Ego Final

 


Set 1: Me VS Mosquito

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  1. I wanted to represent myself as someone who is happy-go-lucky, unperturbed by bad luck or failures, i.e. someone who dances in the rain.

So I started searching up on rain..


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And to emphasise on the lightheartedness of my mood, I opted for bright pastel analogous colours: pink; yellow and orange.

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I also gave myself a cape, so it seems like I am a superhero unafraid of troubles as I part falling rain, carrying on my happy journey.

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Details of rain drawn in white pen ink.

2. I wanted to represent a mosquito in a somewhat scary way, but also not too much in order to fit in the pastel, whimsical theme.

I also wanted to emphasise that is the mosquito haunting me at night, leading to my lack of sleep that makes it miserable for me. So I thought of the moon at the background to represent the night.

Naturally, it made me think of wolves howling at moon.

Hence, I related it to the yearning of my blood by the mosquitoes because those who attack me seemed really thirsty I must say.

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And so, pastel dark blue of the night sky is complemented by the pastel yellow moon. The silhouettes are black so as to highlight the “night” aspect.

Since I used white pen in the background for the previous panel, I decided to continue this feature by adding in stars.

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3. The reason I added in the superhero part was so I can show that mosquitoes are my kryptonite! So a little research on that and my reaction – despair.

Aha the spotlight for dramatics I guess.

Plus, to incorporate the mosquito into kryptonite kind of reminds me of insect amber (as seen in Jurassic Park)

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And so I am kneeling, begging for mercy under the mosquito kryptonite. I was thinking where my cape from the panel should go, then I thought of using as a surrender flag, although it is not white. 

The background is in black to dramatise the spotlight, also which I think the red of the flag complements the green kryptonite well.

More white lines penned in in the background to add dynamism!

 


Set 2: Me VS My Enemies

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  1. Basically I want to represent myself as a super pure, harmless and precious, and I thought of the cinnamon roll meme.

It stemmed from TheOnion, which is a news website renowned for their eccentric headlines.

And so cinnamon roll I am!

Also, I wanted to incorporate angelic characteristics, hence adding in fluffy wings and a halo.

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Overall, I wanted it to have a warm yet holy feel, hence adding in strong gold sheets by the sides. The bun is also painted in warm colours – brown umber, burnt sienna and yellow ochre.

A dull brownish beige in the back of the spotlight hopefully tones down the shiny golds, in which is also complemented by the bluish purple shadow of the cinnamon roll.

I made sure there were enough white to counter the high intensity colours via the plate, wings and sugar glaze on the cinnamon roll, which is PVA glue mixed with white paint.

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Since I kind of want this set and the next few to be more interactive with the audience, I stick on things to prompt touch and exploration.

The halo is stuck with mounting tape to give a 3-dimensional feel, along with the wings, cut out from (soft and fluffy)leg warmers from Daiso.

2. I wanted to portray the people here in a repulsive light, and since they do talk shit, I decided to make it literal.

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Behold- talking toilet bowls!

I used the same tactic from my Emo Lines to make the background: Glue Gun!

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Yeahhh the yellow colour is from the old, discoloured glue stick, but also serve to be associated with urine, which makes it ultra gross aha.

Anyway, the wooden table is wood wallpaper I bought, and the poop is brown foam. I painted the background a dirty green to contribute to the yuck factor

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Again, more white left for breathing space.

I guess the colours are analogous as well: brown/orange, yellow, green

3. I wanted me to be represented as a demon, with all the fiery and injustice I feel unleashed.

To portray anger, the colour scheme obviously revolves around red, joined by oranges and yellow to give a fiery look(which also relates to hell & demons).

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Somehow, the crimson I used seemed abit too cool and pinkish to represent fire, which I solved by washing over a layer of vermilion.

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Much better!

 

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Yas, so that’s me, the cinnamon roll holding a plunger, while my demonic shadow behind shows a trident instead. The trembling toilet bowls shrink in my presence, and turn gray and insignificant. The cleaning in progress sign relates back to the theme of toilets and also “cleansing” their dirty hearts.

 

I added other colours in reference to this palette, more specifically phthalo blue and the dull beige to also balance out the highly intense reds.


Set 3: Me & My Brother

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  1. I am a bored, white cat, because I love cats and I can relate to them very well. As such, a bored cat would usually stir up trouble around them.

 

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And behold – first draft of a cat bored with work and sweeping the pen holder off the table.

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Update: Added grey background to emphasise on the dreading feeling.

However, ultimately I settled on a yawning cat, pushing away papers(work) so the work looks a little more alive.

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I kept the dreadful background though! And I replicated it using watercolour and pen lines. I decided to make this panel achromatic to accentuate the bored and dull mood.20161114_185845

3D component includes felt white cloth for the cat and paper teeth!

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The falling papers are also cut and pasted with reference.

2. Next, I chanced upon this while researching on boredom:

Which I thought the shadows is a pretty cool way to depict somebody watching a screen.

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Hence, a clean and simple scene depicting my brother using his laptop at night, laughing at a show.

I decided to depict my brother as a dog instead, since he is born in the year of a dog.

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So I printed the background and pasted the dog in foam and the laptop in paper. There is an analogous harmony between the yellows and browns, in which the light yellow serve to show my brother’s contentment at watching running man videos.

3. In reality, I do disturb my brother by putting my head on top of his and using my long hair to obscure his view while he uses the computer haha! So I wanted to illustrate myself as a cat that intervenes between my brother and the laptop to gain his attention desperately.

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A very comical result through puppy eyes and sun burst background to give a sense of preciousness, enticing my brother to play with me!

 

 

 

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Finally, I settled on the cat being completely on the laptop with guileless eyes and a ball of yarn, in invitation to play.

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The warmth analogous colours: yellow, oranges and brown is again complemented with the sky blue yarn, which is wrapped around a circular cardboard piece. The yellow used is stronger than in the previous panel to show the happier mood when I am involved.

White felt is once again used for the cat and brown foam for the dog, as well as black foam for the headphones.

The headphones on the dog is placed higher than before to show the shock of the dog, along with the standing of its fur to make it seemed more animated.


Set 4: Me & My Boss

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  1. I wanted to show that I am within my comfort zone, protected by a bubble from the opinion/judgement of others.

So in the bubble, I used warm colours to have a snug and safe feeling. cam00150

At first, it seemed a little too fiery instead of warm, so I added a wash of white to decrease the intensity.

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I then tried to put some violet as complementary colour to yellow with reference from the picture below.

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Added white base for the purple to show better and stronger, also giving the circle a more 3-dimensional feel as a bubble.

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The eyes should definitely be in cool colours to highlight the cold and harsh judgement of the world. So, I outlined them in cerulean blue pen.

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The comfy armchair is cut from red foam, ‘tufted’ by art knife to give it more volume.

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The cat is once again in white felt.

Hence there is a temperature difference in colours between the warmth inside the bubble and the cool, realistic eyes outside.

2. I wanted to show my boss ‘looking down’ at me from the top, and hence a bottom perspective of him.

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Cool blues: phthlato blue and cobalt blue is used for the background and the table. My boss, the pirate holding my piggy bank aka my pay, as hostage, is donned in a royal blue(ultramarine) coat to hint authority.

The ultramarine is also warmer in contrast to the other blues, capturing attention.

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Silver sheets is then cut and added in as the telescope and knife.

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Finally, the eye in white foam and pants in black cloth is added, not breaking the blue monochromatic scheme, which accentuates his sharp and unforgiving gaze.

3. I wanted the composition to show how concentrated my boss’ gaze is on me, hence I have an inverted triangular spotlight which focused on me.

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The size difference between the eye and the cats reiterate who’s in charge. I used a lighter cerulean blue to have a more clean and professional feel, in contrast to the first panel where I was lazy and disorganized.

The background is cerulean blue added with black.

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The floor is marble patterned paper to add a classy feel. Me, the cat neatly in apron is once again in white felt while the kitten I’m tutoring is foam painted grey. The cat representing me is more ‘dolled up’ (ribbon on ear and eyelashes added) because my boss told me to tie up my hair during work so that I would look more presentable. 

Yes anyway, the wood wallpaper is reused, paired with the wooden toothpick as the broom stick, while white raffia is used for the bristles.

Eventually, I thought of adding puppet strings from the cats’ limbs to the eye to symbolise the eye controlling its actions.

Overall, this panel is in monochromatic blue, complemented by the wood colours.


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DIFFICULTIES & TAKEAWAYS

 Had a terrible time experimenting with colour, because paint is hard to control, especially when mixing and overlaying with other colours. Finally decided on using thick, acrylic so mistakes made can be easily covered up.

Definitely struggled with composition, trying to make each picture dynamic within the narrative of the content. Had to erase and redraw a few time to get an appealing design.

Materials used for extra interactive features also made me make a few trips to Popular. It is also hard to find materials which colours coordinate with the colour scheme. Sometimes I just paint over the materials if the colour does not fit.

It is also tough to come up with various colour schemes, especially when most of them will end up tending towards the yellow/red or blue harmonies. Googling various colour schemes do help a lot in varying the colours.

Monochromatic schemes are the hardest!! There are soooo many components to paint using sooo less colours! How was I supposed to differentiate the different parts if the colours are so similar to each other??? Eventually outlined components in black marker for distinction, and also giving it a more cartoon style.

All in all, this is a super intensive project which forced me out of all of my comfort zones since I always colour things to what their colours are, i.e. not following any colour schemes/restrictions. It also stretched my creativity on composition and material used. But overall, this is a great experience/practice on colour theory and visual communication to the audience! wink

Quote Final

Yay! Super excited to do this project because of my passionate love for one particular movie, X-Men: First Class!

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So in case you haven’t watched the movie, there are 2 main characters- Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto), who controls metal, & Charles Xavier (Professor X), who is a telepath.

This movie investigates their pasts, how they met and how they became well-established rivals in the other X-Men movies.

You can kind of skip this part if you have watched the movie, aha!

Character Background:

Erik has a dark past of being a holocaust survivor.

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The antagonist of this show, Sebestian Shaw, witnessed Erik’s ability to control metal when his parents were captured into the concentration camps and Erik used his powers to bend the metal gates.

Since then, Shaw have taken an interest in him. As Shaw is also a Nazi, he orders Erik to use his powers to move a coin, and when he is unable to do so, Shaw kills his mother.

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Erik’s power then manifests from anger and grief. Since then, Shaw has been experimenting on him, shaping him into his personal ‘weapon’. Erik probably escaped sometime later and was filmed tracking down Shaw to seek his revenge.

Charles has a slighty less tragic past, growing up in a mansion alone. In the comics, Charles’ father passed away in an accident, his mother remarried and got drunk often while he was abused by his stepfather and stepbrother. In the film, it is hinted that he is neglected by his mother and there are no mentions of his father. One day, he meets a stranger impersonating his mother in his kitchen stealing food, but since she is a fellow mutant, kindhearted Charles decides to ‘adopt’ her as his younger sister.

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Tiny Raven the cutest!

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Years later, Charles became a professor in genetics, curious towards the science behind mutants.

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Chosen quotes:

 You are not alone. – Charles Xavier

This quote is found when Charles first rescued Erik, which is how they met.

Basically, Erik finally found Shaw on a cruise and was controlling anchors to wreck havoc.

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So Shaw, with his gang, escaped through a submarine, making Erik go after them but attempting to stop the submarine with his powers, although to no avail.

Charles sensed Erik’s mind through his telepathy, probably having read Erik’s thoughts against Shaw, jumped about 100ft to save him from drowning himself.

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He communicates through telepathy with Erik and convinces him to not kill himself in his futile act of vengeance.

Erik was shocked to find another fellow mutant for the first time.

After that, Charles recruits Erik into the CIA’s pursuit for Shaw, since they are both after him. On their mission, Charles and Erik struck up an amiable friendship as equals, seeing the rest were still very young. Charles have tried to dissuade Erik from seeking vengeance during their frequent chess games.

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Charles also believed in the good of Erik, tapping on his happiest memories to optimize his power, allowing him to shift a giant satellite dish.

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So I tried to depict the difference in the two’s background stories by reflecting them diagonally against each other, as if they were from 2 parallel worlds. Both of them experienced tragedy in one way of another, and are trying to reach out for help, especially for Erik.

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Erik’s hand has the tattoo of any holocaust survivor, reflecting on his past. Charles’ has the all-seeing eye to represent his telepathy. The coin in between them represent’s Erik’s vengeance, in which Charles is trying to persuade Erik to let go of by ‘taking’ it from him.

The reaching out of Charles’ hand also demonstrates his rescue of Erik when they first met.

UPDATE: 

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My previous work seemed too stable, so I decided to revamp the whole composition to have a stronger density on one area.

I wanted to show the helplessness of Erik through the triangular ‘funnel’ towards his smaller hand(with the tattoo).

There several hands above are those reaching out to him to create rhythm, the most prominent one being Charles’ (indicated by the ‘all-seeing’ eye to symbolise his telepathy). The vertical lines of his hand is to emphasise on the longing to reach out.

The barbed wires and rain add textures to the background, to recreate the depressing atmosphere at the concentration camps where Erik was at.


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Upon realising gray scale is possible, I darkened the extra hands and made Charles’ hand white in order to make it stand out more obviously.

The rain in the background is also more clear.

I’ve been at the mercy of men just following orders. Never again. – Erik Lehnsherr

Erik said this in retaliation to Charles’ justification of saving the lives of innocent men ‘just following orders’, who are ordered to fire missiles at them.

Erik then stops the metal missiles mid-air and turns them around, sending them back to where they came from.

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I put a soldier(men just following orders) in the palm of which belongs to Erik(tattoo) with missiles surrounding him to show to that the fate of the soldier is literally in his hands. The palm’s silhouette is hinted by the negative spaces from the missiles, making use of the Law of Closure. The variety in the scale of missiles makes it look like they are honing in on the solider, making the print more dynamic.

UPDATE:

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Replaced the soldier with roman helmet instead, to foreshadow  Shaw’s helmet which embodies Magneto today, as well as symbolise the fate of the soldier with the skull.

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Added half tone shadow for tonal value and more dynamic effect.

I can’t feel my legs – Charles Xavier

The most heartbreaking scene at the end of the film where Erik accidentally reflects a bullet into Charles’ spine, dropped control of all the missile in shock and goes to cradle his friend.

However, when they have established that they have opposing ideals, Erik gathers others(including Raven) to follow his way, leaving Charles on the beach.

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Since chess is a recurring theme throughout the movie(and even other movies) between Charles and Erik, I depicted them using the knight pieces.

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Charles believes in the good side of people, even though they are trying to kill him, and hence is the White Knight, which represents light.

Erik has witnessed and experienced the worst of humanity, and is hence the Black Knight.

The melting(bleeding) of the White Knight’s torso shows the loss of his legs through the bullet wound(black hole).

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Especially after feeling a coin go through his brain in his attempt to keep Shaw still and prevent him from killing Erik, Charles is definitely at the lowest point of his life, which is conveyed by the tear from his eye.

On the horizon however, Erik leaves with Raven, changing colour, and sides, eventually fighting against Charles instead of being by his side.

The sunset and palm trees serve to depict the Cuban beach where the turning point happens.

UPDATE:

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Charles is larger in scale in contrast to the sub dominant Erik and Raven, to capture the viewer’s attention first(Law of Figure/Ground). Strong diagonal lines then leads the viewer’s eyes from Charles to them.

I also cropped the land at an angle to get rid of the straight horizon line. Background now resembles a cliff, as accentuated by the shadow, and Erik and Raven are about to walk off a point of no return(changing colour to show them turning to the dark side).

 

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A dripping, cold stone texture is applied to emphasise on Charles’ sadness. Cliff in the background is made bigger in order to achieve an ideal 30% white area for breathing space and colour asymmetry.

Mutants are the next stage of human evolution.- Erik Lehnsherr

This happens in the discussion which shows the difference in their ideals while playing chess.

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Professor Charles Xavier: Shaw’s declared war on mankind on all of us, he has to be stopped.

Erik Lehnsherr: I am not gonna stop Shaw, I am gonna kill him. Do you have it in you to allow that?

[Erik pauses while Charles shifts in his chair uneasy]

Erik Lehnsherr: You known all along why I was here Charles, but things have changed. What started as a covert of mission, tomorrow mankind will know mutants exist. Shaw, us, they won’t differentiate. They’ll fear us. And that fear will turn to hatred.

Professor Charles Xavier: Not if we stop a war, not if we can prevent Shaw, not if we risk our lives doing so.

Erik Lehnsherr: Would they do the same for us?

Professor Charles Xavier: We have it in us to be the better man.

Erik Lehnsherr: We already are! We are the next stage of human evolution, you said it yourself…

Professor Charles Xavier: [cuts in] No, no…

Erik Lehnsherr: Are you really so naive as to think that they won’t battle their own extinction? Or is it arrogance?

Professor Charles Xavier: [looks at Erik in disagreement] I am sorry.

Erik Lehnsherr: After tomorrow, they are gonna turn on us. But you are blinded because you believe they are all like Moira.

Professor Charles Xavier: And you believe they are all like Shaw.

 

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At first I wanted to put men replicated diagonally upwards to show the ‘stepping up’ effect of evolution, but then I figured out that its pretty sexist, so I used skeletons to distinguish humankind. Towards the right, humans ‘evolve’ into mutants, having extra features.

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Then, I explore putting the skeletons in a queue to show the forward motion of evolution. Half of the skeleton is in contrasting tones to highlight the change aka mutation(Law of Symmetry & Order).  The left side is in negative to show the ‘extinction’ of humankind when mutants become more and more pervasive.

UPDATE:

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Decided to break the linear queue of skeletons by skewing them and arranging them in a curve instead. The viewer’s eyes are first directed to the largest skeleton on the right, also contributed by the large white foreground. The Law of Continuation allows the viewer to follow the queue from the right to the left. The distance between each of them decreases towards the right to show the acceleration in evolution which allowed mutations to exist now.

Lightning in the background to denote action and happening, before mutations appear.

 

SILKSCREEN PRINTING PROCESS:

At first, we had to coat the emulsion on the silkscreen. I didn’t really get a chance to do it because our work study, Jia Hui, was still figuring out how to get an even coat. Eventually she figured out we were suppose to scrape it upwards instead of downwards, but I got my coat decently even already so. Then, we bake it in the oven for 20 minutes, then stick our transparency on the outer screen using tape.

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Then, we throw it into the exposure machine!

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We had to wait awhile for the fabric to completely compress the screen, then..
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ZINGGGG! The emulsion is exposed to bright light for 18s. To be honest, it really feels like some dimensional travelling was going on there. Well, one can dream.

Anyway! Then we had to jet spray away the emulsion that was not sticking to the screen. For a long, loud period with a heavy, tiny jet spray. Good thing I was one of the first few though, so I didn’t have to come back after lessons to do it! But actually after that, I heard from Tong Chen that scrubbing it with a sponge can help quicken the process. Oh well.

Next, we had to let it dry and screen print with ink during the next lesson! First, we stick 4 similar coins at the corner with tape to block out any excess areas of ink from getting printed onto the tote bag.

Then, we slather some ink onto the top, and scrape it downwards using a squeegee. My first practise on paper was tragic.

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Too much ink probably. So I put much lesser ink on the second try, but patches of area did not get inked, and upon second scraping, it ended up somewhat the same – the halftone cannot be seen.

Eventually, after much more attempts than I would like to have, I concluded using less ink, coupled with sufficient force(silkscreen must touch paper when scraping) has the best results.

Actually, Jia hui came to supervise our process and offered the longer squeegee for my use, since my design is barely smaller than the squeegee I used. However, I find that the new squeegee, being longer, requires us to hold it with our two hands further apart from each other, which spreads the pressure and some of the middle parts of the design doesn’t get printed. Ultimately, we switched back to the shorter squeegee.

Since my partner, Jie Lyn, did her print first but design was unfortunately thwarted by a fold in the back of the tote bag, we had to bust out the iron and iron our bags!

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Then, I crossed my fingers and screen printed on my personal tote bag first.

Heh, some areas were touched up afterwards.

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Fortunately, the halftones showed up, as well as all the texts! Hooray!

On the other hand, the one I did on the school tote bag did not turned out as well in the text area. Aye, sometimes, perfection cannot be repeated.

All in all, it is a really new experience for me to do something so hands-on and it really helped me understand the process better rather from watching videos(which made it seemed so easy). I am so glad I practised on paper before doing on the actual bag! Also, much thanks to Jie Lyn and Jia hui for their help and advise!

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OVERVIEW:

I’ve learnt to not be afraid of change, or redoing the entire composition if necessary, as sometimes by breaking out of our own notion of normalcy and comfort allows us to make more dynamic and interesting compositions.

I’ve also noticed that density difference, repetition, colour imbalance and asymmetry all contributes to a lively design that engages with the viewer, no matter how fitting something seems when it is placed in the middle.

Last but not least, I have been reacquainted with my old Photoshop skills, as well as learnt some new ones, which will certainly help me later in my journey in design.