Foundation 2D – After a long journey, here is my final! I’m also going to talk about my equations and reflections along with it. Cross-posted on my art instagram @ddoughnat.

My Equations

1. Me, Lone Knight Fighting + Around My Friends = I Let My Guard Down 

Everything is always 200% more dramatic in my head.

Sometimes I fancy myself some kind of character – I tend to be very animated in my gestures even when I talk and especially when I get excited, and I think the metaphorical knight has managed to bring out my dramatic tendencies quite well! I wanted to talk about how I’m more relaxed around my friends – it had been the play on the phrase, ‘let my guard down’ that led me to the idea of representing myself as the knight!

Briefly to explain: I had earlier decided to represent the strangers in my life as vegetable and fruit heads – so, what should I represent my friends with? One hilarious conversation with my roommate and several bouts of laughter with my classmates later, I had my idea down: confectionary. If the audience so happened to interpret that sweets helped make me feel better, they wouldn’t be wrong either! Confectionary is something we consume around friends, when we’re relaxed. Furthermore, at the risk of sounding completely mushy, my friends are also really sweet and understanding! Thus the character design.

Colours, alongside the reasons (psychological colour properties) why I chose them:

• Blue – Coldness, aloofness
• Red/Pink – Physical courage, strength, warmth
• Purple – Luxury, authenticity, truth, quality

2. Me + In the Great Outdoors = Freedom

I’m like a plant, I need sunlight to survive.

One of my loves is hiking and the outdoors, which I’ve done a lot less since I started university. This quote was especially based on my Junior College time, when I would often run off frustration from school and studying on a near daily basis. When I could afford the time, I would head over to the reservoir close to my home to run through the forest trails! It’s been some time since I’ve done that and I look forward to reestablishing some kind of harmony and balance in my holidays before the next semester.

I’m like a plant, needing sunlight to survive. But with my future in set in Animation, it looks like I’m becoming more of a succulent than a tree… haha.

Colours, alongside the reasons (psychological colour properties) why I chose them:

• Blue – Dreariness, depression, oppression
• Yellow – Optimism, confidence, extraversion, brightness, friendliness
• Green – Balance, harmony, refreshment, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace.

3. Me, In My Comfort Zone + At Orientation Camp = Nervous… How Does One Make Friends Again?

I’m not really an extrovert, so orientation camp was really draining for me. 

I may look extroverted, but I get exhausted in new, unfamiliar settings very easily and often fret over making and losing friendships. In continuation to the explanation of my characters, strangers are represented as vegetables and fruits so as to draw out a sense of isolation, to show how they are different from my avatar. It was an idea that I got from a show that I like, called “Mob Psycho 100”, where the main character’s love interest was differentiated from the surrounding supporting characters of various vegetable heads. I found that idea very quirky and decided to adapt it into my work as well… the end result was well-received, with the same playful touch I was going for!

Initially, the final panel was going to be much more complicated. However, I doodled this during my brainstorming… and it surprisingly turned out really well! Not only has it ascended to my all-time favourite panel, it has also been the favourite of my of my friends – possibly due to the humorous tone that the expression of my mini-me took on, as well as the situation mini-me is described to be in.

Colours, alongside the reasons (psychological colour properties) why I chose them:

• Yellow – Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, emotional strength, friendliness
• Red – Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain
• Orange – Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity

4. Me + In School = Overwhelmed

I tend to overcommit. A lot.

…and do I hear an “amen” to that! Honestly though, keeping busy is a bad habit of mine. I’m constantly filling my timetable up and giving away time to all sorts of things… my passions and my obligations. Furthermore, I have a terrible tendency of not being able to say no – the second column shows this, from the way I can’t say no to my Cupcake Friend, to Homework obligations (the desire to do well is overwhelming!) and to my Tomato Professor.

While this has improved over the last few years, I do still need to learn to “chill”, as my classmates always remind me. (Really, I’m so blessed to have friends who look out for me and remind me to slow down in life! I would not have survived this semester without them.) The leftmost composition intends to create a sense of balance with the horizontal lines and color, while the two on the right are tending towards the chaotic and the overwhelmed. In the final panel, mini-me’s expression is resigned, towards my inability to be… not busy.

Colours, alongside the reasons (psychological colour properties) why I chose them:

• Green – Harmony, balance, refreshment, equilibrium, peace.
• Purple – Introversion, decadence, suppression, inferiority
• Yellow – Irrationality, fear, anxiety

Reflections

All in all, I’m really glad that I went all out for this last project. Actually, my final was much more ambitious that what I ended up doing, and I had to cut down (for example, installed lighting and more layers in each diorama) but overall, the effect delivered, and I was quite satisfied with it. A lot of people liked it!

I really enjoyed doing the project because I could really draw upon my own personal art style, and I got to do what I love: illustration! Using colour really got me to challenge myself, I usually stick to ink and markers in my illustrations; colour never really factored in. Furthermore, although it seemed simple to decide on ‘analogous colours’, there were a few reasons why this ended up challenging me:

• I used gouache (to make the colours “pop” better) – but this is my first time using this medium. I’ve used other paints before: watercolour and oil paint being the most often and, sometimes, acrylic. The consistency is similar for watercolour, but thicker and requires a slightly different kind of control over the paint.
• Furthermore, mixing colours resulted in different outcomes as well, as I purchased a Designer’s Gouache set that only had CMYK + White. I struggled the most with the yellows, oranges and browns! The range of colour was tough to get right, and I personally found it difficult to pick analogous colours that would let me vary the tone. This itself required much mixing and re-mixing, and I’m surprised that my set of gouache has not been used finish yet, haha!

What are some of the challenges that I’ve faced, besides colour?

• Time-constraints were a huge challenge. Each step of the process took a lot of time and effort to execute – from conceptualising to process to installation. With 4 different projects to concentrate on, I had to push myself to constantly engage in 2D especially as it required so many considerations. (However, the fact that it was a very personal project meant that my thoughts kept getting drawn back to it… and that’s a plus!)
• I honestly spent a lot of money on this project, more than I should have as compared to my classmates! Oops.
• Keeping my Creative Process Journal – I felt that I’ve definitely improved in keeping a process journal in Assignment 3 as compared to Assignment 1. It’s not at its best yet, but I really tried to curate my journal this time. Although I didn’t manage to finish it, at least there’s some form of improvement! I’ll try harder next time.

That’s all folks! Hope that you enjoy my work as much as I enjoyed creating it. See you again soon!

*Postscript: thank goodness I had the sense to copy out my reflections before OSS crashed haha. It’s finally up!