show that it was also the jazz age, hinting the strong musical presence in the movie.

QUOTE #3

A very important and key process for this quote was actually physically sketching out different compositions on paper. I was never quite someone who dived straight into stringing different visual elements online so sketching out my thoughts was important.

Honestly, the sketching stage was already sufficient for me to decide what kind of composition would have worked and which wouldn’t. Some of the above thumbnails involved blatantly comparing the 2 responses to the chose quotes which I thought wasn’t sophisticated enough.

Hence, I decided to play with the thumbnail that had the zip take up most of the paper which led to the composition below.

FINAL DESIGN

This was the final design where I decided to do without the jeans texture and changed the male character. The previous male character was simply too jovial and was even in an working attire which wasn’t resonant to the context of the movie. Furthermore, I had to choose a male character which exude a vibe that belonged to the olden days.

I chanced upon this character which had an almost nonchalant expression which pretty much encapsulated the character in the movie. He exude a certain confidence and lack of care. It resonated with how the main character in the movie could not care less for strict book definitions.

I honestly loved this composition and would have liked to print this on my tote bag instead hahaha. It would have been a nice “optical illusion” to have an opening zip on the cover of the bag.

QUOTE #4

This movie was about how a father who lost his daughter due to an accident started writing letters to 3 abstractions – Time, Love & Death. So the quote “I am a gift and you are wasting it” is actually said by time.

FINAL DESIGN

This was my final design where I used the border to further contextualise the movie. The border is actually the border of the postage stamp which further reinforced the act of the main character writing letter to time.

Some comments was that the roman numerals on the gift box did not successfully portray an image of a clock. And I personally thought that there could be a smoother transition of the gift box disintegrating into sand (like an hourglass). This could probably be achieved with more exaggerated distortions on the left side of the gift box.

 

 

4D: Sequential Thinking Final

OLD IS GOLD

Please excuse the watermark on the video because I’m not a mac user.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7l2YbtokjhQRmNJTjVVUUJUUUk

The concept of my work sprang from my desire to use old Singapore toys in the video.  The story talks about a girl who dozes off while doing work and dreams about a world of fun and play created by those toys. She then wakes up with an idea on how to proceed on her work because of the dream she had.

In the dream world, the girl descends from a hot air balloon and lands on a snake & ladder piece. She plays the game of snake and ladder and reaches the end of it. With that, a celebratory dance happens (the image with pink background) and the girl wakes up from her dream.

Really enjoyed this project because I could play with old Singapore toys and I had fun shopping for them too heh. I wished I could be more precise with this stringing of the images and even put in sound but oh wellz (sleep is more important).

Hope you guys enjoyed it.