Month: November 2016
Kim – Forrest Gump
Kim – My Line is Emo
Hokkaido Cheese Tart: IV
Overcome by ennui, a human person searches for meaning in her existence by systematically fulfilling the needs that drive human motivation. With each step, she gets ever so closer to the last stage of self-actualisation.
Interspersed sequence of cheese tarts.:
There is great significance here, where the progressive eating of the cheese tart represents a cyclical process of doing the same thing over and over and over again. So many times that you get sick of it, and it becomes jelat in the end. The film ends with the last scene, with the spoon sitting in the tart, most of the tart uneaten.
Sleep, a physiological need – the first in the sequence of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
She is in the correct setting for sleep, yet she is awake, and stares, blankly, then attempts to entire into a restless sleep. She turns, and all that is left is a peak of the shoulder, a glimpse of an eye. It is semi-voyeuristic.
Another physiological need – Food.
This is perhaps the only thing with proper colour in this film. The sprinkles (as food) are meant to mess with you – the viewer. It is not proper food. It is not meant to be eaten (like this). It represents a ludicrous kind of gluttony. The pouring is slow, and the eating is reluctant. She chose to eat it, but she does not want it. It does not make sense to the viewer.
Lock. Check. Lock lock. Check again. Lock.
The second tier – Safety needs. A manic desire to be safe, to feel safe, but not feeling safe, and needing to check again and again and again. Frantically.
Second tier again – Safety and shelter.
This part of the film (plus the previous door locking) is its climax. The mood makes you feel uneasy and tense and makes your belly churn. The rain and thunder makes you feel that. We are but insignificant in the face of the universe.
Third tier – Love
This scene is subtle. There is a tension between bodies. Then it cuts to the abstract representation of simmering fuzzy warm feelings. Then it cuts back, and the feelings are fulfilled – motivation and yearning for human touch is fulfilled.
Fourth tier – Esteem
It was a bit of a struggle to visually depict this, but eventually self-esteem was the easiest and fastest way to portray it. She checks herself out, then she makes herself pretty.
The last tier – Self-actualisation
After having systematically gone through the four deficiency needs, she attempts to breach the last tier of human motivation – self-actualisation. I think, in some form, there is a nuance of ‘enlightenment’ in this concept. And what better way to depict enlightenment than to literally switch on the light (lemao).
She turns on the light. The heart beats. She is scared. She turns off the light. The cheese tart is uneaten. Self-actualisation is unfulfilled.
(Because there is more to life than going through the motions.)
Ego: Part III (Final)
And so it begins. In each series of panels, I actively varied the composition of each frame such that there is a fair amount of variety in wideness of the shots – cropped, wide, wider and long shots – to engage the viewer and to create a sense of dynamism in each story.
Choice of colour palette:
Primarily neutral greys and minty blue – naturalistic colours used to depict ‘city life’, convey the idea of a concrete jungle.
Pops of red and yellow for emphasis and visual interest. There is an attempt to subtly include triadic red, yellow and blue.
‘Tis me trying to find Mount Fuji in the city.
Centrally composed with a somewhat symmetrical composition to bring emphasis on the main character – me. Although there is quite a crowd in the composition, the attention is clearly on the central character as all the other faces are blank, and their bodies face away from the viewer.
The composition of figures is intentionally kept to the bottom third to emphasise the mass of tall buildings in the background – tall, foreboding, looming, like a maze.
‘Tis me travelling.
Colours here are kept to the object’s natural colours – the grey of the MRT, the blue of the character’s clothing, and the yellow caution lines between the gaps which add a nice contrasting pop of colour to the otherwise dull colour palette.
‘Tis me very lost.
Colour choices are on the neutral side here, to bring emphasis to the Google Map pin which is in a striking red.
Going for a long shot – which shows the character interacting with the larger environment. Here, I am hopelessly lost and ended up walking towards the maze even though my intended destination is right behind me.
Compositionally, the maze is kept to the bottom third and more space is given to the empty space in order to emphasise how easy it is to get the red-marked destination, yet I am carelessly walking in the opposite direction towards the maze.
Choice of colour palette:
I began with yellow and expanded from there to get analogous hues of red and maroon – naturalistic colours for the bee and beehive. As the narrative is centered upon a late-night environment, the instinctive colour choice would be navy or dark blue to depict a darker environment. However, I wanted to take the opportunity to experiment with a colour palette that I was uncomfortable with – and so chose purple as it was the complementary colour of yellow, which fits well too in depicting the dark environment.
(Purple is such a difficult colour to work with)
‘Tis me, in a bee costume.
Compositionally, I illustrated the room such that the corner of the room is positioned where the right-third and bottom-third of the frame meets, in order to create an asymmetry in the composition, according to the rule of thirds. The character, me, is also positioned near this convergence of lines in order for the lines to draw the viewer’s eye to the central character.
I also created a shelf out of the hexagonal beehive structure. Much efforts very prouds.
‘Tis me working under the moonlight with my 8 cups of coffee
Bringing back the hexagonal frame to draw attention to the centre of the composition, this time, to the moon and me in the bee costume. There is some indication of depth via the use of one point perspective (table, chair and window frame receding to the vanishing point).
My skin starts turning green – a sleep deprived induced pallour.
‘Tis me, a beautiful creature of the night
Green swollen face, food and coffee stains, intense acne and 5 o’clock shadow. Get some sleep kids. Or just don’t come to ADM.
Choice of colour palette:
I went for a palette that indicated contrasts in temperature in the environment, and I found that the contrast between earthy warm colours, and a lighter blue allowed me to do that. The environment, here, is warm and sunny, and so I actively employed the use of earth tones such as oranges, browns and greens to convey this idea. As I wanted to contrast warm with cold (literal temperature), I went for a soft blue, which is the popularized colour for ice, water and snow.
‘Tis me shivering on a hot sunny day
Colour-wise, there is a conscious decision to contrast warm and cold (refer to above). Even the smaller details like the shadow help to bring across the idea of cold – my shadow made blue.
Compositionally, I referenced Tania Yakunova’s Ecopark illustrations (see previous post) to create depth in composition. This was achieved through sizing and strategic placement of elements in the composition to make things seem closer and/or further away from us.
‘Tis the wind doing what wind does
A contrast again of blue against warm yellow. This time, the blue is rendered with a gradient that is parallel to the axis of the lines indicating wind (rather than a solid block of colour). I did this to imply a sense of movement and speed of the wind.
‘Tis me, frozen into an iceberg, a tourist attraction
Again, the rule of thirds is used consciously here and the main focus (me, the iceberg) is placed at the top right third of the composition. More figures are also densely placed around the ice block to draw more attention to it.
Isometric people resource pack by Gleb Tagirov: [click!]
Choice of colour palette:
There is not too much intent in the choice of colour here, mostly naturalistic colours are used. The main character’s clothing follows the last few panels – mint blue. And the secondary character is clothed in blue as well to create a sense of harmony between the two characters.
Other than that, the food and everything else is kept to reddish and mustard tones as these are the natural colours of the food depicted. The only purposeful choice of colour here, really, is the background. As the central theme of this story is food, I used red to tie each frame together as red is scientifically proven to induce hunger and increase appetite (which is why many fast food chains use red in their branding).
‘Tis me, eating very little compared to other people
Contrast between what is on their plates – a whole mountain of food + a small anchovy. Compositionally, the table is kept to the bottom third and the two figures divide the vertical space into thirds.
‘Tis the anchovy on my plate
There is an intentional contrast between the size of the plate and what is on the food. A lot of white space is left around the small anchovy to emphasise its small size.
‘Tis me and another with full bellies
A somewhat symmetrical composition of both characters with bloated bellies. Though one is full from a large amount of food, and the other with just a small anchovy.
I don’t really have any big takeaways from this project. Just a small feeling of happiness with how everything turned out and that I got the chance to illustrate like this again (not been illustrating like this for a long time).
3 more days till a final breather. Almost there.
Ego: Part II
Ideation.
Before I began work on the final illustrations, I sketched them out in thumbnails first and fine-tuned the details. Here they are:
Ego: Part I
As a designer, it is important to understand the importance
of colours in design. In particular, an understanding of colour harmonies allow designers to visually manipulate the aesthetics to produce the desired outcome.
As there is a great emphasis on colour for this project, I knew that the illustration style that I chose would need to play a big role in emphasising the colours used for each panel. As such, I chose to venture into the field of flat illustration – a popular illustration style with a heavy emphasis on shapes and solid colours.
To be more cognisant of my design and illustration process, I began by deconstructing the compositional and colour aspects of flat illustration designs by other illustrators:
Interesting contrast of pink and turquoise – warm and cool. To pare it down to more recognisable colours, this could be interpreted as a red vs. green colour scheme – an opposition of complementary colours, where the green complement is used to add a touch of interest to shadowed forms.
Interesting use again of complementary orange and blue – but to indicate a contrast in temperature. Blue is used for the external environment – indicates a lightness of being, of blue sky. Orange, here, suggests the filtering in of the sunlight – a warmth created from the light.
Use of analogous hues of pinks and purples. Heavy emphasis on light here, weighty use of highlights and shadows to create depth and form.
Comparing the use of colour palette across different illustrators that convey similar environmental atmospheres. Above, all 3 illustrations depict similar scenes of ‘heat’ and ‘hotness’, yet use vastly dissimilar colour palettes. No.2 and 3 emphasise on the use of analogous warm colours to depict warmth. Yet, No.1 uses a primarily cool palette, yet achieves the same effect of warmness – but it works, due to the compositional structure of the illustration. There is a dominant use of shadows in the illustration, which suggests a strong light source and suggests the presence of a warm sun, despite its use of a cooler palette.
A safe palette of analogous pinks and purples. What is even more striking in this illustration is the simple yet effective compositional choices. (see comments in photograph above).
Powerful compositional choices which I will actively use in my illustrations for this project.
Hokkaido Cheese Tart: III
Love, rain, and company.
More test shots before the actual shoot –
Love
I had a difficult time trying to visually depict the idea of love. Which is more efficient – literal physical contact and intimacy? Using symbolic objects of a sexual nature? I was worried that because “sex sells”, that this portion would then become the central part of the film and the whole meaning will be misinterpreted if it wasn’t done correctly. But I will try, here goes.
Combining both literal physical intimacy (hands interacting intimately with one another) with an abstract representation of the fuzzy dizziness of
Test shots –
The first two were way too explicit I feel – too outwardly erogenous. I decided to change the background colour to white to tone it down (plus to fit in with the aesthetics of the whole film). Plus also made it more out of focus to push it into the more abstract realm.
Rain (safety and shelter)
Since not all of the rain shots made it into the final cut, I will put them here because I feel like they are worth watching.
Company (Love/belonging)
This, I shot but did not end up putting into the film because aesthetics did not work with me. Also, I felt that it was too abstract to make any real sense to the viewer.
It is supposed to be about belonging and relationships. I wanted her to interact with the rocks as if they were friends and confidants, and surround herself with the rocks as if they were a support system. Maybe I would have put it in the film if I didn’t film it on the grass. Only maybe.
Hokkaido Cheese Tart: II
I went to do further (proper) research on Maslow’s pyramid to properly structure the scenes and to figure out what I really needed to shoot. Also I needed to figure out how to visually depict a concept that is, thus far, mostly abstract and psychological.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
The pyramid does not actually follow the hierarchical pyramidal structure, and the size of each section does not represent the importance/quantity of it’s relevance in the human being. But rather, based on what I have read, Maslow’s pyramid should really be sequence instead:
The sequence is more important than the importance of each, and the hierarchy really only exists between the top layer vs the bottom 4 layer –
Deficiency needs
Denotes the first 4 layers of the pyramid
If the deficiency needs are not met, the human will feel anxious and tense
The most basic level of needs must be met before the human desire the secondary level of needs
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Physiological needs Physical requirements for human survival e.g. air, water, food, clothing, shelter |
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Safety needs Physical safety – the absence of which due to war, natural disaster, family violence, childhood abuse, people might experience post traumatic stress disorder/transgenerational trauma Financial safety – preference for job security, savings accounts, insurance policies etc. Health and well-being |
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Love and belonging Sense of belonging and acceptance among social groups e.g. clubs, co-workers, religious groups, family members, intimate partners, mentors, colleagues, confidants. |
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Esteem Self-esteem, self-respect. Human desire to be accepted and valued by others. People often engage in a profession or hobby to gain recognition. |
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Self-Actualisation |
And then, to plan the shoot itself. I feel like this is not too important but I am really proud of this table so I put just put it here on OSS for the world to see.
And in case you haven’t had enough of it, here is the link to the PDF of the whole thing. Bam.