Text and Image

The item that I was randomly assigned to was Chocolate Pocky. Some of the words that I immediately associated it with are as follows:

Chocolate

Stick

Long

Thin

Japan

Valentines

Pocky Game

Before designing the pocky advertisement, i decided to take a look at how Pocky already advertises themselves:

From this I could gather that Pocky positioned themselves as a playful, fun, and cute snack and company, with many recurring themes of “love”. From this, I decided to use this to influence my final artwork:

So my work is about love, fighting, and it’s all about the humor behind this. Though, i can recognise that my work might be for a niche audience. I wanted to play with the fact that Pocky was a Japanese brand, so i had the manga captions and cliche “senpai” aesthetic (when a character sees their crush in an anime”

Related image

The choice of subject matter was of Mayweather and Mcgreggor. I chose them as they are part of popular culture, something that i felt that pop culture was an important thing in Japan. As such, the quote that i chose was “love is worth fighting for” because they were both wrestlers, and i wanted to poke fun at the tense situation to become a cutesy cutesy one.

November 25, 2017November 25, 2017

Goldberg Machine | The Grimm Brother’s Cinderella

Before the brief:

So we were asked to pick a narrative, and i chose the narrative of Cinderella, the Grimm Brother’s version. I liked Cinderella as a child, but as I grew I liked the disturbing version that was in the original text. This included the step sisters cutting their feet and getting their eyes pecked by birds. I felt this was more fun.

The scene i decided to focus on was the shoe fitting, where the prince came to Cinderella’s home with the glass slipper. I liked this scene because this was when the two stepsisters cut their toe and heel so that they could fit into cinderella’s shoe. It was full of “drama” and disturbing imagery which i liked.

(From left to right): The two stepsisters with bleeding feet, cinderella’s show being fit, the stepmother, and the prince

After the Brief:

WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN?!?!?!?

Maths & Physics, my worst subjects up to date.

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Researching on who Rube Goldberg was, and how to make the machine.

After contemplating life about a day, i decided that maybe i should look into the creator of this machine. I wanted to see what were some of his works or traits that i could potentially have a similar interest in, to help me kickstart my project with something I could do.

From here, i learnt that he was a cartoonist. Hey! That something i relate to.It gave me a bit more confidence to start the work because now i knew that whatever that i drew first on the paper did not have to be realistic (yet). So, i drew a mind map on a whiteboard so that i could see what elements i wanted in my machine:

I wanted each “panel” to represent the three girls (stepsister 1, stepsister 2, and cinderella). A fourth one was optional as that would represent the stepmother.

With that, I also wanted the chopping of the step sister’s feet to be included into the work. all i knew at this point was that something was going to hit my styrofoam foot (here i knew i was going to have to carve the feet out of styrofoam) and the parts would fall off. When I set start the machine, i was advised to have a task at the end. Here, i decided that my finishing task would be a foot sliding into a shoe.

Still not knowing how to do it, i wanted my final action to be a foot sliding into a shoe (that would be cinderella’s foot sliding into the glass slipper)

I watched some videos on Rube Goldberg Machines, however i did not find them useful as all the mechanisms were very specific to the task that they had. I did not even have the basic knowledge of putting things together so that it would create a chain reaction, so those videos did not make any sense to me. I even tried to look for online simulations for a goldberg machine, but could not find any.

Researching on Simple Mechanics and putting them together

I decided that i should look into mechanics. i stumbled across a great lecture demonstration programme by the University of California, where there were pdfs on “Science stuff”. (https://www.physics.uci.edu/~demos/mechanics.html)

OKAY WHATEVER, LET ME TRY SOMETHING SIMPLER.

So then i googled Simple Mechanics, which really helped me because this was something that i could actually understand (FINALLY)

The quality of the infographic is bad, but the definitions of the machines and examples given really helped me a lot. From here, i started planning on how to combine these simple mechanics into each other, making something a little bit more complex.

Instead of drawing it out, i could not visualise it in 2D because it did not tell me how things were going to interact with each other. So, for this, I felt that I needed to make a study model to know how it was going to look in 3d.

I also wanted the final structure to look like “steps” because that was where Cinderella left her slipper.

A) An inclined plane that would help me roll my ball down.

B) A pulley so that i could make things go up down up down. i had three because i wanted to “stretch” my machine so i has space to do other mechanics if needed

C) A wheel & axle sort of thing so that an axe could “chop” the toes of the foot when the end is pulled up.

Here, i felt that cardboard would be the most appropriate material for this machine because i could cut it into shapes and sizes that i wanted easily, and could attach and detach them easily with pins during my trials. After so many tries, i was finally able to make something work! With lots of cardboard, sticks, and hot glue, this was the main mechanism that would be in my machine.

After this, i made the same mechanism for the second panel, making the mechanism repeat again. Below is the final structure (without the ramp on the last step). At this point, i was satisfied, so i decided to bring my structure to the 3D Studio because now i could focus on trying to make my mechanism smoother and sculpt the feet.

After discovering my secret skill in carving organic shapes out of styrofoam from the previous project, this did not take so much time, so i was able to carve 3 different feet to represent each girl in quite a short time. i cut the parts of the feet and attached them onto the machine.

I had a lot of trouble with the transition from the first panel to the second panel, where the ball would roll down to trigger the mechanism at the second panel. [Red: the part i had trouble with] [Pink: What the ball is supposed to do after i triggered it].

Initially, i had tried to make it so that when the “axe” hit the stick, it would push a ball that was waiting there, which would trigger the ball to roll down the tramp:

But this did not work. After many trials and errors, i found that i was moving against the nature of the mechanic. I was trying to make the mechanic push something forward, when the mechanic was designed to push something downward. So then, i changed my work and made a seesaw instead, which worked much better than the one i planned.

After even more trials and errors, i managed to get the machine to FINALLY work as intended:

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FINAL

Just for fun, i made my structure to look like a Gothic Period Cinderella castle.

Some Takeaways:

if there had been more time, i would have liked to make my machine smoother.
i would also liked to play with the element of water, to make my work more gory. The water would have been dyed red. When it was triggered, it would spill out of the step sister’s foot and heel when it was cut off.
Even though this project was waaaaaay out of my comfort zone, i had fun trying to make things interact with each other, and now i know what a wheel and axle is.

Thank you for reading!

November 22, 2017

Sounds of Asia

Inspired by projection mapping, we have chose to do an installation on the pond in ADM because it is the heart of the school, able to capture attention from all angles. With Singapore being a melting pot of cultural diversity, we propose an idea to showcase the four major races in Singapore that were involved in Singapore’s trading history.

Inspired by a projection mapping installation

The objective of this installation is in line with the Urabn Redevelopment Authority’s goal of “making our public spaces a fun place to live, work, and play”, as we will be making use of the public space in ADM to Create a space that represents the cultural diversity through using technological advancements, in which both locals and non-locals to come together to learn about Singapore’s history.

Below is the video that will be projected on the screen when visitors interact with the button in the centre of the installation:

November 20, 2017March 24, 2019

PROJECT EGO | Jannah’s Comics

Equations

Fot project Ego, we needed to come up with 4 equations about ourselves, a situation, and how we change because of it. With this, i decided to use the theme of self-identity. Below is a list of equations in which i had comem up with when i was brainstrorming:

Me, girl + two brothers = tomboy
Me, sloppy + first week of school = fashion queen
me , creative + accounting = anxiety
Me, straight + surrounded by pretty girls = questioning myself

However, i could not visualize how these equations would turn out on the panels. In the end, the equations that i settled for were:

Me, living a normal life + look into my wardrobe = become different people (self identity: multiple identitites)

Good child + social pressures = rebellion (self identitiy: non-conformist)

Introvert + another introvert = chatty me (extroverted)

Single + dissappointing boys = independant woman

Illustration style

When i got the brief to the project, i immediately thought of comics due to the delivarables benig in forms of equations and squares. As such, i decided that i had wanted to create work that was similar to comic style. Initially I drew inspiration from Roy Litchenstein, him being one of my favourite artists. I liked his use of colours However, after seeing examples online, I knew that I was not going to be able to do the Ben-Day dots, as I opted for the traditional method. With this, I branched out to other artists, solely focusing on comic artists. I wanted my work to look like a comic because I find that it is able to tell a story through the use of visuals effectively, and has an element of sequential storytelling. Using less words, this also helps to ensure that the visuals are able to convey the message, which is what I like about comics.

After consultation, Ms Mimi suggested that I should follow the aesthetic style of retro comic books. With this, I decided to reference the work of Dan Parent. I really liked his comic style because if it’s simplicity as compared to other comic artists, and also because I grew up reading Archie, and I also wanted a retro theme to my work because of the charm that it had. As such, I decided to incorporate his illustration style in my final project. As I am not very proficient in digital drawing or painting, my only option was watercolour. The way i apply watercolour is to get very strong pgments so that the colour is vibrant, and am able to get them as flat as i could get.

Colours

In terms of colours, i wanted it to already play a part in my work as a whole. I was inspired by the sunset in which are all warm colours, which i feel represent me best because i am bright, bold, and loves the drama. I liked the analogous colour scheme, As such, the colours that would set the tone for my work was red, yellow, orange and pink.

For my work, I wanted the colour harmonies to also play a meaning from the first column to the last column. I also waned to change the meaning of the colour that is associated with it, from negative to positive (refer to table below). With this, the first column was to be monochromatic to symbolize mundaneness or “normal” me. However, for the 2nd and 3rd column, I had the choice of doing analogous, complimentary and split complimentary, or analogous. With this, I tested it out on the computer first.

Colour	Positive Connotation	Negative Connotation
Yellow	optimism, self-esteem, confidence	boredom
Orange	passion, abundance, fun, childish	deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity
Red	excitement, physical courage	a tense situation
Pink	femininity, love, sexuality	emotional, claustrophobia

Me, living a normal life + wardrobe = become different people (self identity: multiple identities)

This was the first panel that i worked on. It is a story about how i am able to live only one life, but through clothes and dressing up, i get to be different people and characters. That would be a fun experience for me because i would be able to be fashionable as well.

This was before i started to explore Dan Parent’s illustration and colour harmonies. I did not look like the way it all looked different from each other, and did no have a consistent illustration style. After consultation, i decided to plan out my colours better. For me, this was going to be the yellow sequence because i wanted to portray boredom, and change the meaning to confidence and somersetting that was fun.

As you can see, i had played around with the option of complimentary and analogous in the 2nd row, and split complimentary and a wider analogous range in the third row. I liked the outcome of both, but i still had to decide which colours i wanted to start painting with. All i knew was that my entire work had to look cohesive as a whole. After doing a comparison with other colour drafts I did, i had settled for a warm analogous for this panel. i liked the way t turned out:

Here, the meaning of the colour yellow from being a yucky, boring colour becomes a vibrant and energetic one.

Good child + social pressures = rebellion (self identitity: non-conformist)

For the colour orange, i thought that i should tackle this with a childish subject. This is a story about when i was younger, i would always listen to my parents. as i grew older, people started to keep telling me what to do, like going to university, getting married, having a child, getting a house and getting money. The last panel depict my reaction to all the social pressures i faced with. for the monochrome, i experimented what it would look like if it were a yellow monochrome. of course, it looked muddy, so i decided to go for the orange monochrome. it looked better and delivered the message of the story better.

At this point, i knew that i was going to have to go for a warm colour analogous colour scheme. Above is my experimentation of what hues and tones were going to go where, so that i knew what i was going to paint. But if course, as i was doiing traditional medium, colour mixing was one of the most difficult parts of the wok because i could not get the specific colour that i wanted. As seen from above, the last panel was supposed to be reddish-pink on reddish-orange background, however the traditional outcome came out a little but different. Below is the final product:

Here, the meaning of the colour orange from being immature and childish becomes aggressive and rebellious.

Introvert + another introvert = chatty me (extroverted)

This is a story about how i met my best friend. we were at a social gathering and he was being shy, so i decided to stop being shy myself and introduced myself to him. till this day, he is my best friend. Here, i wanted to use the colour red to symbolize the tense situation. Below is are my colour schemes:

For this, i also experimented with complimentary and split complimentary colour harmonies. it felt like it could work in theory, but when i put it on digital it did not work at all because of the contrast. it was also difficult for me for the last panel especially, because at the time i did not know how to compose the picture.

after getting inspiration from the Archie comics on how to frame two people and a dialogue the colour harmony for the last panel was still difficult even when i opted for the analogous route. the colours were supposed to be good in theory but somehow was not showing in the digital. Because of this, i decided to mix the watercolours to try and get close to the digital, but also come up with a colour that would be of cohesive tone and hue:

with this the red transforms its meaning from being a colour to represent a tense situation to a colour that is passionate and excited. (did you spot archie andrew in the first panel? :p)

Single + disappointing boys = independent woman

This is a story of my life almost daily. In fact, this was inspired by me being caught as a third wheel between my best friend and his boyfriend (THANKS A LOT GUYS ). This is lso a story of my experience with almost every guy i encounter who tries to flirt with me; they end up to all be the same, disappointing. and so, at the end of the day, i become an indpendant woman who dont need no man (and punches cupids). For this, i used pink, the colour of love. to syMBOLZE THEIR LOVE NOT MY LOVE:

for these panels, i did not have much difficulties because i had been doing this for the past 9 panels. when it came to this, i tested the colours digitally and liked how it came out.

when i mixed the watercolour colours, i wanted the character of myself to have a little bit more warmer pink to set myself aside from the other characters and background. As such, the pink in the first panel was to symbolize love, but at the last panel it now shows a sense of authority as it now has been accompanied with the blue.

FINAL

i legit had fun with this assigment because im a lover of comics and colours. all in all, i was satisfied with my work and managed to make my own title with the Archie Comics typeface.

Some Takeaways:

I learnt about the bezold theory and did not even know i’ve been applying it to my work my whole life. for me, ive always thought bout it as simple outlining and defining my work, but now i’m more aware of the fact that it does give an illusion of making my colours darker when i surround my colours with black lines, or lighter with white lines.

Colour mixing is so difficult but so rewarding. personally i have always gone into colouring my work blindly, choosing colours that would work well in theory, and mixing pure colours from paint tubes and seeing where it goes. i think thats the fun in it; creating colours you’ve never seen before. also, god bless copic markers, i should really start investing in them.

Thank you for reading!