I had a lot of conflicting feelings and thoughts regarding this project when I first stared.
Happiness differs greatly from person to person, and I had a hard time finding the angle from which I wanted to focus this project on. Similarly, it was hard for me to decide on a style that I thought was apt.
I personally prefer darker themes, but I don’t necessarily agree with the colour palette for my own works. The style, therefore, was a huge block for me when I was in the midst of the conceptualisation process.
My personal favourite works were from the Nursery Rhymes last sem, and I wanted to combine these darker themes into my work and subsequent style.For reference:
Trying to create/define my style was definitely something that I couldn’t do within the shortperiod of 4 weeks so for the purposes of this project, I decided to with a quirkier style that hinted at some sort of impending doom.
For the following part of the post I’ll be taking you through my process and random drafts I did along the way.
Here are my 6 lines:
- Happiness from the point of view of a lover is being one with their other half.
- Happiness from the point of view of a introvert is being alone.
- Happiness from the point of view of a condom is having a fulfilled life.
- Happiness from the point of view of a armpit hair is being beautiful.
- Happiness from the point of view of a toast is getting a perfect score.
- Happiness from the point of view of a ADM student is sleep.
BRAINSTORMING
“Character” Design:
I’m really bad at drawing and I don’t quite have my own style yet, so this was me trying to settle on a character that I could use throughout my 6 works!
My “evolution” of characters
Final character:
My initial idea was to make the female character a harbinger of happiness so I choose bright colours and a quirkier dressing sense for her! I thus tried including her in all of the compositions.
LOVER
Happiness from the point of view of a lover is being one with their other half.
Initial Drafts:
I actually got this idea when I was watching Leonardo Dicaprio’s Revenant. It was a scene in which Leonardo Dicaprio was stranded in snow, and he carved out the insides of a dead horse so that he could sleep inside of its dead body and use it as a warm make-shit shelter.
My first attempt was thus to draw the female character inside of her boyfriend.
I thought this didn’t look very polished or clean, so I decided to change the design to the following:
Final
I had a lot of fun with this, and thought it would look nice as a GIF, so I did:
(GIF – Please right click & open it in a new tab if it doesn’t work!)
INTROVERT
Happiness from the point of view of a introvert is being alone.
Initial Idea – Suggesting that the female character is there by showing only her face and part of the lines of her robe. Inspiration was drawn from Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.
I scraped this idea because it wasn’t very quirky.
Final:
The idea here is that introverts want to be left alone and have their own private space. The only way this would be possible would be to be away from all sorts of social contact. So space it is!
As mentioned earlier, I wanted a sense of impending doom in all my pieces, and in this image it can be seen through the crack in her helmet. There’s no spaceship in view, and she’s not connected to anything else. Therefore, her eventual fate is death!
CONDOM
Happiness from the point of view of a condom is having a fulfilled life.
Initial Idea:
A phallic looking mini balloon pump attached to a condom, filling it.
Variations on types of pumps to use:
I couldn’t bring out a sense of doom with the previous composition, so i changed it to a condom in the process of being thrown away after it’s temporary happiness.
In the dustbin is a condom box, a used condom, tissue papers and the girl’s yellow socks.
ARMPIT HAIR
Happiness from the point of view of a armpit hair is being beautiful.
I wasn’t so sure on how to start on this one, so I just did a few sketches first.
The figure on the left is a copy of Sailor Moon’s transformation. I wanted to make use of a female character that is idolised/considered pretty and wanted to replace the ribbons in Sailor Moon’s transformation with armpit hair (quite gross, i know hahaha).
Got a suggestion from Leon from the other class (thanks Leon!), and decided to go with Rapunzel since she is know for having very long and desirable hair.
I initially attempted to keep the background simple so that it wouldn’t stand out too much from the the compositions, but my friend mentioned that it looked more like a well than Rapunzel’s window.
Including the rest of the building:
Final:
Centralised to fit in with the rest of the compositions.
Included a shine effect and cartoon stars to the hair to make it look funnier. Added it “I am beauuutiful” because it finally feels as desirable and pretty as it’s head counterpart!
TOAST
Happiness from the point of view of a toast is getting a perfect score.
I got this idea from a toaster. There’s always that struggle to make sure your toast lands on your plate when it pops out of the toaster in cartoons, so I thought it would be funny if a toast’s life goal was to score a perfect landing once it’s ejected.
My first draft was just of a bread flying out of the toaster, and during consultation someone suggested that I turn the scene into a cheerleading competition instead ( I’m sorry i can’t remember who, but thank you!!)
Dressed up for cheerleading (ﾉ≧∀≦)◞✹
Final:
Added in soya sauce, sriracha, salt and pepper as audience/judges.
Toast getting into a cheerleader formation and getting a perfect score of 10.
Gif:
(GIF – Please right click & open it in a new tab if it doesn’t work!)
ADM STUDENT
Happiness from the point of view of a ADM student is sleep.
If you’ve noticed, the female character actually kiiiiiind of resembles me (hair), and I did this on purpose. In the first part of my post I mentioned that the female character was supposed to be a harbinger of happiness, and I wanted the last frame to be a sort of end to this whole series.
In short, I initially wanted all the other characters to be a part of the girl’s imagination and that she can finally sleep (and be happy) once she stops thinking about these sort of weird ideas (cause assignment is submitted!!!).
Buuuuut, I decided to abandon this idea because it didn’t sound very fun. (I originally wanted to make the last image different in composition and colour the whole A5 page to show the change!)
Final:
An ADM student (hinted at because of the macbook) is seen wearing a polar bear onsie with eye bags under her eyes, ready to hibernate and sleep off her exhaustion. Calender states 17 March because that was our submission date for this assignment.
REJECTED IDEA – CLOUD
Happiness from the POV of a cloud is relieving itself.
This was one of my original ideas, but i felt it was the weakest idea out of the rest so I decided to exclude this during presentation:
(GIF – Please right click & open it in a new tab if it doesn’t work!)
With that, I conclude this post.
This assignment was really fun as I got a chance to figure out what I liked and what kind of direction I would like to take for my future assignments. It was challenging in that sense and I definitely spent a lot of time on the design of the characters even though they are all pretty simple. I wouldn’t say I am 100% satisfied with it because I feel it is still lacking a lot, but at least it’s a small step forward! 🙂
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