2D – Ego


My ego creative process can only be described as one thing : excruciating.

In a nut shell, this was my art board on illustrator. I will be going in depth on work flow and creative process.

ME

When I first conceptualised my “Me” I knew that I wanted my style to be reminiscent of Malika Favre.

I wanted the minimalist and gestalt look and style. This was something I never done before in my 5 years doing graphic design and illustration. Usually my illustration style is very lifelike and very ostentatious.

My First Set.

When I did my first set, I wanted to talk about my obsession with staying relatively in size.

On illustrating me, I wanted it to look chic, because to be a beauty, you need to be chic and beautiful.

From my first set, I wanted to play with patterns and make it a recurring motif across all my sets. I used the triad colour harmony and for my first set, I used fuchsia, cyan and yellow.

On the left was my initial illustration. I referenced this from Malika Favre.

I wanted the very chic, fashion beauty that Malika Favre’s work shows.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t very satisfied with my initial work, that’s why I added shadows to my neck and coloured my lips. This use of subtle shadows allows me to create depth to my work and allows my bright colours to pop.

For feeling fat. Initially I thought of using a darker deeper colour. But I ended up keeping the colours consistently and made use of the line motifs. To play on the gestalt motif I changed the colour of my character and certain elements to match the background to increase the negative space effect.

Upon my consultation with my tutor, she told me to work on my proportions and therefore I ended up with another panel. where my character is shorter.

I also ended up working on shadows. Shadows to me allows me show my prowess in choosing colour. Because the shadows are essentially toggling the brightness over individual lines.

For going for a run. I wanted to keep it simple. I thought that I could make a running on a track character. But I thought, running to the horizon was more interesting, because it made me feel like I’m running away from my problems.

Set Two

For me, I knew what I wanted. I wanted a happy adventurous look.

This was my reference image. I loved how she used the red to insinuate the hair.

For this set, I wanted to focus on polka dots and carried this motif throughout my set. Furthermore, I used the same colour motif as the previous set, because, triad doesn’t have much to choose from anyway.

Firstly, I thought of talking about off peak hours as 3 o-clock. I canvassed a few people to see if they under stood what my image meant. Unfortunately not everyone did and someone suggested ERP. Because, ERP only off when it’s off peak! Get it? haha.

The next was going to the museum. I did the one on the left at first and didn’t like how it looked. It looked too sterile and had no dimensions. I got inspired by this.

I wanted my character to blend in more to the surroundings because it emulated my thoughts on blending into the background when I am at the museum. Also, I added the blue portion walls to create a dimensional effect to make it seem like there are walls in front and at the back. Doing so this would allow me to play with the colours.

Third Set

My third set, I wanted to look FASHUN. I wanted to show how much I love luxury clothes and runway.

The “me” I portrayed was a dark, slightly hippy a bit preppy me, but I don’t really dress like this actually. I used the checkered pattern and the dark cool colours, green and purple with the darker orange.

I used these as my reference to be more chic and stylish.

For Payday, I used the idea of the calendar at first. However, I felt that no one gets it. I then tried to make a calendar with an ATM but people still didn’t get the idea of Payday!

So after consultation with my tutor on finding the imagery of payday, I decided to make a person holding an envelope with money. Because it can mean more than just payday. It could mean allowance, or getting cash.

and that leads me to the last one, my favourite of all 12 panels.

When I first did it, I was half awake and trying to make some ends meet. When I finished, I was barely awake, but I fell in love with it. It looked so drippy and minimalistic. The use of gestalt and minimalism supplemented with the checkered flooring to make it look like a carpet, while the darker checkered pattern above looked like ceiling lights. It was just an incredible accident that made this work cohesive and I decided to just leave it.

Last but not least,

Fourth Set

The last set, I wanted me to look like this,

I guess I managed to get that effect and look! Instead of a fedora, I gave my “me” a spotlight To make the shadows and the character pop against a darker background as the green I selected was quite pastel in tone.

Also, doing this set, I decided I wanted to use blocks of colours. Meaning, no more patterns but just full on details. At this point, it was also when my Macbook crashed on me (boohoo).

I used the United Square Starbucks as a reference.

and recreated this cafe look. I wanted to ensure that my cafe looked… like a cafe.

Last but not least, I did the people watching frame. I basically used my cafe frame and inserted people inside and make a character watch it through the lens.

I used this framing at first, but I thought the focus should be people watching, not the cafe. So I should be focused on the people instead of the scene in the cafe.

Finally, I explained all my 12 panels.

I think, I could’ve done better by pushing myself in details and lighting, but I have much to learn and this project only further teaches me how to use a cohesive colour palette to make my work more attractive and helps to make certain parts POP!

Inspiration for My Strange Encounter

Taken from Q-TA’s website. Click here for website.

Japanese Artist Q-TA uses multiple images to construct images for his clients. These images fit his clients such as Majolica Majorca, and ISETAN JP by demonstrating a quirky and whimsical visual language for their brand. His work captivates through usage of human figures and distortion of form by combining it with elements and colours that fit his intended mood. He mainly distorts perception through the enlarging of his figures and displacing them with a cosmic background or a warped landscape and uses a centred composition to capture attention.

Many of his other works have a fashion focus and relates to the audience by putting the figure at the foreground, creating a ‘breaking the fourth wall” effect.

Work by Amsyar Ashaary. Click Here for Portfolio.

Amsyar Ashaary captivates by storytelling through collages. He uses vintage character images, dystopian landscapes with vector graphics to create fresh settings, in which he distorts the viewers perception of time and place. He also uses a mainly cool colours like purple and cyan that are pleasing to the eye and does not force attention to the audience. While most collage artists would work with found images, Amsyar Ashaary does not hesitate to create his own graphics to fit into his narrative and to expand his image vocabulary. Doing so, it gives him more flexibility in crafting his image to augment his narrative.

Unlike Q-Ta, who has a more fashion focus, Amsyar Ashaary creates with no client in mind, thus it gives him the freedom to create settings that are more odd and unexpected.