Ego in Different Settings // Final

 

Title: Societal Expectations
Style: Pop Art
Theme: Stereotypes of various demographics that I belong to.

1)      Female in her 20s

2)      Art Student

3)      Broken Family

4)      Muslim Female

 

Concept

 

I believe there are certain stereotypes that people expect of me as a certain demographics. These stereotypes may be true for some, but are not applicable to me. Hence, I chose to display these society stereotypes and also how I don’t conform to these ideas.

Me

In the “Me” panels, I would like to highlight the stereotypical outer imagery of what the society expects me to look like as that specific demographic.

I used Ben-day dots as the skin of the characters, inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s artworks.

Consistent throughout all 4 “Me” panels, I used complimentary colour scheme.

Setting

For the “Setting” panels, objects or symbols, that are stereotypically associated with that demographics, are displayed in a repetitive patterned like a background. I was inspired by Andy Warhol’s use of repetitive imagery of popular objects and media stars respectively in ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ and ‘Marilyn Diptych’. Similar to Andy Warhol’s intention, I wanted to repeat this motif to illustrate the omnipresence of these objects in each demographics.

I’ve also added a twist to each panel, signifying that I am not someone who fits into these moulds that the society has created for me.

Instead of using a single colour background, I decided to create a Ben-day dot patterned background which I felt helped the objects stand out.

In the ‘Settings’ panel, I primarily used monochromatic for the repeated patterns, as for the twist, I used a complementary colour. The objects that are commonly associated with the demographics are all in a monochromatic colour scheme to illustrate the single stereotype that society expects. The complementary colour in the twist creates a contrast and thus attracts the attention of viewers.

Me in Setting

In these panels, my intention was to illustrate my “anti-stereotype” in the setting of the stereotypical image. Hence, I represented myself in a way that I’m breaking this mould. I used triadic colours in all 4 four of these panels.

Female in her 20s

Me

An outward imagery stereotype that is common for females in their 20s is that they care a lot about their image and obsession with beauty. There is this expectation that you should look good and dress well, I see this often in my own life with my mother and grandmother who would tell me that I should wear some makeup or wear nicer clothes or even wear some jewellery. Hence, I created this image of someone who uses a lot of makeup and has some highlights in her hair. I also included this beauty mark just below her eyes because this spot symbolises beauty.

Using complementary colours; red and green.

Progress

1st Draft: Colours did not reflect any colour scheme, change skin colour to follow colour scheme, add highlights to hair.

2nd Draft: Need to add more makeup to the character.

Setting

A common stereotype is that the society believes females in her 20s are vain, and obsessive about their looks. Thus, I displayed lipsticks, mirror and heels as objects that people would associate with this stereotype.

For the twist, I placed a crack on one of the mirrors to symbolise how I don’t conform to this stereotype.

Using monochromatic colour; red; and complementary colour; green.

Progress

1st Draft: The blue mirror was a little too distracting, could be changed to a lighter shade of red.

2nd Draft: Crack on mirror not obvious enough. Strokes should be consistent throughout entire panel. Add some background texture.

Me in Setting

To show the rebel against this stereotype, I created the illustration of a broken mirror, a broken heel, and a melted lipstick. This represents how as a person, I don’t follow this expectation of the society and that I am not someone who cares about my outer image.

Using triadic primary colours; red, yellow and blue.

Progress

1st Draft: Change to a darker shade of blue

2nd Draft: Strokes should be consistent throughout entire panel.

Art Student

Me

Before I came to ADM, as I spoke to my friends who aren’t Art students, I found that a lot of them had the impression that Art students are those that dress well and in a millennial term “hipsters”. I created this illustration which non-Art students would picture Art students to look like. Thus, I had the character have a paintbrush behind her ear (a typical image often found on media), paint on her face, big bushy hair and wearing “hipster” glasses.

Using complementary colours; red-orange and blue-green.

 

 

Setting

When I tell someone that I am an art student, they make an assumption that I can draw, colour and paint well. To illustrate this assumption of art students being able to do traditional art, I use objects such as easels, paintbrushes, pencils and palettes.

For the twist, I added a cursor to represent my rebel against traditional art.

Using monochromatic colour; red-orange and complementary colour; blue-green.

Me in Setting

The idea is to display the irony in using both traditional and digital objects. The easel and canvas are used in traditional art for painting and drawing, thus I created this “painting” of a cursor filled with cursors inside it. On the easel which you would normally find traditional art tools like pencils, brushes, palettes, have been replaced with digital tools such as the pen tool, knife tool, clone stamp tool, zoom tool and eyedropper tool.

Using triadic colours; red-orange, blue-purple and yellow-green.

 

Broken Family

Me

A very common remark I get from my relatives were how they were glad that I turn out well despite my family background. From this remark, it is obvious that they have an expectation that people who come from broken families are wayward and troublemakers. Hence, I created an image of a “troublemaker” with tattoos, piercings and a huge ear hole.

Use of complementary colours; yellow and violet

Progress

1st Draft: Use complementary colours instead. Change skin colour to a yellow tinge. Add shadows to her hair.

2nd Draft: Tattoo not obvious. Change polka dot background so that it does disrupt the attention.

Setting

I illustrated this idea of wayward by displaying cigarettes, beer, and a disco ball representing smoking, drinking and clubbing which are not viewed positively. The twist I included in this composition is a watermelon in replacement of a disco ball.

Use of monochromatic colour; yellow and complementary colour; violet.

Progress

1st Draft: Disco balls are not obvious enough, change colour of watermelon to a complementary colour

2nd Draft: Disco Ball is more recognisable. My concern was changing the colour of the watermelon would result in the inability to identify it as a watermelon.

Me in Setting

To illustrate how society forces these wayward expectations on me but ultimately, I do not conform to their expectations and as illustrated, I remain an innocent watermelon.

Use of triadic tertiary colours; yellow-orange, blue-green and red-violet.

Progress

1st Draft: There is no distinct colour scheme.

2nd Draft: Wrong use of triadic colours, should be changed to red-violet, yellow-orange and blue-green instead.

Muslim Female

Me

One of the most common question I get from people I just met is “Why don’t you wear a tudung?” This question alone showcases how people expect to see all Muslim female to wear a hijab. Hence, the character is seen with a hijab on.

Use of complementary colours; blue and orange.

Progress

1st Draft: The Ben-day dots on the skin can be slightly bigger. I found that the dots in the background is a little distracting.

Setting

Islam in itself means peace. Hence, especially in the Muslim community, there is an expectation that as a Muslim, you should be a peace loving person. The twist I have included is an inverted peace sign to signify that I am “anti-peace”.

Use of monochromatic colour; blue; and complementary colour; orange.

Progress

1st Draft: I felt that the composition appeared too flat. A suggestion was to use more symbols of peace similar to my other compositions.

Me in Setting

To show my “anti-peace” notion by having a face covered by inverted peace signs which represent how I am the opposite of peaceful. Also, I have a hostile resting face, which is reflected by the idea of “face full of anti-peace”.

Use of triadic colours; red, blue and yellow.

 

 

 

 

Progress

1st Draft: Wrong use of triadic colour scheme; should change to red, blue and yellow. The ben-day dots in the inverted peace sign not obvious.

Overall colour schemes

Complementary colours used in all 4 compositions
Monochromatic colours used in all 4 compositions
Triadic colours used in all 4 compositions

 

Reflection

I enjoyed the freedom that we were allowed in the use of mediums in this project. A lot of the classmates reflected their own style into their compositions and that reminded me that it is time for me to find my own style of illustration.

Link to previous post

Colour Theory & Research: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/nora0020/ego-colour-theory-and-artist-reference/

Project 3: Impossibilities of Being

A place I have never been before.

I envision heaven as a sort of a paradise for each individual. Only those who have done good deeds throughout their life are deserving to enter heaven. Hence they are rewarded with every possibility, making the impossible on earth, possible. In my video, I’ve depicted how MY heaven would look like.

Final Video

Link: https://vimeo.com/241365627

Research

As recommended by Lei, I embarked on a research on the movie “Avatar”, sound composed by James Horner. I chose this movie because it depicted a different dimension from Earth, and thus the sounds used throughout the movie would be unearthly. In a lot of the environmental sounds, there were the sound of birds chirping and a melody playing in the background. There was also a sound of a female’s melodic singing which added to the ambience of the unearthly world.

 

 

Plot

Follows the story of a lady’s death and her entrance to heaven.

Low-Fi Storyboard

Hi-Fi Storyboard

 

Medium of Video

Since I am creating an entirely new world, I decided to create moving graphics to illustrate heaven. I chose moving graphics rather than still graphics because a lot of the sounds come from movement, thus I wanted to display these movements to accompany with the sounds. Also, throughout the entire video, we are seeing it from the perspective of the character. The graphics in the video was created in Illustrator and then imported to After Effects.

Scene Analysis

Scene 1

Visuals

The story begins with the perspective of the character lying down in a grave.

Sounds

As she is being buried, there are sounds of a male and a female mourning in the background. This is accompanied by the sounds of digging soil. As she gets buried, the background sound of people mourning and digging is muffled.

Scene 2

Visuals

She gets completely buried, and the entire scene turns black. Her life flashes before her eyes which we don’t see on screen but we hear.

Sounds

We first hear the sounds of a baby crying followed by a car crash. The baby crying is supposed to represent the first thing she hears when she was born whereas the car crash represents the last thing she hears before dying.

Initially, I wanted to create a sound sequence about some of her important life moments, e.g. wedding bells, applause after her performance. However, due to limited time, I cut down short to the first and last sounds in her life.

Scene 3

Visuals

She slowly opens her eyes to see stairs and a door at the top. She climbs the stairs and arrives in front of the door. She proceeds to open the door.

Sounds

In the background, there are sounds of angels and bells. As she climbs up the stairs, she hears a heartbeat, which is ironic because she is dead. This represents the beginning of a new life. When she reaches the top and opens the door, we hear the sound of a door opening.

Scene 4

Visuals

She opens the door to find that she is completely surrounded by the ocean. As mentioned in Project 1, one of my favourite places is the beach. Hence, I created a space to illustrate this.

In this space, it is raining, my favourite weather. The sky is a sunset tinge which depicts my favourite time of the day.

We see from a distance what appears to be someone playing the piano.

Sounds

In the background we hear environmental sounds of waves crashing, rain and birds chirping.

We can also hear a faint piano melody which gets louder as she gets closer.

Scene 5

Visuals

Naturally, the sea should get deeper and deeper. However, we found that she is able to walk on water. This idea stems from my fear of the deep ocean. Even though I love the beach and sea, I get terrified at the idea of being out in the open, deep waters. Hence, I wanted to eliminate this fear by giving the character the ability to walk on water.

Sounds

Initially, I wanted the walking to be accompanied by the sound of splashing water. As suggested by Lei, I replaced this with a sparkling sound to create a more surreal soundscape.

In the background, the environmental sounds from Scene 4 remain.

Scene 6

Visuals

She realises who it is, and moves faster. The “camera” moves closer to the man and the piano.

Sounds

Background environmental sounds continue.

Scene 7

Visuals

It cuts to a scene of her embracing the man who she had missed. She has finally been reunited with the love of her life who passed away before her. In this scene, it is no longer a perspective shot and we can finally see our main character.

Sounds

The piano melody stops, followed by the sound of him getting out from his chair and then, the sound of their clothes brushing against each other.

Sound Analysis

Scene No.

Sound Origins

1

Male mourning From the net – Link: http://soundbible.com/2014-Sad-Male.html

1

Female mourning Own recording by mimicking the sound of a female mourning

1

Digging soil Own recording by using a small shovel to dig through a bucket of rice and lowering the pitch on Audacity to make it sound more earthy than grainy.

2

A new-born baby crying

 

From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/the_yura/sounds/211528/

2

Car crash From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/Pertti.Orn/sounds/250965/

3

Angels From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/pycckuu20032003/sounds/85245/

3

Bells From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/62967/

3

Heartbeat From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/thenudo/sounds/146765/

3

Door opening Own recording of a door opening

4 – 7

Waves crashing From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/haldigital97/sounds/241824/

4 – 7

Rain From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/401277/

4 – 7

Birds chirping. From the net – Link: http://soundbible.com/1818-Rainforest-Ambience.html

4 – 7

Piano melody From the net – Link: https://www.bensound.com

5

Sparkling sound From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/Soughtaftersounds/sounds/145459/

7

Chair dragging Own recording of chair being dragged

7

Clothes brushing against each other Own recording of rubbing clothes together

Classroom Exercise Part 1

Rhythm Irregular, progression of a narrative
Movement In most of the scenes, there is only one subject which is the primary focus of that particular scene. There isn’t any other subjects that distract our focus.

Scene 1:

The falling of soil, starts as a single group, and eventually, more and more groups of soil begin to fall until it completely turns pitch black.

Scene 4 – 6:

Gradually moving closer to the man on the piano. This movement gets faster in Scene 6.

Causality For example, we see someone playing the piano, and I believe there is an expectation that that person has a connection with the main character of the story and it is expected to meet this person.
Duration As given, the entire length of the video is about 1 minute. Throughout the duration of 1 minute, it follows a narrative. I think it felt quite short because the story was highly condensed in order to fit into the 1 minute requirement, so the story moved pretty fast.