I knew from the beginning I wanted to incorporate my pass 2D Foundation works into my zine, especially my digital works. Because I felt that my digital works represented me trying new things that I was afraid of trying. It was not a hidden secret that I prefer doing my works by hand rather than digitally, because I was uncomfortable with the latter. But eventually it developed into a fear of trying new things and failing at it. So being in the 2D Foundation class, it forced me to the things that I was uncomfortable doing. My digital works are my triumph against my fear.

So far I had two projects that I did digitally. One was the Rhyme project from semester one and the other was the typography project from semester two.

I chose the first one, because I felt it would give me more materials to work with. My mindset was set on using my Rhyme project as not only the background of my zine but also two showcased my progress so far in ADM.

FRONT COVER & BACK COVER

I used the line the cat and the fiddle from the nursery “Hey Diddle Diddle”. However in the sketch I cut the image in have as if I had ripped it. I added some ripped paper so it looked more realistic. I purposely removed the eyes because I felt it would be a bit weird to have it on. Perhaps it would look that I separated top part of its head from its body.

Hey Diddle Diddle! The Cat and The Fiddle

And when the paper ripped it revealed a concrete background. I added the blue hue because I was planning to use orange text so it would complement each other. This is the finished piece that I did in Photoshop before I added the text in InDesign.

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PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

With this one I used the dog laughed at such a sport image. I wanted the dog to be the vocal point of the composition. The principles will be put around the dog’s head, 5 on each side so it will be balanced. Again I used a blue hue so it will complement the title text that I will add in later. As you can see like the cover pages I still keep the monochromatic colors too.

The Dog Laugh To See Such Sport 3

As you noticed I also played with a lot of texture, because I felt if I did not put in textures, the background would be blank and the composition would not be balance. I used texture from asphalt, concrete and black splatter.

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DEADLINES

I used a cracked wall for the background and added again the blue hue to unify my zine. To represent my Deadlines” spread I used the hand whipping image from my Rhyme project for the line and she whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed which is from the nursery ”There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe”. I thin it at more to the ferocity of the subject (in the sense how much I dread deadlines, LOL). I put the whipping hand on the right, so that I can placed my writings on the left.

Then Wipped Them All Soundly And Put Them To Bed 2Then Wipped Them All Soundly And Put Them To Bed

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EMBRACING CREATIVITY

I revert using the nursery “Hey Diddle Diddle”, in which this time I used the line the cow jumped over the moon. Just like the “Deadlines” spread I put the image on one of the sides of the spread. However unlike “Deadlines”, I put the cows and moon on the left because I was planning to put my text on the right.

The Cow Jump Over The Moon

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I knew I wanted to do all of it by hand. I wanted for each to have different “storybook” style. I took a lot of inspiration of storybook illustrator such as John Tenniel (Alice in Wonderland), Lisbeth Zwerger, Ralph Steadman, Jules Feiffer (The Phantom Tollbooth), Quentin Blake (Matilda) and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are).

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John Tenniel’s illustration of Alice and the Mad Hatter
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Ralph Steadman’s illustration of the White Rabb

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Jules Feiffer’s illustration of The Phantom Tollbooth

For each of the sentences I did a couple of thumbnails and showed them to Shirley. I wanted to  have a couple options that I can chose from.

A RABBIT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF ALICE IS CURIOUS

As I had mentioned I had wanted to do something that is related to Alice in Wonderland, so I had the initial design that I wanted to portray Alice and the White Rabbit. I eventually got two illustrations.

  1. Alice surrounded with dozens of white rabbits with the real White Rabbit looking from a far.

This illustrates Alice after her adventures in Wonderland. She is looking for the true White Rabbit amongst all of the white rabbits, because to her the White Rabbit is portal back to Wonderland.

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  1. Alice curiously observing a white rabbit.

Perhaps she is reminded by her wonderful misadventures in Wonderland and the rabbit is just bewildered by her staring.

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A RABBIT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE RED QUEEN IS A SERVANT

Like the one with Alice I knew what I wanted to draw. Like Alice I drew 2 illustrations:

  1. The Red Queen looking down at the White Rabbit.

As the White Rabbit looked up with an intimidated face, the Red Queen stared down at him as if he had done something bad.

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  1. The Red Queen is on her thrones and is being carried by the White Rabbit.

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This really spells out torture for the poor White Rabbit. He is carrying the heavy queen and her throne while she looks sinisterly happy with his sufferings. Truly such and evil queen!

A RABBIT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A CARROT IS THE END

At first I wanted to show a life cycle of a carrot: from a seed to a full mature carrot.

  1. The first one is a linear life cycle from left to the right20160315_000257
  2. Then the next one if a circular life cycle20160315_000259
  3. Then Shirley suggested me to just draw a carrot top. This really shows the final moments of the carrot as us the viewer is regarded as the rabbit.20160315_000303

A RABBIT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A RECKLESS DRIVER IS ROAD KILL

I had separate illustration to show that the rabbit has been run over by a car:

  1. The rabbits are left to die after a car which is seen from a far distant had ran over them. The rabbits seem have become zombies and trying to regain strength to chase the reckless driver.20160315_000213
  2. This one involves a bit of symbolism. The rabbit’s body part is separated and at the middle which is supposed to be the torso and stomach is replaced by the “beware of animals crossing” sign.20160315_000221
  3. The third one was a bit obscured but I wanted to draw a rabbit having been ran over, still a live looking at the viewer an pointing his finger to the track marks on his stomach. I find that this concept is hilarious. It shows a bit of sarcasms as well.

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A RABBIT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF CHINESE ZODIAC IS THE FOURTH

  1. I wanted to show the finish line because one of the legends of the Chinese Zodiac is that the order of the 12 animals is based on a race. I just wanted to show until the fifth, because I felt that having all twelve animals would overwhelm the composition and will not focus the rabbit.20160315_000243
  2. The second one I wanted to show a wheel of the Chinese Zodiac. It is after all a cycle20160315_000249
  3. Relating back to the first illustration, I decided to use a podium. And put the animals according to their position. But again I’m limiting the number of animals present in the composition so the rabbit would be the main focus.20160315_00025220160315_000203

 

A RABBIT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE SUPERSTITIOUS IS LUCKY

This one I had so many problems solving.

  1. At first I drew a rabbit foot being grabbed by a hand whilst it is still attached to the rabbit.20160315_000226
  2. Then I drew a rabbit with his leg amputated and he seems to be selling it as many hands are offering him money20160315_000233
  3. Finally after consulting Shirley I drew a rabbit’s feet holding a royal flush in a poker table.20160315_000047

 

I’M INDONESIAN

After having the concept nailed, I immediately start working. At first it was just sketching on paper which I will redo on Photoshop using my tablet. But then I realized it was taking a lot of time for me to sketch. After the third day I was tired of counting the hours I spent with one of the typography. Then my good friend Joyce, who is also in the same class as me, suggested to scan the design and clean it in Photoshop. It was a great advice! This is the scanned design. Imagine how many hours it would take to redraw this again on Photoshop.

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I up the contrast and eliminated the white background. Then I layered a yellowish gold cloth. I use the clipping mask option so that the line work I did would have the same texture as the cloth. After that I added a navy blue clothe as background. I think it contrasts really well with the yellow-ish gold. In the process of it I edited the colors a lot. Tweaking here and there until I got what I was looking for.

Here is the final look!

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I’M DILIGENT

With this one I took up que from the Im Indonesian design. I drew the design first in black and white and scanned it into the computer. Afterwards I added the colors and background in Photoshop.

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I drew a honeycomb with the honey dripping and added a bee to represent me the diligent hard worker.

In Photoshop I colored in the honeycomb one by one. What a pain it was. There we so many.

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In the end I used a blue background, because it complements the orange and yellow hues that my typography has.


I’M A TRANSLATOR

With this one I used Photoshop completely.

First I though of words to create the letter.

I was listening to some English songs such as Taylor Swifts “Bad Blood” and Justin Biebers “Sorry”. So some of the words ended up being use in the letter. (LOL)

After finishing the G, I moved on to the L which contains the Indonesian words. So I just translated some of the words in G and added some in.

Added a notepad background to finish the look.

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However I wasn’t satisfied. It was too straight. So I tilted the words a bit and crop them. The diagonal angle made the composition more interesting.


I’M A NIGHT OWL

I drew the owls on paper first, just like the “I’m Indonesian” and “I’m Diligent” typography. I finally decided to warp my owls into letters to spell out my name. Like the others that I had to design first on paper, this one was a labor of love. Those feathers took a long time!

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After scanning them, I opened Photoshop. The look that I wanted to achieve was it to look like paper cut outs, in fact this my initial idea after finishing the design. It was just that my design was very intricate, I knew it would take a long time to create and a great amount of patience to accomplish it nicely (which unfortunately I do not have)

Screenshot_2016-02-18-01-14-42

In the end I added a colorful background of blue and pink to represent the breaking of dawn. This is because I’m usually awake till 3 in the morning which in my country we can usually see the sun rising. Its different in Singapore. Its still dark even at 6.


So guys, those are the four characters that represents me. Personally my favorite would be the first one, “I’m Indonesian”. I’m very proud of my country and its culture. Being in another country made me more appreciate my homeland even more.

See you in the next post!

With any project, we always start with the ideas! The drafts! This part of the process is always fun and painful. It also a part of self discover too!


I’M INDONESIAN

For this, I immediately want to do something with batik motifs. What is batik you might ask? Batik is both an art and a craft, which is becoming more popular and well known in the West as a wonderfully creative medium. The art of decorating cloth in this way, using wax and dye, has been practised for centuries. In Java, Indonesia, batik is part of an ancient tradition, and some of the finest batik cloth in the world is still made there. The word batik originates from the Javanese tik and means to dot.

Batik Cirebon Burung Gelatik BK02-03_2 batikmodern03 Batik Madura

Different Batik form 

To make a batik, selected areas of the cloth are blocked out by brushing or drawing hot wax over them, and the cloth is then dyed. The parts covered in wax resist the dye and remain the original colour. This process of waxing and dyeing can be repeated to create more elaborate and colourful designs. After the final dyeing the wax is removed and the cloth is ready for wearing or showing.

But which region of batik I’ll be using? That’s an interesting question to answer. Since Indonesia is a diverse country, we have different motifs of batik which are unique to each region.

Batik Ciamis

Batik Ciamis

In the end I choose to use the Ciamis Batik. The reason why I used it because the motifs are very compact and will help me make the design that I envision, which I will elaborate in the next part of the Process.

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I’M A TRANSLATOR

The initial though with this is the concept of using Google Translate to represent that I’m a translator. But I was concerned with the fact that may name end up very small in the composition, and Shirley also agreed. So she suggested blowing up my name. The way to do it was quite a challenge. And I ended up scraping my initial sketch and went with a bit of a not so straight forward approach.

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I had the idea of using words and rearrange them in a way that will create the shape of the letters of my name. This was the first sketch of it. Shirley agreed that this was a much better representation and suggested to add a notepad background to tie the typography together.


I’M DILIGENT

My initial approach was using books inside the composition.

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But I had reservations since I don’t really like books (haha).

My type of diligent shows when I’m doing my assignments and homework. Then one day whist struggling with this typography idea, I started staring at ants walking across my desk. They were heading toward the left over bread I had that I had forgotten to close the casing. It hit me. Why don’t use this ants to represent my diligent side? Ants are known being diligent creatures in the animal kingdom. The workers work long days and nights carrying tons of food which way more than their bodies to the ant colony.

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Other than the ants, the other animal that popped up in my mind that represented diligent is the bees. I ended up using the bees and their honeycomb because they appeal more to me. And with suggestions from Shirley, my final design included one bee to represent myself doing a lot of work load.


I’M A NIGHT OWL

With the Night Owl, I went with a very straightforward concept. Along the way I came up with a couple designs:

One with my name engraved on the owls bellies

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One with people sleeping and blowing nose with my name inside the balloon-ish snot. This was somewhat disgusting.

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Another one I went back similar to the first design. I drew the surrounding tress and combined it with some owls.

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However Shirley, our class instructor felt that just writing my name on the drawings would not be creative enough. She said to combine the things that represent the “Night Owl” and put them inside the letters itself. I can’t thank Shirley enough. The final result was amazing.

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Next will be the Final post: Final Process and Outcome. Stay tuned!