Graphic Form Project 2 Part 2: Zine (´･ᴗ･ ` ) (Research & Process)

Early Concept Ideas

This was the first two pages I created for this concept – based on how I could tell the information in the signs at the wetland reserve. I wanted to tell the information of the nature reserve through containers at the reserve. (Or was it the information of the signages of the nature reserve through marks at the nature reserve?)

Anyway, I think I overcomplicated the criteria for myself and got myself so confused with the zine criteria. I had a difficult time working with this, so I decided to take a step back and review what I could do with a zine and with my location.

Early drafts

start over with my concept based on my 7 senses – which I felt was closer to heart.

Research for 7 Senses

I decided to think about the fundamental elements of a zine (8 pages, etc) so that I could tap on the elements of this zine’s criteria and go on to personifying the 7 senses.

I decided to draw inspiration from the moon gates that you can find in China or Japan. These doors are found in gardens and I think it’s interesting because of how it controls what you can see of the garden and how it creates a very curated scenic view!

Image of a moon gate (Japanischer Garten).

Image of a moon gate by Alec Finlay.

I also did some research on parts of the eye and how the eye worked:

There was an interesting article I read about ‘forbidden colors’: red-green and yellow-blue. This was an excerpt:

“While most colors induce a mixture of effects in both sets of neurons, which our brains can decode to identify the component parts, red light exactly cancels the effect of green light (and yellow exactly cancels blue), so we can never perceive those colors coming from the same place.”

I decided to experiment with these basic colors for my concept later on.

Zine-Making Process

Conceptualizing

As mentioned, I had alot of difficulties working with my initial concept and decided to revise and start the conceptualizing stage over. I decided to piece the format and each piece together a little by a little, standardizing that the ‘focus’ would depict the physical sight I saw/experience I felt, while the ‘peripheral’ would express my emotions towards that impression, emotions and the location.

Early revised concept:

Motion blur for movement!

Creating Focus: Photo Manipulation

Started off with making trippy images out of the photos that I had of the most impressionable parts of the wetland reserve!

From this:

To this:

Lily Pond (Hear):

After that, I used Audacity to play an MP3 of the video of the lily pond sounds, and screenshotted the soundwaves of the place to impose it and create a pattern for ‘Hear’!

Golden Orb Spider Silhouette (Touch):

I made a spider wallpaper. 🙂

And the aquarium image I used for ‘Smell’:

Warping the image of berries (Taste):

Proprioception (Spatial):

All:

I was really surprised when I placed all the layers together and they looked like a painterly Sungei Buloh! (‘o’) I did receive feedback during consultation that it looked too green – like it was too much slanted towards the pages ‘Balance’ and ‘Hearing’ because it was very green and yellow.

However, I do want to slightly draw it back to my visual experience at the location, so I wound up trying to work around the proportion of green instead.

During the early consultations, I also made the choice of including words because I was worried about how the zine has to be a ‘show-don’t-tell’ book – but I was informed that we’ll be explaining our zines, so I decided to just take out the explanatory content completely.

Early draft with caption

Creating Peripherals: Mark-Making

I couldn’t take anything from the site for mark-making, so I decided to take more photos and recreate them instead!

Honestly they look nothing alike HAHAHA.

The wings that took the most effort but also looked the most hideous.

This one’s based on the shadows of leaves!

My hand is my mood – icky.

I THINK IT’S READY???

Also – other marks that I tried with gouache and rope but didn’t work out so well.

Ripple marks didn’t end up being very suitable either. :’)

Intended to draw a structure to impose for every piece but it didn’t work out very well aesthetically, so I just extracted the flower in the middle to use as a mark instead.

It was pretty challenging working with the concept and timeline, but I had alot of fun. To view the outcome of this project, go to ‘Project 2 Part 2 Final Design’! 🙂

Links

Project 2 Part 2 Final Design: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphic-form-project-2-part-2-zine-2/

(Previous) Project 2 Part 1 Process & Final Infographics: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphic-form-project-2-locale-2/

References

Moon Gates: https://insteading.com/blog/moon-gate/

Image of moon gate: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Japanischer_Garten_IGA_Rostock.jpg

Parts of the Eye: https://lookafteryoureyes.org/how-your-eyes-work/parts-of-the-eye/

Graphic Form Project 2 Part 1: Locale (・∀・) (Process and Final Infographics)

INFOGRAPHICS – An Overview & Final Designs

The overall color scheme of the infographics are heavily based on the colors of the nature reserve – namely greens, blues and browns.

I chose to use anthropomorphic animals as loose figurative representations of the demographics of the nature reserve (photographers, tourists, family and elderly). I drew inspiration from the educational worksheets from NPark’s website – they had alot of animal-coloring worksheets! On the side, I had also done some research on artists who do anthropomorphic animal art.

After my first trip, I tried to work out my layout before I went to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve again (since the return trip would take place on the Saturday before the presentation(Monday)).

I used elements found throughout the reserve to create the frames for the backgrounds – such as patterns from the Visitor’s Centre tapestry, shadows of leaves and pathways.

Each piece features a trivia. I’ve always loved trivia section of learning sites and it’s something I find unique to educational materials. I took note of trivia boards throughout the reserve and decided to incorporate that as a recurring element for the infographics.

The information I’ve collected and selected are split into 4 sections: Overview, Timeline & Activities, Amenities & Facilities and Learning Resources.

Concept behind the Final Designs

►Mudskipper Slide

I chose the Mudskipper to represent the overview as the Mudskipper was the mascot and face of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

In this piece, I’ve also selected information that would convey Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve as the only wetland reserve in Singapore (out of 2!) that is focused on education. It is also a pioneer in many areas in regards to wildlife education – such as being the first to introduce wireless learning in this region.

The layout’s frame is derived from patterns that you can find at the Visitor’s Centre office – one of the first buildings you see when you enter Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve. I based it off the flower images on a piece of tapestry you can inside the Visitor’s Centre:

The slide aims to introduce Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve as the largest tract of mangrove forest, Singapore’s first ASEAN heritage park and an internationally recognized migratory site for birds. It also identifies the demographics of the nature reserve.

I started off with an easy trivia as well to ease the viewer into the graphics.

► Grey Heron Slide

The second slide shows a grey heron. As there are many migratory bird species in Sungei Buloh, I wanted to show one of them representing the foreigner as a part of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve’s demographics.

In this slide, I wanted to introduce Sungei Buloh’s educational activities and how they are linked to the nature reserve’s unique timeline.

Timing is everything! Coming on different days, weather and timing affects what you see, hear and even smell. The timeline is the heartbeat of the events happening at Sungei Buloh – without people monitoring the timeline, it would be hard to organize activities that would optimize the time of visitors.

The slide’s frame is based on leaves:

It was initially more accurate to the space between leaves, but leaving a large amount of negative space pulls the eye away from the text, so I’ve made the frame alot more packed by taking the general shape of the leave instead.

► Otter Slide

The otter slide conveys the amenities and facilities of the nature reserve. I also used the otter and a baby otter to convey a sense of community – how the place is built for education, groups and family.

The individual sections are also represented by icons that are created from actual structures – the viewing pod icon is based on the shell-like shape of the pods at Sungei Buloh.

The background patterns are based on the stone path of the Information Center that carries extensive information and a detailed map of the entire reserve:

► Crocodile Slide

The crocodile slide shows the different types of online and on-site resources that the nature reserve provides and the steps they take in order to provide visitors and nature enthusiasts with a wealth of information.

Resources such as the e-newsletter includes articles on events such as Bird Migratory day, Earth Day and also carries periodical fish/habitat field surveys. There are also educational worksheets for kids – such as coloring worksheets and fact sheets.

The background patterns are based on shadows of leaves on roads:

My Take

After interviewing the people on-site, I found out that people wished that the nature reserve was better publicized.

In my own opinion, I do feel that the nature reserve is a little confused as to what demographic they are trying to get.

One interviewer actually voiced his relief that there are few kids around so that animals would not be scared away.

Due to this, I think Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve ends up being more of an educational site for adults, despite how they are trying to target children and schools sending down buses of kids to learn. People who generally end up coming back multiple times are the older crowd.

Process behind the Final Designs(Images)

Sketches:

Extracting patterns/marks to use as frames and backgrounds:

Work in progress:

Initial design turned out looking alot like a horror night at Sungei Buloh instead (;u;)

Feedback

Lecturer (Joy):
• Find a main focus
• Pick out ways they tried to be educational
• Pick out recurring motifs
• Perhaps can try using the trivia aspect as a potential element for zine? (but not make it bulk of the upcoming zine)

Peers:

Thank you so much for the feedback! :’)

Personal Takeaways

Struggles: I struggled to make the color palette work in the beginning as I didn’t want the colors to end up like a tacky nature pamphlet. I tried unconventional colors that went outside of Sungei Buloh’s colors, but they just didn’t work as well. In the end, I wound up looking at designs based on citrus colors and fashion in hopes of making the visuals work.

Reflections: It was a trying, but very educational experience. Everyone in class had a different interpretation and outcome of their choice of location and it was really cool!

I do hope to improve on keeping to my time during my presentation so that I would be able to show more research that I had done. I had alot more material that I didn’t get to show – videos, interviews, photos and some of the nature reserve’s cool online resources.

It was tough curating an interesting focus!

Others

• Link to Project 2 Part 1 Research: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphic-form-project-2-locale-1/

Graphic Form Project 1: My Name (‘▽’人 (Final Designs)

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Concept
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✿ To push the fun and fantastical side of the occupations to their limits, and to convey a Utopian fantasy.
✿ Gamify characters and weave letters of my name ‘A S T E R’ into clothes and strength for them!
✿ Letter forms are expressed as weapons and equipment for these characters.
✿ Letters are my perceived naive/first impressions of the jobs.

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Art Direction
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I wanted to start Project 1 for Graphic Form off by working on something that would give me cheer every time I worked on it – so I decided to use games as a general focus. After looking around at the different types of drawing styles (storyboard art, animation art, etc) that goes into making a game, I decided to go with game concept art. I feel like game concept art is like the face of the game itself. Characters are usually the biggest pull of selling a game or comic – they are the face of your game!

In this project, I wanted to express my impressions and wonderment at other occupations akin to that pull of a 2D, fictional character. I wanted to give each piece an orbit and pull people in, even while they are unreachable, fictional beings. I felt that the best way to do this would be to embrace the comic style – leaning towards the Japanese manga style. I understood that the risk of working with this would be that it could possibly end up extremely cringeworthy. I decided to try putting together the typical game concept art poses with some poster-style, Art Noveau artists that I’ve done research on – Alphonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley. Combined with the recent presentation I’ve done on Russian art (Suprematism and Constructivism), I hoped that it would help put together four pieces that integrates drawing and design flawlessly.

I’ve come to feel that doing four pieces in this project is an amazing blessing as well – there is a great power in the number 4. Alot of things in stories, mythology and lore of games come in fours – 4 Heavenly Kings, 4 Heavenly Beasts (e.g. Suzaku,Seiryū), 4 Fiends (e.g. Taowu, Taotie) and more!

Each piece is inked traditionally using copic pens and markers of various sizes. Some techniques include layering cross-hatching, wavy lines and straight lines to create monochromatic depth. I hope the organic nature of the traditional mediums would help to bring out the idea and liveliness of the characters.

The pieces are then scanned and digitally edited to bring out the letters in them with color.

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Final Designs
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► The Dragon Dancer
Symbol of Courage

Overview:
The Dragon Dancer, to me, represents a figure of power. I wanted to portray them as a warrior class. Red is typically the color of heroics and adventure. It also represents fire and valor, and a highly symbolic color for Chinese culture. The background is circular and with shards – an implication of the dragon pearl of wisdom that is used to ‘lure’ dragons during dragon dances.

Letter Form Elements:
♦ A is in her braids, a representation of heroics. As a kid, I’ve watched a few Chinese period dramas and braids stood out to me alot as a child, becoming a symbol of valor.
♦ S is for the dragon, the highlight of the dragon dancing art.
♦ T is for the sword, symbolizing courage and power.
♦ E is for the belt on her thigh. Belts famously symbolize serpents and eternity. I also wanted to show discipline and restraint due to the amount of practice that goes into training.
♦ R is shown in the legs, to denote grace, lightness and the quick-footedness of dragon dancers.

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► The Oceanographer
Symbol of Wisdom

Overview: The Oceanographer is represented by the blue of the water and ocean. I drew inspiration from steampunk and industrial revolution fashion as well so that I could express the impression of technology and science that the occupation gives off. The circles at the back are meant to represent ripples, depth and mystery.
A fun tidbit: her gear is modeled after a jellyfish because frilly jellyfishes look like royalty under the sea, commanding the ocean!

Letter Form Elements:
♦ A is for a trinket, to represent trinkets found at the bottom of the ocean.
♦ S is for the eel, to symbolize sea life forms that you can find while exploring the ocean.
♦ T is for her staff that is based on a compass. It is to show the importance of navigation and exploration as an oceanographer.
♦ E is for the antenna on her head, as I wanted to show that treasure-seeking, thrill-seeking and curiosity should be characteristic of an oceanographer.
♦ R is represented by the diving goggles and the ability to see underwater.

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►The Shepherd
Symbol of Compassion

Overview:
The Shepherd is expressed in green – linking this job closest to nature and greenery. The background is heavy on the top, and intended to look like the structure of a tree. Compared to the rest, the Shepherd is the most demure and rigid, as I wanted to express her strength and rigidity of the earth. I also wanted to show her unfaltering bond to the earth, resulting in a less free form.

Letter Form Elements:
♦ A is represented in small-case as a bird standing on her finger. The bird is to express the job’s proximity to life and animals, as well as their gentle and nurturing characteristic.
♦ S is expressed in the sheep’s horn – an animal that is characteristic of this job.
♦ T is expressed on the high boots, to show the weariness and trudging on rugged earth and soil. I stationed the legs to stand in a more rigid pose compared to the other jobs as I consider this a job that is very ‘grounded’ and closely linked with Mother Nature!
♦ E is a scarf. I’ve gone to a Mother Farm in Chiba, Japan a few years ago. The association of a shepherd herding sheep on a mountain leads me to think that it would be very cold on the mountains and the impression of shepherds wearing thick clothes.
♦ R is expressed as a staff. A staff, or a cane, is a tool for hiking and getting around on rugged terrain. A long staff is also a show of guidance and leadership.

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► The Weather Reporter
Symbol of Fairness

Overview:
The Weather Reporter is expressed in yellow because it represents the sun, which would make a good pair with the blacks in the image which could contrast as night. Yellow is also the lightest color out of the 4 colors I’ve selected – perfect for representing a happy, fickle and whimsical image that I have of a weather reporter. The background depicts a sun and the moon.

Letter Form Elements:
♦ A can be found on the lining of her skirt. I have an impression of weather reporters as serious ladies in formal A line skirts. I decided to take this in a more literal sense as I wanted to experiment and interact with letters forms more physically as well, not just metaphorically.
♦ S is in the background, which represents the sun and moon. It expresses the nature of a weather reporter’s job as the sun is very obviously connected with a sunny day, and the moon’s tidal forces affect rainfall.
♦ T is in her tiara. It’s not something that immediately comes to me when I think about what a weather reporter should look like. However, I feel like a tiara is a great symbol of power and authority, but yet also fickle like the needs of a young princess. I wanted to show how I used to think that weather reporters were all-knowing – as if they could control weather.
♦ E is expressed as the frame of a wing. The wings of a bird are sensitive to the littlest change in winds. Birds are also known to predict weather through pressure. I added in gambling chip patterns to the connectors that are the joints of the wings, to represent that the prediction of weather is like a gamble – it changes on a whim.
♦ R is expressed in the arm, folded in an akimbo. It’s a gesture that widens your stance and conveys a powerful mood. I wanted to express the influential nature of the weather reporter as they are very trusted figures on media.

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Challenges
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The main challenge was definitely compositing the image as a whole and fusing all the letters and meanings into a cohesive piece.

On top of making a cohesive piece, being visually attractive is also important as that is a big part of game character design – they have to make characters that you’d like to play as!

What I initially had in mind didn’t show up as clearly as I thought it would. I initially planned to keep everything black and white, and use blacks to make the white areas pop out. However, it was very trying to not make a mistake while inking was also taxing.

On top of that, getting feedback from my classmates was incredibly useful! Right before recess week, I asked if they could spot the letter forms in the characters (most of them couldn’t). It became a much less painful process after switching to digital media for colors.

It was also much easier for people to see the letter forms too as they jump out at you.

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Post-Presentation Feedback
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✿ Instructor’s Feedback:
• Consider having a general overlaying message.

✿ Classmate’s Feedback:
• “I love love love your display and representation of your works!! And your technique is top notch manz. I think your concept’s also very interesting and looking at jobs from like a gaming/stats/character kind of view is really creative!! I also liked how you really incorporated little details to represent each occupation. And like how the letters are like seamlessly part of the composition. Good job!”
• “Very clear letter forms & god level illustration WTF y u even in school bro. LOVE IT 10/10. Also the shepherd damn pretty can I have her number pls.”
• “I like how you incorporated the letters into her equipment, ties in with how they are utilized.”
• “Love the fine details of your characters. You brought out the Japanese style really well!”
• “Can I just say how nice your drawing is!!!! Also, I like how you kept the portraits really simple where the focus is coloured yet not dull!!! Also, the amount of thought you’ve put into each element!!!!!!”
• “Gurl, your artwork is amazeballs! Can’t imagine the effort put into your pieces. Love the concept & the execution of the brief. Your creativity in this project really shows everything is well-thought out & they look great as individual pieces, and as a set! Good job!”
• “Your work is so pretty :’) You draw so well!!! The idea behind your works are so thought through. I love how you so effortlessly incorporate the alphabets into your portraits. Every single element has its own significance, I love!!!”
• “Very interesting concept of using games/job/characters to illustrate the fonts creating elements related to the job to infuse the fonts & accessories and also the background & foreground. Overall very harmonious!”
• “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DREW THESE! GOOD JOB ASTER <3”
• “Feels like a tarot card!! Looks cool. Good to have the letters used for different meaning. The composition is done well. The whole flow is done nicely!”
• “Your drawing is SUPER detailed!! Love how you incorporate the letters into your drawings but I don’t really understand the background (circles) of the oceanographer 🙁 (hmmm).”
• “Very beautiful! The monochrome to enhance the letters made the piece very pleasing to the eye. I like how the four pieces are very thematic and collectively bring out idea you wanted to portray. Very nice!”
• “Your drawing is damn damn GOOD! Why never go animation HAHA! Love your theme & concept. Alot elements in each concept & it blends so well!”
• “Love your animes! Super stylistic and dynamic. Good play with colours/no colours to emphasise types as well. Good job! :)”
• “Very avatar the legend of Aang with the 4 elements thing! Very curated. I admire your technical ability. :)”

✿ Self-Reflection:
Overall, I’m quite happy with how the pieces turned out! If I had anything I would like to improve on, it would be being more decisive and speeding up on the starting process of deciding the elements that would go in each piece. so that I have more time to work on the actual pieces themselves.

My see-sawing in deciding the occupations and elements cost me later towards the end while working on the digital aspects of the pieces. To me, it felt like I’ve betrayed a small part of myself by my digitization of the four pieces. I felt like it cheapened the pieces slightly and ate up the fine details of the actual pieces, in return for saving the letters and providing color aid for people who are viewing the piece.

While the simplicity of the backgrounds worked this time as the characters could pop with their help, I feel like I could better incorporate more thought-out backgrounds and better utilize negative spaces next time for future pieces.

I feel like I could brush up on my time management and find a better way to improve my technical ability when it comes to managing monochromatism in my pieces. This is something I would love to explore in my future pieces again.

Finally, I was worried deep down with how a set inspired by game concept art would be received – I wanted to be as true to myself as possible since I’m a big fan of games, comics and I -loved- drawing. (Honestly, my biggest goal in life is to work on a fun webcomic dedicated to my closest friends.)

I was extremely pleasantly surprised and blown away by all my super kind classmates! Their feedbacks were extremely encouraging and their own pieces were extremely inspiring as well. I hope for myself to be able to learn from them and work on more pieces that will communicate well and light up peoples’ days. 🙂

Thanks everyone such a wonderful first project! Onward to the next assignment! (´ ∀ ` *)

Project 1 Research & Process: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphic-form-project-1-part-1/ ‎

Other Research: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/research-artist-and-unconventional-art-material/

Introduction Activity: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphic-form-introduction/

Graphic Form Project 1: My Name ( ` ω ´ ) (Research and Process)

ART DIRECTION & Research

This was a personal project and I naturally swung towards Japanese comics and game art upon starting on the research for this project! Japanese RPGs are my life and I really want to let my love for games decide where to swing for this project!

Seeing as I was assigned to the first week for the weekly presentations as well, I decided to incorporate extensive research of Russian Constructivism, Suprematism and De Stijl into my works as well.

I did some research on brushwork and practiced some calligraphy too to practice discerning line work and improving my line expression for this project.

I decided to base my Project 1 on interpreting real life jobs as a utopian fantasy much like fantasy jobs such as Mages, Swordsmen, Bards, and more!

PROCESS

Sketches:

Deciding the occupations was definitely the toughest part of this project – but I didn’t expect sketching and composition to take so much time! It took me the entire Chinese New Year break (at the rate of approximately 1 drawing a day, at least) to complete the pencil work and line art.

I proceeded to scan in the drawings and repurpose them into digital portraits for printing through Photoshop.

I initially planned for it to be monochromatic, but it didn’t turn out so well. After consultation, I decided to have larger percentages of color and…

It worked out decently – I think! 🙂

… now just need to repeat consistently for 3 more.

After finishing up the four portraits, I went down with Nic to Sunshine Plaza for printing!

Introduction Activity: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphic-form-introduction/

Other Research: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/research-artist-and-unconventional-art-material/

Final Designs: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/graphicform-project-1-part-2/