My Work

There are 55 posts filed in My Work (this is page 1 of 6).

Illustration for Designers: Assignment 3 (Process, Final Illustrations and Mock-ups)

My Event: A Prom for Supernatural Creatures

— The 4 Illustrated Items —

I think I went a little crazy working on this assignment.

Illustrated Item #1: Gif E-Invite (for humans), Physical Invitation Card (for supernaturals)

“Come to prom. Please.” – Spelltown Student Council

*Note: Stay for around 10-20 seconds on this image! 🙂

In an ideal situation in a supernatural junior college, they would probably receive an physical piece of paper with moving images like the newspapers/howler in the Harry Potter books. The next best thing to replicate that effect is probably a gif…

 

Illustrated Item #2: Prom King Poster

Illustrated Item #3: Prom Queen Poster

Illustrated Item #4: Sticker Set (Prom Favour)

“We’ve got all sorts of clubs – there’s something for everyone!”

 

— Mock-Ups —

Item #1: E-Invite (for humans) / Moving Physical Invite (for supernaturals)

(I imposed it to do a mock-up for how a student might receive the invite!) 

Item #2: Prom King Poster

Item #3: Prom Queen Poster

Item #4: Stickers (Prom Favour)

— Process —

I wanted to go with a very colorful/striking palette for this project!

In the previous post, I started with the stickers first to determine a narrative and look and feel for the rest of the assets (invites + 2 posters). Decided on a more comic book style and I was quite determined to illustrate as much as I can over the different assets so that they would all provide a different narrative over the different medias to tell more about the event!

I started the Ken poster with Ken as a soft, fluffy boy (but gave him some fierce after Lisa said he wasn’t intimidating enough woops). I struggled with his ferocity quite abit…

 

Then there’s Circe the witch!

 

Ken and Circe have come very far indeed…

Original Thumbnails

I did the e-invite last even though it was the first thing I planned for in the series of assets. The e-invite was really fun! But also a pain because there were so many issues!

Edited comp from thumbnail (to fit square)

Invert checks

Still image

At this point, I already finished the poster and stickers so I already had a look I wanted to work off on, but I quickly realised that I’ll have to pay the price in linework if I wanted to add more animated elements. 🙁

I reduced the lines and number of tones to put the characters more in place with the background characters of both posters, but hopefully still in line with the look of the other assets.

COMEEEEE TO PROMMMMMMM… COMEEEEEEEEEEE

I initially wanted to use Live2D and break down the characters by body parts but Live2D crashed my PC multiple times… so I guess I’ll have to settle for Adobe’s animation timeline. This gif is 100+++ of layers and I had a major brainfart at some parts when I couldn’t find the layers.

I did a little ref to the standard animation for seaweed cycle for his wriggly tail hehe.

The pink demon’s skin didn’t export well – noooo!!! D:

There was also another issue with export because there were so many colors. So the colors exported all over the place and I had to try a few different settings. Thankfully I had some foresight to do the invite on a much smaller file (1000 x 1000 px) so that I could keep it a pretty small file and not have to deal with sizing issues – but still have decent quality to the illustrations eep. BUT ANYWAY, IT WAS FUN WORKING ON MOVING THINGS.

I did wish I have more time to bomb on paying more attention to color and linework and making them more consistent – but overall I was super happy working on this project since it was so fun!

— Links —

Assignment 3: Part 1 (Week 11-12 Progress): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-assignment-3-week-11-12-progress/

Gallery of research and past works: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-gallery-academic-blog/

Watermedia Landscape Painting: Progress for Final Assignment (Week 13)

Topic: Interior

Week 13 update! Painted the topic interior.

Final artwork #2 – embroidery

20cm x 28.2cm

Studies, Color Tests & Thumbnailing

Looked mostly into a combination of Arkhipov and Inness for this topic.

 

Color test (with a different composition)

(got too excited to try out the colors with the final after doing this color test and the Inness study so I headed right for final after this piece…)

 

Inness Study

(studying how the transitions are handled on the trunk and retaining chroma but woops with the many green HAHAHA)

 

Random balance practice (looking into transitional colors – purple/brown)

Reviewed the video on transitional colors and did a super quick practice on my own based on class time’s abstraction practice and view from window

Thumbnails for final / color tests

For the layout of the piece, I liked Arkhipov’s subjects (embroidery/women) and wanted to do something a little similar, so I combined some Arkhipov/embroidery/yangqin poses and embroidery to try to catch the same intimacy in the image.

 

Moodboard/References

Images: Arkhipov, Inness, Yangqin player, Chinese clothes, Cheesecake Factory photo from a trip to US, Embroidy close-up

Past Studies for this piece (quick reference)

Archipov Study #1

Arkhipov Study #2

Reflections so far

Not very happy with how little chroma is retained in the final and also I think I still isolated subjects again… I know some of the persisting problems I have and still accidentally committed them during painting RIP. :’) Need to turn on my brain more during practice and less rushing. I’m so glad I borrowed Inness’ book to study from the school library before circuit breaker.

If time permits, I’ll try to get another piece done for the final (Weather Condition/Tinted) or revisit Landscape/Interior.

(If not, I’ll practice on my own anyway HAHAHA)

Watermedia Landscape Painting: Progress for Final Assignment (Week 12)

 

Topic: Landscape

A week 12 update!

Between last week and this week, I suddenly decided to attempt another topic (Landscape) instead because I suddenly got intimidated at the thought of needing to paint a final image. This hopefully helped me to chill abit and warm up for more paintings while painting barns and a field. 🙂

Final artwork #1 – barn by the mountains

28.5cm x 19.5cm

 

Color tests

I think the thumbnail in my opinion seemed to work a little better than the final due to the smaller range from more tinting and less shaded colors? I lost the field a little between the thumbnail and final for this landscape piece.

Photos of the paintings

 

I looked into Shishkin and Inness’s fields for reference on colors and foreground and Inness and Monet to paint the field (painting distance as a relative whole; changing colors), but in hindsight should have also looked into being better at managing the mountains and skies – I tried using more purples as a transition and tinting more to hold the image together but the mountains and skies still look abit odd. I got abit too greedy but it was fun… Perhaps I should have done more color tests  (and also time to look into more sky and mountain practice)… :O

Also, here are the initial thumbnail sketches for landscapes

Pencil thumbnails for landscape painting

 

Will probably try another topic first before considering making more attempts. 🙂

Images referenced for this painting

Images: Barn photos, Inness, Monet, Shishkin

Illustration for Designers: Assignment 2 Final + Process (Varoom)

— FINAL —

(1) ILLUSTRATION ON VAROOM COVER

(2) ILLUSTRATION ONLY

(3) MAGAZINE MOCK-UP

 

(4) CONCEPT: POLARITY

I chose to expand on the thumbnail that featured a composition of a girl in a bed, with monsters swimming under her bed. The composition was first inspired by the state of dreaming and the idea of having ‘monsters under your bed’.

I chose to integrate water as an essential element as to me, water is a symbol of great change and polarity (life and death, benevolence and ferocity). This reflects my take on fantasy where alot of elements and ideas are taken to the extreme (good and evil, poor and rich, colorful and colorless).

Towards the end of the illustration, I also decided to leave out the mouth of the girl to convey restraint when staying on the side of reality – since the image is split into dual halves: orange half symbolizing reality and purple half symbolizing fantasy.

For references, I looked into Hokusai, Zaodao and a few other Asian artists because they were great influences in my artistic journey.

I took this chance to review some of the text in their art books to check out their working processes. An interesting tidbit I found:

An excerpt from Hokusai’s sketchbooks: The Wonders of Nature

I found out that Hokusai wasn’t a very well-traveled man. His lack of travel and getting information from sources around him (picture books, etc), however, contributed to the bizarre nature of his creatures and fantasies.

Other than artist research, I also drew inspiration for the creatures from the animals at my house right now like:

My sister’s pug, Pepper

My budgie friend, Ginko

Pepper had alot of folds and wrinkles in her face and was the major source of inspiration for the brush pen in my drawing to achieve texture and volume in the creatures! Ginko (and Hokusai) was good reference for the fierce look and textures of the creatures.

(5) MEDIUM

The tools I used were: Micron pens (0.03mm – 0.1mm), Brush pens, Adobe Photoshop (with natural brush textures) and Adobe In-Design (compilation)

— WORKING PROCESS —

(1) USER PERSONA & MOOD BOARDS

(2) THUMBNAILS

My 16 Thumbnails

Thumbnail #1: Hero and dragons

Thumbnail #2:Wearing fantasy

 

Thumbnail #3: Traveler and a twisting dragon

 

Thumbnail #4: Sleep

Thumbnail #5: Witch, her Cat and the City 

Thumbnail #6: Traveler and her sea

 

Thumbnail #7: Thinking

Thumbnail #8: Spirit Parade

Thumbnail #9: Bubbles

Thumbnail #10: Day and Night

Thumbnail #11: Dreaming with friends

Thumbnail #12: Things around You

 

Thumbnail #13: Cat and Twisting Dragon

 

Thumbnail #14: Loch Ness and Cat

Thumbnail #15: Swords

Thumbnail #16: Sea of Monsters

Concept behind the thumbnails:

My thumbnails were generally based off on my experience with the fantasy genre (in games and novels). During the thumbnailing process, I focused alot more on creating visually interesting compositions and not so much about the individual concepts. When I think of fantasy, I think of fantastical creatures in my childhood. I loved monster-taming games like Pokemon, Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure and Azure Dream.

Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (Gameplay Screenshot)

Azure Dreams

Azure Dreams (Gameplay Screenshot) 

My thumbnails generally revolve around animals as friends and companions, or creatures as an anthropomorphized aspect of myself or a journey to overcome. As a kid and teen who never traveled much last time, these creatures were simultaneously my best friends and worst fears at the same time because I could relate to them in stories but they also confronted things and concepts I didn’t have much exposure or access to – such as responsibility, power, loss, and more.

This was also why I related to the passage in Hokusai’s sketchbook since he lived in a time where the world was not so accessible yet and had to rely on his imagination to fill in the rest – which made things alot more polar and led to the creation of extremes, absurd creatures and concepts.

(3) PENCIL COMPS

The three chosen pencil comps after the thumbnail feedback session are as follows:

Pencil Comp #1: Spirit Parade

 

Pencil Comp #2: Traveler and a twisting dragon

 

Pencil Comp #3: Sleep

(4) WORK-IN-PROGRESS

My materials

I worked directly on the pencil comp with black brushes and microns, before scanning in the drawing, increasing the contrast to extract the black lines.

From thumbnail to pencil comp

The pencil and ink scan

 

Initial draft for Week 9 review

I filled in the rest of the rest of the image digitally on Adobe Photoshop and also filled in the purples and orange/yellows to work out the composition!

Adobe Photoshop: continued work-in-progress

Final – overlay with paper texture

Link to Varoom Research: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-varoom-artist-research-week-5/

Illustration for Designers: Varoom & Artist Research (Week 5)

Activity 1: Varoom Articles

About Varoom Magazine:

The Varoom magazine is a biannual publication by the Association of Illustrators. The magazine features insight and analysis of the illustration, design and animation industry, with content such as interviews, recommendations as well as commentary. Each magazine’s illustrated content come from a variety of artists and revolves around a singular theme.

Varoom’s latest Fantasy issue

What type of information is in the magazine?

As an example, the latest issue Fantasy features articles on games, graphic novels, the TV series Game of Thrones, Ram Han and all that is related to the fantasy genre or fantastical in nature.

What do I find inspiring?

The variety and freedom in stylistic choices employed by the artists who have contributed to Varoom is amazing!

Who’s the target audience?

Art enthusiasts, educators and practitioners

 

Selected Articles:

(1) Hail Herman Inclusus

The article is about Herman Inclusus (Stuart Kolakovic) and the inspiration for his style – traditional Christian manuscripts, icons or Islamic miniatures. The content explores his rebirth and discusses what he derives and gleans from these traditional works.

It also announces how Lichen, his graphic novel, marks the end of his past aesthetic choices and also his shift into his identity as Herman Inclusus, as well as what that means for him.

The article shows a complicated bond between one artist’s identity and their influences – how their influences and growth would show in their choice of aesthetic style and subject matter. The content is great for people who are interested in his personal influences and where his motifs are derived from.

(2) Cloak of Fantasy

The article excerpt is an interview with Victo Ngai on her art creation process.

It provides insight to her personal journey and steps to art-making – such as how she goes about conceptualizing for the image and her thought process and influences (stage play).

The article is wonderful for those seeking to go into a similar field of work or to achieve a similar art direction or struggling in the same format that Victo Ngai works in. Alternatively, it is also good for people looking to change certain aspects of their production to organize their personal working processes.

For enthusiasts, it promotes Victo Ngai’s work as the article features a work that the network of Game of Thrones commissioned her to illustrate. Those who have watched Game of Thrones, in turn, would be drawn in to know more about Victo Ngai.

Activity 2: 3 Artist Research

(1) Victo Ngai

What do you find inspiring?

Her works are intricate, colorful and gorgeous. The way she seamlessly integrates traditional and digital mediums to make use of the strengths of both mediums (the raw intricacies of traditional, and vibrant colors and clean look of digital) is extremely inspiring for myself as I love working traditionally but struggle to find a way to reconcile it with digital programs after scanning it in.

What mediums do they use?

Traditional, Digital

How do they creatively interpret the text for the article?

The article The Burden of Beasts discusses the surging population of donkeys and how they are being relocated. The illustration by Victo Ngai represents this as huge human hands picking up the donkeys and their fences, signifying human intervention.

Victo Ngai’s way of depicting the literal in a serene but intricately illustrated scene makes the content look like a tale out of a storybook and creates intrigue with how ridiculous, but elegant it looks.

(2) Tess Stone

Hanna Is Not A Boy’s Name, a webcomic by Tess Stone.

Comic panel from Not Drunk Enough

What do you find inspiring?

Tess Stone has gorgeous comic layouts, harsh colors and and hand lettering that makes every page and panel exciting to read. There’s no wasted element, and the characters and text complement each other extremely well as both their designs carry a similar intensity in the types of lines used (generally with thicker/harsher shadows on characters and good line weight distribution between what’s focused/not in focus).

What mediums do they use?

Digital

How do they creatively interpret the text for the article?

Tess Stone is a comic artist and writer with very cool character designs, hand lettering and color design for his comic pages. In terms of interpreting text, Tess Stone is amazing at delivering the speech of characters and sound effects that gives text just as much animations as the story’s characters do.

Other than the text, the panels (dividers) add so much value to the delivery of the story as well with how they are designed in each page!

(3) Tatsuyuki Tanaka

What do you find inspiring?

Tatsuyuki Tanaka is an illustrator, concept art designer and animator. He known for many things – some of them being key animator of the Japanese animated movie Akira and being part of an animation team called Genius Party responsible for a series of extremely interesting and exploratory animations.

Genius Party: Dimension Bomb

I find that his works are incredibly detailed and he’s able to deliver subtle commentary about the current state of the world through his works. His personal works are interesting because they don’t seem to deliver the message directly, rather, his image builds up an environment that allows you to establish your own set of expectations (dystopian, post-apocalyptic) and your imagination/speculation provokes you to make something out of the images he provides.

What mediums do they use?

Digital, Traditional

How do they creatively interpret the text for the article?

He has done quite a covers of short novels. A running theme in his art are clutter, the mechanical and a universe that seems almost dystopian/post-apocalyptic. His palette is also muted to highlight the excessive detail in the linework (backgrounds, subject matter).

From these three covers, two of them feature the world of the novel and one cover is more character-centric. Personally, I find that the interpretation of a scene with the setting featured as ‘the character’ (the main subject) quite creative as it provokes alot of speculation and work from the reader’s end through creating many points of interest (since there is no living subject to instantly create a bond with).

Link to Assignment 2 (Final Artwork + Process): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-assignment-2-final-varoom/

Illustration for Designers: Gallery (Academic Blog)

Research

Week 1 Blog Post: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-week-1-entopic-graphomania/
About: Introduction and entopic graphomania exercise

Week 2 Blog Post: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-week-2-activity-1-2/
About: Drawing each other and artist research

Assessments

Assignment #1 (Self Portrait – Inanimate Portraits, Week 3): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for…gnment-1-process/

Assignment #2 (Editorial Illustration, Week 5): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-varoom-artist-research-week-5/

Assignment #2 (Editorial Illustration, Week 9): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-assignment-2-final-varoom/

Assignment #3 (Applied Illustration, Week 11-12): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-assignment-3-week-11-12-progress/

Assignment #3 (Applied Illustration, Week 13-24): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/illustration-for-designers-assignment-3-process-final-illustrations-and-mock-ups/

Illustration for Designers: Assignment 1 Final & Process

Assignment 1: Final & Process

Context: (1) A portrait of a friend and (2) a self-portrait

(1) Portrait of a Friend (Quistina)

Interview Q&A – A summary
Qn 1: What kind of animal most represents you?
Ans: Mix of panther and/or deer. She admires the strong, head-fast and intimidating qualities in the panther. She can also be nice, so she compares herself to a deer as well. 🙂

Qn 2: If you could live on any spot on Earth, where do you want to live?
Ans: Finland – because it’s the happiest place and she wants to find out what makes the people in Finland happy even though she has no idea what’s going on there. She likes hot weather, and also said she prefers the seasons spring and fall.

She also mentions that while she’ll have a house somewhere to park at, she’ll also ideally get to travel to many places.

Qn 3: What’s the most memorable (or your favorite) book/film/media you’ve read, seen or experienced?
Ans: Pan’s Labyrinth, the Hunger Games series and similar fantasy fiction/fiction with dystopian universes. She enjoys media with strong women characters, and them stepping up for a good cause and stand up for themselves. She also appreciates a good romance. She also mentions that she treasures kindness and sincerity alot.

“That’s my safe space; I can be whichever narrator/character I choose to be.” – on the fantasy genre.

Pan’s Labyrinth has alot of metaphors that she enjoys (the psychological aspect). She also emphasizes on her appreciation for the duality and balance within the media she consumes.

Qn 4: What’s something that always gets you or makes you laugh? (OR What brings you immediate joy?)
Ans: She makes herself laugh sometimes. Food (Boost) and people she loves (her family and her partner). Also a highly sensitive individual, so she treasures personal time, peace and space.

 

Research, sketches and drafts

I did some studies of the panther before going into the drawing, and exploring how a panther could represent family, closed ones and warmth. I felt that the panther would be sufficient in representing Quistina’s strength, warmth and also kind/gentle qualities. I did abit of looking into Alphonse Mucha and cheesy fantasy novel book covers for the layout.

Alphonse Mucha’s Dance (1898)
Link: http://www.alphonsemucha.org/dance/

Eye contact/facing each other seems to be a common theme in novels of the romance + fantasy genre

I started off my sketch traditionally with pens and brush pens on bristol paper before scanning it, extracting the black lines and moving in to fill in the larger black areas digitally.

I chose to do the subjects in traditional medium as I felt that the micron and brush pens’ created lines and hatching would be able to create a unique texture that could express the fantastical and fictional aspect of her better.

Sketching and inking traditionally!

Scan

Tradigital draft for consultation

 

Final Portrait and Concept

Final Piece
Mediums: Copic Multiliners (0.03-0.1), Brush Pen, Adobe Photoshop

I based the portrait on the composition of fantasy novels and chose a more decorative way to frame the piece. The two panthers are based on her and her warm bond with the people around her who are her guides and people she want around, and how she really looks to them for acknowledgment and rely on them.

The flowers are based on some common flowers of Finland (such as petunias) where she really want to go, and also how she really wants to travel and be surrounded by nature. The quiver and the panther’s robes are to signify adventure, courage, strength and her journey.

(1) Self-Portrait

Interviewed my friends and myself to know myself better and also about what others thought of me (because I believe that my friends shape me the most as well)

Interview Q&A – A summary
Similarly to Quistina, I answered my own questions but also asked my friends to pair adjective+animal/object to understand how I came across to others. I found out that it wasn’t really helpful.

Screenshot of friends who tried their best

I’ve always been a visual person, so I decided to leave it at that and just move on to do some soul-searching in my sketches instead.

Back to the self Q&A!

Qn 1: What kind of animal most represents you?
Ans: Probably birds or animals with terribly awkward faces. I can relate to the birds’ anxiety, restlessness and the thing I can’t deal with the most is boredom in my life. I often can’t sit still as well. I also use bird as part of my social media handle.

Qn 2: If you could live on any spot on Earth, where do you want to live?
Ans: Probably some ulu kampung that’s close enough to a city. I want the peace of a kampung but the convenience, amenities and most importantly good post offices and medical facilities. I think it would be most ideal for me to live in a place that lets me travel between both.

Qn 3: What’s the most memorable (or your favorite) book/film/media you’ve read, seen or experienced?
Ans: Games has affected me alot in life. My biggest influences are games such as Final Fantasy 9, Kingdom Hearts and Shadow of Colossus. Most of them are epic games of the fantasy/dark fantasy genre (quite similar to Quistina actually! I also love Pan’s Labyrinth).

I love fantasy, the escape, the adventure and I think that’s why I sometimes consider myself and situations in 3rd person. I do find myself ‘gamifying’ things sometimes as well. I really appreciate the values that games have taught me – such as the importance of friendship, diligence and also alone time.

Qn 4: What’s something that always gets you or makes you laugh? (OR What brings you immediate joy?)
My friends! I love it whenever people talk to me about their personal comic/game projects, whacky ideas, or my project as well. Especially when they draw my original characters – it makes me absolutely crazy happy for many weeks and months to come. (never fails)

My pet budgie also makes me laugh alot.

There was a couple of days where I only changed her food, water and cleaned her tray because I was busy with work… One day I came back to her growing a beard…
(actually it’s just a loose feather that was stuck on her chin)

Research, sketches and drafts

I was very inclined towards the idea of comics and games but I wasn’t super attracted to the mechanical aspect of games so I almost immediately tossed aside the idea of using mechanical things in my self-portrait. I was alot more drawn to the storytelling and characters. I explored a few of my favourite JRPG game covers (e.g. Final Fantasy 9, Tales of Symphonia, etc) and thumbnailed a few compositions and did some other rough sketches too – of anthropomorphic birds representing facades of myself.

Drawing grass and also manually doing the stroke for the image

As the project brief was alot about inanimate objects, I decided to look into using silhouettes and shadows as representations of my mindspace and motion.

Final Portrait and Concept

Final Piece
Mediums: Copic Multiliners (0.03-0.1), Brush Pen, Adobe Photoshop

I did my self-portrait after Quistina’s but stuck with the same mediums, except relying on Photoshop more for this piece.

The main motifs in this piece are anthropomorphic bird shadows, the cat skull, foliage, seal/gate and fire.

The bird shadows represented the different roles I see myself fitting into when I’m in different situations (with family, with close friends, with school, etc). To me, shadows represent the notion of always being in flux and dancing around. This is similar to the fire in the eyes of the cat skull – I feel like I’m always moving, always changing and I’m glad for this because my biggest fear is being bored.

I always occupy myself with something, like with drawing, with picking up a ton of random things like Japanese, calligraphy, Russian, archery and more. I tend to start them alot, but the only thing I really go back to is drawing, the rest I tend to just start, drop, and sometimes go back to them.

About the puppetry and shadow motif – I’m always blown away by how different wayang kulit is in different parts of Asia, and the amount of meaning in the visual motifs. Currently, I’m also actually working on my own pet project that’s based on Southeast Asian art in my own time because I’ve grown to appreciate Southeast Asian art and shadow puppetry quite alot and I hope to study them in greater detail. Shadows also mean alot to me because the games that have impacted me alot in my life [Kingdom Hearts(2002) and Ico(2001)] both have very meaningful enemies based on shadows.

Screenshot of Kingdom Hearts’ battle gameplay:
Fighting the shadow enemies called Heartless

Part in Kingdom Hearts 2 opening where they cut through the Heartless
Link: https://youtu.be/rgCSgNakvlo?t=160

Another Heartless variant

Ico’s game cover – a super gorgeous and haunting game I played as a kid!
Ico Trailer Link: https://youtu.be/DTweY16e3W0?t=37

Ico’s concept was very inspired by metaphysical paintings too, so just like in the metaphysical paintings, shadows serve as very meaningful motifs in the game as well.

This links to the skull and the foliage, which to me, represents the back and forth between life and death. I usually see representations of death as a symbol of change in my life – such as fall, skulls, skeletons, tarot-stuff and all. The skull also represents a gate of trials of some sort for myself because I find that I’m always looking for validation from my close friends regarding my personal improvement when we talk about our projects and stroke each others’ egos.

I sometimes find that I have terrible relationship with validation and anxiety because I want to be acknowledged and at the same time I don’t want to be rejected. Logically, I know failure is the best way to improve so I constantly try to find a way to balance that relationship with movement and diligence in order to stay sane. The birds reflect that inability to stay still and my personal insecurities, but also my want to be free from these emotions and have fun doing whatever I want to do.

The bird shadows are anthropomorphic because I started off by basing them on different facades of myself if I were to be a game character – me as a ‘Hero’ to tackle my own problems, a ‘Healer’ to my friends when they need me, a ‘Mage’ when I’m tackling commissions and at conventions, and more.

I did try to imagine myself with more inanimate objects but I found it really hard to relate to (e.g. my friend’s cucumber suggestion, game consoles, etc), so I ultimately went with skulls, shadows and plants instead.

Illustration for Designers: Week 2 (Activity 1 and 2)

Activity 1

Week 2’s class activity was doing an exercise on shapes (Bauhaus drawing exercise?) and a 15-min portrait of a classmate!

Not sure what is going on with all the shapes.

We both drew Nisa!

And Nisa’s portrait of me-

She’s so good and fast it’s crazy (;u;)

Activity 2: Research on Self-Portraits and Artists!

Here are three artists whom I think are really inspirational and their insane self-portraits:

  1. Hirohiko Araki
  2. Jamie Hewlett
  3. Salvador Dali

1) Artist: Hirohiko Araki

Hirohiko Araki’s self portrait on his book “Hirohiko Araki’s Manga Techniques”

Famous for: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Manga series running from 1987-present)

I started reading and watching Hirohiko Araki’s Jojo series recently at a friend’s recommendation. Hirohiko Araki’s work draws alot of inspiration from Sherlock Holmes, Renaissance sculptures, paintings and western music (such as Pink Floyd, Styx, Queen).

His self portrait features himself and a character in his series named Rohan. Hirohiko Araki drew many parallels between himself and this character – in interviews.

Compared to his usual works, his self-portrait on the book cover was surprisingly tame – just an image of himself embracing a character who’s most similar to himself.

Hirohiko Araki’s illustrations and a panel excerpt from his comic

Medium:

Traditional. (Nib pens and markers)

Color, Line, Texture:

In his works, he accentuates the facial features and is fond of designing complicated, impractical clothing. He’s not afraid to distort proportions and challenging constructs – frequently forgoing realistic colour choices for strong colours with more emotive qualities. In one of his books, he notes Paul Gauguin as one of his influences in his colour choice – one of the Fauvism influences.

The lines he uses are meticulous and he uses hatching techniques in emphasizing the strength of shadows and imply different tones in black-and-white pages, such as the features on the characters’ faces and in drapery. He casts more realistic shadows than stylized ones – making characters resemble Renaissance sculptures.

His mastery of line weight allows him to create a plethora of textures within the design of characters. The following is one example of different textures in the characters’ hairstyles:

What’s inspiring:

What I really took away from his work is the spirit of challenging perceptions with his art and it was very interesting to look into how he does research on the things he likes in order to work on comics, guidebooks and illustrations – and how these inspiration translates into elements within his art and turned into a distinctive visual style.

References:

Celebrating The Art and Fashion of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2019-07-31/celebrating-the-art-and-fashion-of-jojo-bizarre-adventure/.149560

Jojo’s Araki Creates Manga for France’s Louvre Museum:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-01-22/jojo-araki-creates-manga-for-france-louvre-museum

Gucci Windows Come To Life With Exclusive Manga: https://www.herworld.com/fashion/gucci-windows-come-life-exclusive-manga/

Vizmedia – Message from Hirohiko Araki – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Fashion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2FHRUjBI6Q

 

2) Artist: Jamie Hewlett

From Jamie Hewlett’s instagram – self portrait in 2018

Famous for: Tank Girl, Gorillaz

Medium: Traditional (ink, paints) and digital

Color, Line, Texture:

Jamie Hewlett’s self portrait consists of only two colors (blue and red) on a canvas and a giant smile. Blue is used for indicating skin tones and some features, while red is used to block out the background of the self portrait and used to indicate his spectacles and clothes (the inanimate items). The spaces left blank are left to indicate a light source coming from the left side.

The lines, compared to his usual works that feature a cleaner finish, are loose and messy. The lines are also marked in with the paints and creates alot of broken lines.

What’s inspiring:

From Hewlett’s portrait, it is reassuring to know that sometimes artists may take a completely different (or opposite) approach when it comes to their self-portraits! While it’s not as polished and as impressive as his usual works, Hewlett’s portrait reflects his frame of mind, insinuating that he’s having a good time and he’s being casual and experimental with his own portrait.

Reference: 

Jamie Hewlett’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hewll/

 

3) Artist: Salvador Dali

Soft Self-Portrait With Grilled Bacon (1941)

Famous for: Surrealist paintings, The Persistence of Memory

Medium: Traditional, oil on canvas

Color, Line, Texture: 

The painting is a brown monochromatic colour scheme. There are no distinct strokes, favouring a more painterly style. The face is painted to be soft and almost gooey, as if melting, and the fork-like crutches are trying their best to hold up all the features (even the chin!) on the face so that they would stay as a recognizable face.

What’s inspiring: The self-portrait introduces an extra dimension of smell to go with the viewing experience! Most people have eaten grilled beacon and from the captioning of the self-portrait, we are able to recall the smell while viewing the image. This makes viewing the self-portrait extra interesting since we can not only experience what’s drawn but also what’s ‘not there’.

His painting also features multiple seemingly unrelated objects and elements in them to convey meaning and utilizes trompe-l’oeil (art technique to deceive the eye). There’s always alot to take apart in his works.

Reference: 

Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon: https://www.salvador-dali.org/en/museums/dali-theatre-museum-in-figueres/the-collection/138/soft-self-portrait-with-grilled-bacon

Typography I: Assignment 3 – Archetypes and Typography (Part 1/2)

CONTENTS

  • Chosen Archetypes
  • Ideation
  • Write-ups
  • Experimentation and Process
  • Decisions
  • Link to Part 2 (Final Outcome)
CHOSEN ARCHETYPES

Assignment 3’s mission is to disseminate information on 6 (out of 12) archetypes used for brands!

On 24/10 (Week 10), I’ve chosen the following archetypes for my project:

  • Hero [Defending the underdog]
  • Magician [Supernatural and wondrous]
  • Explorer [Travel and experience]
  • Outlaw [Revolutionary]
  • Lover [Idealist aspiring for love and pleasure]
  • Jester [Enjoyment, fulfillment and instant gratification]
IDEATION

During my walking exercise in class, I’ve managed to come up with a couple of ideas for the format of the project:

  • Archetype texture book
  • Archetypes as moving lines zine / optical movements or illusions made with type (twisted lines, speed lines, curvy lines)
  • Archetypes on holiday: a travel log with type (could be digital/social)
    (what about a survival book)
  • Fashionable type (archetypes in a fashion magazine)
  • A board game on archetypes (a game adventure) (could be a digital game as well)
  • Archetype diorama (made with typography; archetypes in their enviro)
  • Archetype tarot/lenormand cards
  • Play cards

The bolded ones were the ones I thought about and expanded on after the first consultation! In the end, I decided to go with the concept “Archetypes on a Holiday” and use the diorama/landscape idea to approach the concept.

 

Some sketches!

WRITE-UPS

Since we learn about the gist of the archetypes through the lessons and our personal research, I kind of wanted to have a situation where they could interact with each other – a little bit like the ABO blood-type comics where they’re all doing their own unique and cute thing.

ABO comics!

My concept developed in the slice-of-life direction:

  • What would be the role of each archetype when they traveled together?
  • What would they do together?
  • What would be their individual agendas?
  • What would they want to eat?
  • Would they get along?

Thus for each of them, I gave them a situation and did a short write-up of their reaction!

Explorer: The wild child can’t sit still. This time, he took it upon himself to ensure that no one chickens out on the trip. He was the first to ring up the rest. With great enthusiasm, he persuaded the others to spend some quality time together. He brought his handy dandy bagpack along for the trip and can’t wait for the journey to start!

Hero: The brave friend who scored a free meal. Right before departure, Hero noticed a highly suspicious type at the terminal dressed in black and tailed the fellow. He later assisted the staff in effectively disarming and arresting the suspicious type, before regrouping with everyone before the flight to enjoy a good burger on the house.

Outlaw: The defiant rogue. Nauseated by how hopelessly clingly the rest of them are, he immediately left the group after the flight to enjoy some time on his own. He wandered around and found a quaint little shophouse full of little trinkets and took a nap there with the resident cat, Mr. Pica.

Jester: The free spirit brought nothing with him. He never properly prepares for any trip and this time he forgot to bring a change of clothes. Thankfully, everyone decided to pool some money for him to buy some essentials. He is very appreciative but ended up squandering everything on an armful of trinkets.

Magician: The old soul spaced out and got lost. Penniless, he started performing and attracted a lively crowd in the streets. He was almost arrested for illegally performing on a streets but pulled a vanishing act at the very last second and snuck away. Eventually, he found his way back to the group but had to be persuaded to let the seven rabbits under his coat go.

Lover: The charmer struck lucky on this trip. Lover received a proposal at the airport, right before they went back home. The proposal caused a huge commotion. Due to the commotion, the flight was delayed and everyone decided to take an extended vacation.

EXPERIMENTATION AND PROCESS

I collected some images for a moodboard

While I wanted to do a diorama initially, the experimentation stage didn’t work out too well for me. I was reminded countless times about my poster grid as well. The poster grid is definitely the biggest struggle I had during this project. 🙁

I purchased a book on grids because I was stumped and it definitely saved me (kind of). Both the consultations and the book gave me a little bit of foothold and pulled me back from doing the wrong kinds of crazy.

I promise to study grids 🙁

Different drafts that I experimented with

I definitely started out with alot more illustrative elements, before deciding to go with a more structural layout and do my best to play with existing fonts instead of wanting to illustrate everything. I also picked to use a modular grid.

The set at the bottom was initially intended for me to make an accordion book – I wanted to connect it in a “ARCHETYPE -> LOCATION -> ARCHETYPE -> LOCATION -> …” sort of manner, but it didn’t work out too well because I needed to find a way to make it more structured and more poster grid-ded. I scrapped it, but kept the same concept and elements, instead of depict moments instead of actual location.

DECISIONS

Around 15/16th Nov (Thurs/Fri), I arrived at these drafts:

I can’t say I’m completely satisfied with the outcome, but it’s a start!

More images of experimentation with fonts and layouts for the rest of the archetypes:

LINKS

Final Outcome (Part 2/2): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/typography-i-assignment-3-archetypes-and-typography-part-2-2/

 

Typography I: Readings on Grids… and the walk to improve creative thinking (Week 10)

Readings on Grids

From Grids are Good: “Constraints are the mother of design invention.”

I kinda like this quote from the PDF since it reminds me of a similar art/drawing quote which was: “Limitations breed creativity.”

After going through the reading, I felt that I got the gist of how the grids worked but I felt like I couldn’t absorb more of the content specifics. The numbers were killing me midway through the reading. Eventually, the text does, however, provide specific examples on how to create a grid and introducing specific terms (margin, padding, etc). It also gives useful insight on good and bad designs for the web – and how to reorder crowded information.

Later, it even goes into a step-by-step of rebuilding a website to a grid.

It also cuts to the chase and is very direct in explaining the effect and consequence of certain design choices such as:

I was a little baffled at first by the numbers but it eventually looked really useful as it’s a really good guide on how to make use of the modules within the grid!

From How you make a grid:  “Design Grids are Not Mathematical Grids”

PHEW!

I was a little worried since I’ve been looking into several poster grid books recently. I’ve been feeling that using poster grids became something that was increasingly stifling. I started unconsciously looking at it like an iron rule, and not a helping guide.

I really did wish I read this particular text earlier for Assignments 2 and 3.

This reading was also really helpful in providing the basic dos for picking out fonts and deciding text sizes, and eventually fitting them within the poster grids, before providing some really nice examples!

Benefits of going for a walk to enhance creative thinking

This week we started class off with a walk to enhance creative thinking! Yingying, Sam and I walked in (mostly) silence to canteen 2 to grab some food as well.

During my walking exercise in class, I’ve managed to come up with a couple of ideas for the format of project 3:

  • Archetype texture book
  • Archetypes as moving lines zine / optical movements or illusions made with type (twisted lines, speed lines, curvy lines)
  • Archetypes on holiday: a travel log with type (could be digital/social)
    (what about a survival book)
  • Fashionable type (archetypes in a fashion magazine)
  • A board game on archetypes (a game adventure) (could be a digital game as well)
  • Archetype diorama (made with typography; archetypes in their enviro)
  • Archetype tarot/lenormand cards
  • Play cards

Personally, I felt that it’s definitely effective for me as I was still at the starting point of the project and the walk gave me some quiet time to organize my thoughts.

More on Project 3 (Process): https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/laum0005/typography-i-assignment-3-archetypes-and-typography-part-1-2/