Monthly Archives: October 2016

2D Project 2: FINAL DESIGNS!

Mounted presentations

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I really like how it translates the scene and describes the quote too!

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In the end, I chose this out of all the other prints because the father figure in Due Date was a nice and encouraging person. By using Darth Vader, it might seem a little too dark, so using Mufasa to symbolise the dad is a better choice. The inclusion of The Lion King also helps portray the meaning of ‘the circle of life’ better.

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I think this design best shows the harmony between ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘pirates’!

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One satisfactory design is good enough haha.

 

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That’s all for this project!

 

Silkscreen printing time!

Ta-dah! I decided to choose the Back to the Future quote as my tote bag design! I had to go with BTTF because it’s my favourite movie haha╰(*´︶`*)╯

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To be honest, I was quite dejected throughout the process of silkscreen printing because I kept messing up. Here’s why:

For the first week, I misinterpreted the instructions and inverted my print…

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I was still stubborn and decided to go ahead with this print. Anyway I thought that since I was always scrub away and make a new print. It is still fascinating though! Applying the blue-chemical paint thing (I’m so sorry I forgot what was the correct term oops), and seeing how our designs get printed on the silkscreen board after the went through that vacuum-like photocopy machine. And washing the blue paint off to reveal the finalised print on the silkscreen board!!

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 My design on the silkscreen board!

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Checklist: coins, black paint, squeegee, paper, and silkscreen board

optimized-dsc_0258Printing on paper

So as you can see, I messed up because that was not the original idea that I had in mind. Although it still looks okay, it turned out to be too dark and ominous looking, so I still had to redo the print.

Fast-forward to the next week, because I had to repeat the whole process of putting on the blue paint and the photocopying thing, I was already lagging behind my classmates as they were already preparing to print their designs on their tote bags.

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The correct transparency woohoo!

Also i accidentally made a hole in the blueprint when my silkscreen board was drying… So I was even more further behind the others (;-;)

When it was finally dried, I had to test print on papers first but I kept messing up.

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Too much ink/scrubbing the paint too many times, making the print look blurry

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Not enough ink/strength thus leaving some empty spots

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Tried putting the paint at the bottom (different direction), and it turned out to be better!

I decided that since this paper print looked okay, I shall just do it straight on the tote bag!
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I WAS SO NERVOUS BUT IN ONE SHOT, I DID IT. AND I’M SO HAPPY WITH THE RESULTS. (T▽T)

Moral of the story post, although things may not go your way or you may be lacking in comparison to your peers, everything will turn out to be okay at the end! Have some faith in yourself and the outcome! ヾ(☆ω☆)

Designs Progress

While coming up with design of the quote, I was in a dilemma about how should I present the design – if it is based off literally from the quote itself or from the movie scene when the quote was being said. I also had to consider how different images used can portray different meanings and styles.

 

For the BTTF quote, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”, I sort of already had an idea of using the vanishing point idea again whereby the end of the road will be something that represents the unknown (future/past); road being cut off.

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Road markings are replaced by an electric guitar (Marty reference), and the road ends with a clocktower (since the clocktower in the movie is the mark that ties the present time of 1985 to the past and the future). I also added clouds as it helps depict the scene as blurry and a dream-like state.

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The second design shows the road directly ending off with a clock. Again, the clouds are there to symbolise a mysterious aura. I added the lightnings and fires along the side of the road to better depict the scene where the DeLorean zaps off, giving the design a dramatic feel, much alike to the amazingness when they managed to travel successfully through time in the movie! I like how grungy the design looks and has a rock-n-roll;AC/DC feel, showing off the 80s vibes of the movie whoo \m/

 

For the two Due Date quotes, I had more trouble coming up with the designs as the words in the quotes can have different symbols to symbolise them.

“He really enjoyed coffee and in the end he was enjoyed as coffee… Kind of circle of life.”

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I wanted to include the Enso circle as it symbolises the meaning of the circle of life. I tweaked it to look like the coffee’s aroma.

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I added the silhouette of Mufasa from the The Lion King as I wanted to include a recognisable father figure (who is dead…). And since it’s about the circle of life, I’m pretty sure everyone thinks of The Lion King when they hear that phrase. Killing two birds with one stone. *smirks* I also align him in a way that his tail is the kettle’s handle.

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Still experimenting around with the idea of a father’s figure… And somehow I decided to put Darth Vader’s head (replaced with a smiling skull face) over Peter Griffin’s body while holding up a cup of coffee……

Let’s just move on

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I made a skull as a cup filled with coffee. But meh, it looks a little too creepy (despite the dark humour in the quote), and did not convey the meaning of ‘father’ and ‘circle of life’.

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Decided to re-use the smiling skull face with a Darth Vader helmet because it look.. kinda cute? hahaha. I thought of placing it in a coffee shop logo, and changed the shop logo/established date to, well, the date of death of the father?

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Again, I wanted to really show off the phrase ‘circle of life’ in my design, so I went back to linking The Lion King into my thinking process. Therefore, I’ve recreated the famous scene from The Lion King where Rafiki holds up Simba in the air, but instead I had replaced it with a coffee kettle holding up a coffee cup with the aroma smoke. And a flower at the back to represent a dead parent figure. But it looks so ridiculous so never mind, hahaha.

 

“That was Shakespeare, ever heard of him?” “Yes I’ve heard of him. He’s a famous pirate.”

I had a lot of fun recreating this quote because I got to play between the themes of ‘pirates’ and ‘classical plays’.

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When I think of Shakespeare, I immediately thought of theatre plays, so I decided to use the theatrical masks as the main focus of the design. I also added pirate hats and an eyepatch. I was  inspired by the skull & crossbones pirate flag, so I replaced the bones with a sword and a quilt pen to symbolise the interaction between writers and pirates.

It still looked pretty plain so I stacked Shakespeare’s handwritten notes to form ocean waves (pirates) and added doubloons (18th century) on the top to balance out the design.

I placed a coffee cup in one of the pirate’s hat to hint the other aspects of the movie.

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Why not be super direct? Here’s shakespeare as a pirate with his big hat and eyepatch. I also added the ‘words’ waves in the background.

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So, shakeSPEARE. Hence, I build different elements around a spear by adding a sword and a quilt pen on each side. I added some curve lines in the middle to show a shaking motion so that it looks like the spear is shaking (forgive the pun). I also added a skull where the spear pierces through it since Shakespeare is famous for his tragedies – clearly, he likes to talk about the topic of death, and since skulls represents pirates too. In case you’re wondering what are the wings like looking things beside the sword and the quilt pen, those are Shakespeare’s tuffs of hair at the side of his head………

Also I included his moustache at the skull. So the overall piece will would like a human head shape, or more specifically, Shakespeare’s.

 

For the last quote, it’s “The suit is a modern gentleman’s armour.” from the Kingsman.

I only had one design for this quote as I was pretty satisfied with what I came up with.

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When I think of ‘modern armour’, I thought of what are the coolest famous superheroes of this time. Therefore I overlaid the blueprint of the Ironman’s suit over a suit. I positioned the umbrellas similar to Deadpool’s style (the umbrellas are the iconic weapons used in Kingsman). I also added fireworks in the background as the scene where the people’s heads exploded was the climax of the movie when Eggsy gets to demonstrated his combat skills as a Kingsman agent (knight)

 

Check out the next post for my finalised designs!

 

MOVIE QUOTES

For 2D’s project 2, we were asked to create tote bag designs based off from 4 movie quotes. Here are the 4 that I had decided to use! 🙂

 

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” – Back to the Future

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“He really enjoyed coffee and in the end he was enjoyed as coffee… Kind of circle of life.” – Due Date

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That was Shakespeare, ever heard of him?” “Yes I’ve heard of him. He’s a famous pirate.” – Due Date

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The suit is a modern gentleman’s armour.” – Kingsman: The Secret Service

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here’s a gif of Eggsy to end off this post teehee.

불타오르네, FIYAHHHHHHH OH EH OH

For our second 3D project, it’s string sculptures!

My string sculpture goes by the theme of ‘Fire’. During the thinking process, I was inspired by Lydia’s Water-themed string sculpture.

 

(FIRST DRAFT)

For my first draft, I cut a few random lines in a piece of paper so that I could fold the different edges to build up the figure, similar to the shape of a bonfire. I also used red, orange, and yellow strings to convey the meaning.

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At this stage, the idea of including strings in my design was simply to piece the different strips together, instead of incorporating it into my design. I also had no prior planning on the locations of the holes and direction of where my strings were going.

Which was why in my second draft, I scratched the idea of cutting the paper/plastic sheet and did more research in ways that I can present strings as a shape form.

 

(SECOND DRAFT)

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I used a harder black vanguard paper for stronger structure support. I also pre-poked the holes so that I would have a clearer idea throughout the creation process on where should the strings go.

All the strings from the circle converged into the centre hole in the line. The strings from the square joining up to all the holes in the line, with each side of the square joining up differently from changing angles. This formed a cone shape that was surrounded with ‘slanted walls’.

However, the overall piece looked very complicated and messy. It was also very time consuming to make sure all the strings were tied tightly, which was especially difficult since multiple strings were condensed in one hole. There were also two sides of the square being incomplete because it was too difficult to keep track of which string should go in which direction… 🙁

 

(THIRD DRAFT)

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The cone shape made from the strings looked pretty neat, so I thought, why not make two circles and twist the strings in a way to form two cones!

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This the final look! I also attached strings from lines on both side, forming a rectangular wall that intertwined with the cones, because I thought that the sculpture will look too dull if it was simply just the cones in a single colour.

However, Peter also mentioned that although the structure looked nice and proper, it did not reflect the original idea that I had.

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(FINAL DRAFT)
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And so, for my final piece, I decided to incorporate the new learnt skills of making a cone and at the same time, conveying the theme of ‘Fire’ too!

I made two circles, but this time, I used two coloured strings – red and yellow, and attached them in different directions, to form two different types of cones, forming a free-flowing conical shape, much alike to a burning fire.

I also added lines at the side, but instead of being straight, they were slightly wavy, making the ‘walls’ look more interesting. They were also made using light and dark blue strings to imitate the blue flames.

I really like how the overall piece turned out because it is a lot more vibrant, and also showcase the skills that I had learnt from the stringing process.

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When looking from different angles, the combination of the multi-coloured and the variations in the angles of the strings gives a fresh interesting trippy-looking perspective. It’s also pretty cool how the colours of the strings were reflected on the plastic sheet too.

Overall this project was like journey of discovery and experimentation, finding out what fits the aesthetics of the work yet sticking to what I want to convey as well. I learnt how to utilise space and my materials too. And most importantly, I am proud of my final piece and enjoyed how fun the process was even though it was difficult to approach and manage.