photoshop – chisarto

Process

For this assignment, we are required to apply our understanding of colours and colour theory to visually represent the multifacted nature of our personality. I decided to start mind mapping the many sides of who I am. This alone was interesting because I see how different I am around different groups of people.

Mindmap

Based on the above mind map, I tried to represent myself using various objects. Below are the things that used for my final pieces.

Sketches

After doing the mind map and coming up with the situations, I started sketching out my ideas. I found that using colours in my sketches helped me to visualise my final pieces better. Even if I did not stick to the colour schemes, they served as a guide.

Some of these panels are rejected. Some were used but the colours and composition changed drastically!

I find that the sketches helped people understand my ideas better too. Ideas that people were skeptical about became clearer once I showed them the sketch.

From there, I chose and adjusted the colours for the final pieces as I worked on them. The colours that I use are generally bright and bold because I love vibrant colour schemes. I tried out some of the colour schemes covered in class — triadic, complementary, analogous and monochromatic. Below, I describe the my process according to the order that I did the panels.

The Shy Fox

The fox represents the shy side of me. Also, people have pointed out that I look like a fox. The situation I picked for the fox is a group of robots. The robots represent the uncomfortable social situations that I sometimes face. I’d then put on a facade, so the fox blends into the surrounds by pretending to be a robot.

I started on this set first because I had a clear idea of the style and working steps! Since I am from animation, I am influenced by animation drawing styles and our way of designing. But I’ve never tried photoshop’s pen tool to illustrate before so I decided to try it out! I watched a youtube tutorial on noise and grain. The person who made the tutorial shared with us his working steps which was very helpful! I find that I work faster by blocking out silhouettes. The lines appear much cleaner and I can edit without wasting time!

The colours used here are complementary. Since the fox is a warm orange-red, I decided to make it stand out by using a cool blue.

Setting: An uncomfortable social situation.

I used Dice Tsutsumi’s painting as a guide for this panel. His colours seem to blend and create this really nice harmony even though some colours are contrasting. The colour scheme used here is triadic. The purple background contrasts nicely with the subject.

The third panel below is more of a analogous colour scheme with a hint of the fox’s red fur peeking out of the paper and boxes.

The carrot with another face

Carrot represents me because it is slender yet firm. I think everyone including me behaves differently in their home vs. outside, so I depicted a carrot lazing on a couch in its home, with its orange peel hanging on a hanger to reveal its true self — its purple self.

For this set I tried to use gouache, but I found that I didn’t like the outcome of the paintings. I lacked the patience and time to work on them (oops) so I improvised and edited the panels digitally on photoshop. On photoshop I had more freedom to control colours and clean up any edges that I don’t like. I like the final outcome. I played with a more muted colour scheme for this set.

Colour scheme used is clearly complementary. I made sure to retain the texture of the paint on paper — something that might be difficult to replicate digitally. Added the shadow to give the carrot more contrast too.

Original scan with edited edges. Colours unedited. Oh the power of technology.

This panel had a drastic change in colour scheme from the original painting because I decided I didn’t like the sky to be so dull. Colour scheme is triadic. Also, masking fluid is hard to work with. I need more patience!!

Scan of original painting. Again, with edited edges.

Colour scheme use is complementary. I used warm colours to show how comfortable and cosy home is. Again, this panel was edited and cleaned up digitally.

The scared mango

I’m a mango because I’m soft and sensitive! And I enjoy watching movies alone. But not when it’s a scary film! So I depict the scared mango peeing on the ground. I think I enjoyed doing this set the most, especially the first panel with its bright vibrant juicy colours.

I used pixelpchan’s work as reference for this set. I used vibrant colours to depict the mango, and used a much muted, darker colour scheme for the cinema panels to create the scary mood. Colour dodge was used for the cinema movie screen glow for a more dynamic look, as opposed to using all dark colours. The colours for this set was pretty much restricted due to its dark setting but I tried to work around that.

Colour scheme for first panel is largely analogous, with the blue and green as accents (does that make it triadic?!). Made sure that the lines were not black as that would make the look of the illustration “heavy”.

This panel was difficult to execute because I didn’t like that the colours were so dark. But to create the setting / mood, it had to be dark colours. So I used colour dodge for the Sakako coming out of the screen. The bright blue stands out against the dark purple / red tones. Thank you Yan Ran for suggesting: “Draw Sadako, but cute.” ? My original Dracula idea did not match the cutesy theme so I changed to Sadako. I am pleased I asked for her opinion!

The dependent stick insect

My poly friends used to call me a stick insect (how mean!) and I love jogging so I merged the two ideas together. I also think that I’m a dependent person, so that is how I came up with the idea of a stick insect who loves jogging but in the end clings on to someone else instead of running itself.

I deviate from dark colours and used brighter, pastel colours. The style of this set is a fusion of the previous fox and mango style. It ended up looking very graphic design-ish. For this series I had a mood board as reference for the colours.

MOOD BOARD. Artwork from pinterest, and some pieces from Kiyomi Aritake.

For this first panel, I tried to go for a dynamic composition because first panels tend to be a bit more static. I thought about what pose the stick insect should have and whether should it wear shoes or not.

Since the first and last panels are a bit more dynamic, I stuck to a static composition for the second panel for overall balance. The colours used are triadic.

Final

Overall, I made sure that as a series and as a whole, the colours have a sort of unity and harmony. I find it interesting that some people pointed out that even though they understand that I attempted different styles, they still look “unified” or “the same” in a sense. Probably because of a particular style that I already have.

Thoughts

I’m happy that I was able to apply the things that I’ve learnt throughout the entire semester. I feel that the course has added on to what I have learnt previously and I am a bit more satisfied with the outcome of my work this time! This assignment was the most fun to work on for the entire semester for me personally.

Difficulties

Interpretation – Initially I was a bit confused about the assignment but by the second consultation I was much clearer about what I needed/wanted to do. I talked to some of my classmates too and bounced ideas around with them.

Painting – I was rushing for time and had no patience. This was resolved with the help of photoshop.

Takeaways

I discovered new painting steps through watching youtube tutorials which I am thankful for because I am going to incorporate those steps into my future animation concept art work in the future! This shows that things we learn in one field can be applied in another.

Combining traditional medium and digital medium produces an interesting look with texture. In future I might want to start illustrating traditionally first, and then edit the piece digitally. It has a great “handmade” yet professional look.

Even though I did not use Adobe Illustrator for this project, I still learnt some skills that I can apply in future. After showing people my sketches, including Shirley, they taught me how the same effect can be achieved in Illustrator. Things like the Line Weight function is quite useful even as a animator when I want to do line art for my work so I might actually use that personally! Image Trace is also pretty useful.

I document my designing and silk screening process here!

Compositions

The seaweed is always greener, in somebody else’s lake. – The Little Mermaid (1989)

As explained in the previous post, I wanted to show contrast in the image to convey the idea of “somebody else’s”. However, I made the mistake of starting off with a pretty literal choice of image which is the water / lake. The line going across the page made the composition very static. I chose a frog as my subject since it is known to be a territorial creature. After combining the two elements I could not think of other images to include. Hence I ditched this composition totally.

While looking for a suitable frog image to use in this composition, I came across a good photo so I imported it into photoshop and edited it to become an engraving. It was a happy accident that the background become a nice engraved pattern. So I thought of using it to suggest the idea of water, instead of literally using images of ponds and lakes. I erased some parts so that it’d look more graphic. The engraved pattern provided good separation between the black and white areas, so I decided to keep that in the composition. I inverted the colours of the seaweed so that it’d stand out against their respective backgrounds. But admittedly it was too literal. During consultation, Shirley suggested using something else to represent the seaweed, like tadpoles maybe. Below is the design that I worked on before the final.

Fish are friends, not food. – Finding Nemo (2003)

My initial design was a bit too literal again since it is a fish, that seems to be a problem for me. I liked the irony of a fish eating another fish though. Composition wise, I like its simplicity. But I think this design would not have printed well so, rejected!

Since I liked the simple composition, I tried going for a similar concept. I tried replacing the fish with something else. I looked up animals that feed on fish. A lot of them were birds and bears. I didn’t want to work with a bear because I already have a panda in my other quote. I opted for a penguin and came up with the composition below. But I didn’t like the final outcome. Something about the penguin puts me off. So rejected.

Anyone can cook but only the fearless can be great. – Ratatouille (2007)

Photoshop messed up my file for this composition! I pressed SAVE but it corrupted the file. The irony. So I redid my work, and thankfully, it actually turned out better than what I had originally.

THE CORRUPTED FILE. Sigh.

This is the new and improved design of what I had originally. I think the image is quite reflective of the quote. I didn’t chose this because it doesn’t convey the “can be great” part very well.

The past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it. – The Lion King (1994)

I used a horse to substitute the word “run”. The difficult part about this composition was finding suitable images. I couldn’t find an angle that I like initially so I warped the horse image but that was a bad choice. It looked amateurish and bad overall. So I decided to ditch this.

After I found a suitable image and combined the elements of time and hurt, I worked on the “learn from it” part. I chose to create a pathway with knives because paths represent journeys and journeys are our learning processes! The next step was to think about the background. It was hard thinking about what elements to introduce into the compositions. The branches are supposed to show the passing of time too but it turned out to be very awkward in this composition.

I tried going for a simple approach too, by using a solid black path. But I’m not sure about all the abundance of white. I think it’s more interesting to have an actual background. So I rejected this too.

Silk screening process

The fun part! First, we had to print our design onto transparency. After we have coated our silkscreen with the blue emulsion, we let it dry. We then place our transparency with the design on it and expose it to light.

After scrubbing off the unexposed parts, this is what I got:

Pleased that it turned out fine. I proceeded to do some test prints on paper. At first I thought “Wow, so simple”…

I WAS WRONG. I attempted a print on my personal tote bag but it failed. I went over my design too many times because the ink wouldn’t distribute well. If we compare it with my final design, we can see that some of the tadpole in the black background and the engraved pattern didn’t show up. The bottom part of the design is faded. The white details against black backgrounds didn’t show up well. I guess the trick is to have the right amount of paint, and the right “feeling” as you drag the swipey thing down once.

Left: personal tote bag print, right: design

Placing the paint. We masked the edges of the screen with tape to avoid smudges!

Then using one swift motion, we drag the paint down. My second try, with the provided tote bag this time.

Final designs and final print to be revealed in final submission post!

Tag: photoshop

Ego In Different Settings | Process and Final