2D Foundation – Project 3 – Ego

UNINSPIRED ME

+ GOOD VIBES FROM ADM
= ALL IS RIGHT AGAIN

Uninspired me + Good vibes from ADM = All is right again

In my first equation I tried to play with the idea of bright colours representing different emotions. For example, the first panel was mostly blue as i felt that blue was a very negative colour for one to mull in and that was what I felt most of the time when I was very uninspired. The sweater drawn on myself was also a sweater that I actually wear all the time on Mondays, which I always feel like is my least inspired day. The sweater actually says Cheap Monday so, hah.

I borrowed colour elements from the first two panels into the third panel as I wanted the third panel to be a sum of the first two panels, at least in terms of the colour palette, as well as in terms of brightness and liveliness. An inspired me when I’m in my normal state would normally love bright colours that pop, and I always pictured a happy me in a field of green with flowers and all that kind of fluff. Borrowing from the shades of red and pink from the second frame I was able to create flowers and a unicorn in the background.

I feel like in retrospect the green was abit overwhelming and eventually overpowered the feel that I was going for as there were no hints of green in the first two panels at all yet there was a lot of it going on in the last panel and therefore it felt like I failed to draw colour inspiration from the first two panels into the last. However I do like how the feel and colours of the last panel turned out as even though it wasn’t to the rubrics and grading schemes I personally liked the vibes that I got from it and feel like it is a more accurate representation of my personality as a whole.

PHOTOGRAPHER ME + PHOTOGENIC GIRLFRIEND = EVERLASTING MEMORIES

I as an individual actually love taking photographs of people I really care about and hence the inspiration for this second equation.

I chose the colour yellow in the first frame as I felt that yellow was a bright colour which reflected a bright personality that a photographer would be required to have in order to be able to truly capture the essence of happiness in photographs. In retrospect I feel that the background could be better designed and more well differentiated in terms of colour as the colours are too close to each other to be able to give any form of significant depth. Also the subject matters in the background are too plain to be of any significant value and I could have looked more into including some things of more significance in the background that could add value to the picture. I was afraid of overcrowding the picture and taking away the attention from the core of the picture which was the protagonist holding the camera and hence failed to explore my options.

Overall as an equation the adaptation of colours was based on pastel colours as I wanted to play with the concept of colour palettes. Instead of using only a similar family of colours that lie close to each other on the colour wheel, I wanted to play with the tonal values of colours and how that can also be used to group colours together into a cluster or family. However I guess that didn’t turn out very well and it deviated too far from what was briefed in the project brief.

Personally, even though I really liked this equation because of the personal value that it holds to me, I also understand that the colour deviation for this equation was a bit too much for a project that was aimed at harmonising colours. On hindsight, I should have used a safer colour palette for this equation while still being able to achieve the same outcome.

SMOKER ME  + ALWAYS PAYING FOR BILLS ME

= BROKELIFE

I as a boyfriend love picking the bill up for my girlfriend and almost always do so. Hence this equation.

Smoking is something I have done for a few years now and even though I am on the verge of quitting it still is a fact that smoking takes up quite a portion of my spending. I designed the first panel for it to look like a jail cell, with the dark green background for the cell to look ominous and sad and lonely, and with cigarettes as the prison bars for the audience to better be able to see the intention of lining up the cigarettes in this way. Me hiding in a cigarette box shows the shame that I have for being a smoker, yet I cannot quit just yet because I am stuck. I personally enjoyed the colour palette for the first frame as I felt that the colours of the cigarette box were in line with the emotion that I wanted to express in this frame.

As for the rest of the equation I tried playing along with the idea of more earthly and neutral colours for most of the background or foreground, and livelier and more emotive colours for the colour of the protagonist. For example I wanted the second frame to be filled with neutral brown to bring the audiences’ attention to the credit card and hence emphasise that the core of this picture lies in the credit card. Borrowing from the credit cards’ colour, I used blue in the last panel to show 2 emotions; 1 being dark blue which represents the sadness that comes with spending money and being unable to part with your money, and a lighter blue to show that hey maybe I’m not actually that upset about spending money on things I love. As much as I hate to admit it, I actually do enjoy smoking and in that sense, there is a lightness to the sadness that I feel.

When looking at this equation as a whole I understand that the colours don’t quite match each other on the colour palette and they deviate too far from each other, as I was told in class critique. I feel that my attempt to play at neutral and non-neutral colours were too far off from what was briefed and I should have attempted to use a more consistent colour scheme with regards to this project, instead of focusing so much on what individual colours represent to me. Perhaps as a whole, I do agree that the colours seem quite off for an equation for me and that is an area that I will have to improve upon in future projects, should the project require of  me to use colours of the same family or at least show coherence and relationships between colours.

MASSIVE WORKLOAD  + INDIFFERENCE TO LACK OF TIME

= STOP. PANICKING.

For the last equation I tried playing with the idea of a looming disaster with the ambient orange and red tones in the background. I used that as a consistent theme throughout the equation with an exception for the second frame as contextually, when you’re indifferent to something you always fail to see the possible disasters that could occur.

I tried to play with the idea of colours in an apocalypse for the first panel. Using alot of dark colours, I wanted to create an ominous backdrop. Also, it would bring attention to the foreground where the protagonist and the bulk of the main subject matter are.

For the second panel, I picked a colour that was consistent with the first frame which was brown, as brown was a neutral colour that was sort of the first colour I thought of when I thought of the phrase “being indifferent”. Brown was a very safe colour and it was just a colour that felt “meh” and that was the feel and essence that I wanted to capture in this frame, with the entire hourglass bring brown in colour.

As for the last frame it was an exacerbation of the chaos that was brewing from the first two frames. I wanted to really blow up the colours that represented chaos and panic to me and those colours were red yellow and orange. They were the bright colours of fire that truly captured the essence and feel behind a panic that people would feel under constant stress of final projects and exams.

Looking at this panel as a whole I feel that the last frame really sticks out colour wise, even though it was what I intended for it to do. In retrospect when looking again at the brief I feel like I deviated too far from what the project expected of me when it came to the last frame and hence it is something I should really work on which is to stick to what is asked of me in the briefs.

The above image is the inspiration for the character design behind the protagonist in my comics, which is actually me. The comic artist goes by the moniker owlturd and I really loved the style he used in his comics as they are really simple, yet with minimal shadowing he is able to give the character and comics depth.

I did not quite enjoy his use of outlines though as I felt that they showed weakness in an artists’ ability to portray what they have in mind as well as a lack of ability to use colours properly. For example, he had to use outlines because his style involved the skin of his character being almost white, which is the same as his background. However, since I don’t intend to do that I saw no need for the use of outlines in my artwork and hence when I adapted his style into my comics I used as little outlines as I could.

 

Overall I quite enjoyed this project as it gave me the freedom to design the characters and settings that I spent so many hours having fun with when working on this project. I became a lot more proficient on Adobe Illustrator which i picked up specifically for this project and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. I do feel that I could have executed this project a lot better if given a second chance because of the way I misinterpreted the project brief and there is still a lot of room for improvement in my illustration style.