EGO – Final Assignment

:: EGO ::

Final ALL done

:: RESEARCH&INSPIRATION ::

1. Red Hongyi || 2. Groerhs || 3. @ibird_art

Red Hong Yi

Groehrs

ibird

The concept/style that I pursued for this assignment is illustration+digital collaging, slightly different from the inspiration I have searched. I prefer digital collaging rather than traditional arranging because it allows more flexible process and permutation of final results. Traditional arranging requires a lot of different materials and the color would be more ‘inflexible’.

I chose to use quite a number of my hand drawn pictures to make the whole panels uniquely me. Most of the times, hand drawn lines are individualistic.

:: PROCESS&INSIGHT ::

Fantasee

I am a dreamer, a fantasizer. The idea is about opening my brain, and you see what is in side. The first image is a trial to see whether this illustration of brain good enough to be in the collage or not. I use analogous colors from pink/red to blue/purple, with the intention to give clearer depiction of fantasy.

Handy

I am pretty handy. The idea is having a hand that can act like mechanical tools, hence my hands are quite versatile in making things, repairing things. I got the inspiration from a doctor who suddenly ‘foretold’ me that “there is something about your hand. Don’t work for others. Work for your own.” And some friends do tell me that I have magic hands. The analogous colors of red to yellow are chosen as they gave the impression of working. When you are tired your face turns red,  I guess?

 Dove

I am willing to help. I want to be a blessing for others. My hands are meant for benevolent things. Hence what i can think of to symbolize ‘blessing’ is dove. And to apply design synectics, I replace the wings with my hands. It gives the impression that with my hands, I fly to others, helping them and sprinkling blessings. At first i found difficulty how to make the composition smooth. The 2nd picture looks patchy, hence I try unhide certain layers and the color of the wings help a smooth transition from illustration to photo. I used split complementary colors of light purple, blue and yellow for the bird – aesthetic purpose. I add the tree as a ‘background’ because when I tried, it looks just nice, reducing the ‘rawness’ of the image. For the tree background, it is complementary colors of green and red. I use the original color of tree and its fruit to give more natural look to the image.

snake

But my heart is often consumed by jealousy. This deadly sin fades little by little as I grow older, but it still lingers there, poisoning me. Green is the color of jealousy, and a snake is chosen with the intention to depict ‘evilness’ and ‘toxicity’ of the the green jealousy. A heart is chosen to depict the kindness, humanity – which will be gone if jealousy consumes them. The line background is suggested by a friend and no, it’s not my style. Then together with the previous Benevolent hands image, I add the tree background. The difference is, the trees here are dead – because of jealousy. And for real, jealousy kills the humanity in us. The benevolent hands will not act the way they should be if the snake is still in our heart. Complementary colors of red and green is chosen – the red is ‘spices’ to the image; sub-ordinate role.

owl

To me, important virtues that I want and have to have are not just maturity and wisdom, but also youthfulness no matter what age I am at. Going to stay young at heart. I am inspired by my mom and some other parents who are still able to connect with modern teenagers and youngsters, but at the same time mature gracefully. To symbolize the wisdom and maturity, I purposefully chose owl and purple (color of wisdom). The youthfulness is depicted using rainbow and the happy silhouette. I delete the random tourist places at the feet of the owl because it looks redundant with the title. I wanted to depict youthfulness with the trait of being adventurous and exploring, however I think the silhouettes are enough to depict that.

beauty

I can’t deny that sick personality would make the most beautiful angel ugly, but in today’s world, looks are important too. Hence, if I can have both inner and outer beauty, why not? the flawless back skin is to depict outer beauty, and the garden inside the ribcage is for inner beauty. I chose roses because it’s the universal symbol for beauty and at the same time expression of love and other positive feelings. Red is for love and compassion. White is purity. the butterflies are to add aesthetics.

fashion illustrator

I want to be a pro fashion illustrator. Hopefully, as I graduate from ADM, I will already obtain the skill and the fame as a fashion illustrator, not just locally but internationally. Illustration: Elie Saab Haute Couture SS2015.

print

And hopefully, being a fashion illustrator is lucrative, making me rich. Nothing’s impossible, right?  Yeap, hopefully in 5 years time I ‘print’ money by ‘inserting’ my illustrations ;).

Memememe

The pictures in the third column of the final work have multiple and intertwined meanings. To summarize:

:: The whole thing shows a progress of drawing an illustrative portrait – my portrait. I draw parallel to self-development/improvement = as more lines/shadings are added to my life, I will be better.

:: So, the final result of the portrait is intentionally made to be the Ideal me because me in 5 years time may not be ideal yet. I may take more than 5 years to be ideal, right?

:: me = looks like a goddess. I am fantasizing myself as some fictional character.

:: better me = me is like a deer, animal that symbolizes kindness, maturity.

:: ideal me = other than using the finished picture of my portrait, I add make up to ‘her’. I don’t wear makeup now, so I think in the future I would be more ideal with makeup. The rose at the side lips to show that I speak beautiful, kind words. And i have wise friends like the owl!

:: me in 5 years time = me as fashion illustrator, will think a lot of illustrations.

:: ORIGINALS ::

Some of the images used are made by myself.

Hand raw owl raw

ref2

ref3

ref1

And my portrait and its processes.

:: REFLECTION ::

I am happy doing it. Even though I admit it is a bit last minute for the execution, I am satisfied that I can use the style that I like. More importantly, I feel that after this assignment, I can draw illustrations faster and better. Applying as many design synectics as possible is challenging actually, I spent more time planning then executing the final works, but it is really worth-doing. I want to make more ‘smart images’ that can talk to the viewers without words.

And thank you, Mimi for your guidance 🙂 I am exposed to many new skills thanks to your teaching in class and also the assignments <3.

The best is yet to be.

Handy Spandy – 2D Nursery Rhymes Assignment

Handy Spandy, Jack-a-dandy

Loves plum cake and sugar candy.

FINAL A FINAL B

He bought some at a grocer’s shop

And out he came, hop hop hop.

FINAL C FINAL D

The four images above are the final images for the assignment.

The first two lines’ images are created in ‘continuation’ effect, with the intention that by combiningg the two images, the viewers can get a bigger picture of Handy Spandy’s identity.

The third and fourth lines are not ‘continuation’ even thought i tried my best to keep them in the same style as the first two. The last two images are more of like a ‘framing of an activity/event’ (just like movie framing) of Handy Spandy when he bought sweets from grocery shop and when he just finished buying them.

The approach to this final images are a mix of fantasy/abstract and realism. The Handy Spandy that you see does not accurately resemble human being, it just have some feature like eyes, mustache, wearing clothes and hat, but the hands are so inhuman and there is no feet – that’s why he hops! However, certain non-living objects are from daily life such as the cakes, the candies, trolleys.

FIRST STEP: RESEARCH

Actually, I did jotting down ideas on my phone before hand, but I think the steps that really helped me able to materialize the ideas are through research of what previous artists had done.

The research is quite a lot, and I did type down what I was thinking as I was compiling them, so here is the pdf file of my research.

2D PROJECT2 RESEARCH

I did not follow all of the things that I have thought earlier, but I gain the confidence from doing this research.

SECOND STEP: PROCESS THROUGH EXPERIMENTING

I did sketch on my sketch book, but the images will never be as meticulously ‘drawn’ as in photoshop/illustrator directly. So, most of my experiments are digitally done. I am using Photoshop CS5.

Here are some of the process images I have done before coming to my final images.

PROCESS A

VERSION ONE A stripes VERSION ONE A stripes one hand VERSION ONE B fail VERSION ONE B with lolly Supermarket small sizeVERSION ONE D

The 6 images above are just some of my early processes. I firstly made the Handy Spandy character an egg shape, inspired directly from Humpty Dumpty. i thought at first, maybe Handy Spandy is a character from Humpty Dumpty’s world, but that our professor said to me that it looks deceiving instead (audience will think Handy Spandy is Humpty Dumpty instead). So, I think it’s wiser to change the shape of him so audience will not think that way.

I found doing the images for the first two lines fun. However, it is super tiring and hard to make the images for the other two lines :(. I was running out of ideas and started to being too literal, just like the image of Handy Spandy literally shopping cakes in a supermarket. I got less creative. The hop hop one is also hard to make since ‘hopping’ is a moving action. it’s hard to be captured in an abstract way! I haven’t known how to approach this idea of hopping at this stage.

PROCESS B

small7 small8small5small6small4small3small2small1      small9

This second round, I tried to get rid of Handy Spandy full figure, so it could be more abstract, i hoped. The first two are rejected, since the ‘hand’ symbol doesn’t represent ‘handy-ness’ of Handy Spandy. Handy Spandy might not be a handy man, it’s just a nickname for him, so it should not use a hand symbol instead.

In this process, I approach more the use of patterns and repetition, and then I tried to see whether the negative image of the image are good or not. I like some of them, but friends said they look scary…

PROCESS B V.2

small12small10 small11  small15small14small13

Since the hand-shaped one is rejected, I tried different approach. I try to play with the emotion, as well as the dingbats. “Maybe the hat doesn’t have to be a hat”, so it become eyebrows. then the hand is ‘infused’ into the mustache, to give effect of ‘oops’. I feel empty at first, since the the eye is a big hollow circle. then, I playfully at bicycle to see what effect it will give. and taddah! i kinda like it. and the bicycle is able to add even more identity to the Handy Spandy! he might be a dandy but ride bicycle. The polaroid frame is an experiment to reduce the too-simple feeling.

then, in order to be consistent, I add the ‘hat effect’ to every single Handy Spandy’s face in other images. they all now have eyebrows or closed-eyes with hats.

PROCESS C: FINALLY FINAL

I made these assignment for weeks, until my friends from other courses (I do my work with friends from other faculties) remember which image that they saw for the first time! #randomfact.

Anyway, this process C is actually the ‘correction’ of process A. I like the result from process B V.2, but they feel too ‘safe’ for me. just repetition, patterns. they are not bad, but I do like some concepts from process A.

So i decided to give another try by correcting process A.

HandySpandy2 VERSION 3 A one hand VERSION 3 A three hands VERSION 3 B dreaming cake VERSION 3 C flying cart 2 VERSION 3 C flying cart VERSION 3 D Fail VERSION 3 D plain VERSION 3 dreaming cakes bigger

So, firstly, i changed the shape of the Handy Spandy. I at first wanted to try hand-shape, but so hard. then heart shape, too romantic. So, i think peanut/eight-shape is neutral and pretty original. I like it so muc has it’s so smooth and cute at the same time. I didn’t regret spend more time doing this process C :).

Then, for the one with Handy Spandy holding the trolley, I LOVE IT SO MUCH. it looks like a symbol. i didn’t realize until process C that actually trolley itself is representative enough for a grocery shop/supermarket. the simpler the better, and that is really true in this matter.

I also adapt the idea of ‘hopping’ from process B: using the spring.

FINAL WORDS

TBH this assignment is actually an exercise for us to get used to ‘dingbats’ and halftones. somehow after doing this, i do poster designs more easily and faster. Well, I like first assignment too, but this one is more viscom while i feel the first one is more fine-artish.

Yeay!!!!!!!!!!!

VERSION 3 C flying cart 2

My favorite image. it may or may not be Mimi’s favorite or friends’ favorite but this is my favorite. makes me wanna fly~~~~~ “He bought some from a grocer’s shop”.

What is The First Thing in Your Mind?

I once heard that humans process things in their brains in the form of visual images.

Hungry. Food (McDonald’s fries image came out in my head)! Romance. Sunset! Stupid. Spongebob (okay I dont really know why Spongebob came first)!

So, for the task “A line is a dot that went for a walk“, I use this very primitive method to gain the initial inspiration for some of the feelings (some feelings are inspired by the monoprints and experiments that I have made).

For example: turbulence. Tornado!

let me continue this later.