3D Mnemosyne – Process [I]: Scents portrayed in forms

We were suppose to come up with 2 forms out of the scents we talked about in previous lessons. So my good scent was something like caramel/vanilla (because it’s buttery-sweet and I loooove sweet smell, like as if they can be eaten), and my bad scent was smoke (because it reminds me of how my sister started smoking, and how my dad’s not quitting).

Based on the figure below, taking on the shape of a smoke is the form on the right – it is curved/slanted and can be said that it has no absolute shape, because it’s suppose to represent smoke and it somehow fades into air (as seen from the curvy thin strip growing at the top of it). It also has white ombre in some parts to show the smoke-like portion.

For my caramel/vanilla scent, we look at the form on the left. The white/caramel-coloured top is suppose to represent the vanilla/caramel melting and dripping. The reason for the holes I created was to simply represent the smoke creating holes into my good scented form.

Here’s the reason why:

My caramel scented form, is suppose to act as the dome that covers my smoke scented form, in a way to show that my good scent is overwhelming and able to cover the bad scent.

But of course I want my two forms to come as one – a whole figure itself, hence I showed the slight effect of my “smoke” here managing to create holes in the top part of my good-scented form. This is the part where my vanilla/caramel (white part above) drips down, as an idea to show that either way, my good scent will cover up those holes (voids), and will eventually overpower my bad scent.

I created all of the above effect using the heat gun. The slow movement across a small bottle (for the smoke form) to create the “smoky” white look looping around it. And also melted the bottom part of a big bottle (for the dome-caramel-scented form) to create like a…sort of, small-becoming-larger-at-the-top kind of dome.

From a small bottle, white effect in certain places but not so overwhelming to keep the smoky effect. To portray my “smoke” scent.

For the vanilla/scented form, I tried melting wax to get the melting effect but it wasn’t too successful.

The wax couldn’t be maintained there, so in the end I just painted the top white and burned bit parts of the sides to make it look slightly “caramelised”.

ANYWAYS……I made another form out of both the good and bad scents. This is the other one.

Under certain lightings, but I loved the tinted light below and how the curves on top looks more prominent. I couldn’t pick haha so I put both pictures here.

For this, the bad scent starts off from the bottom, as seen from the holes and white portion, slowly digressing to the good scent as it spirals upwards, hence looking like a thin twisted strip of spiral as it is suppose to resemble a “caramelised” thing (like the ones we see on cupcakes, an edible caramelised strip added as a deco).

In my next post, it will be on me and my pair’s works and scents combined together to make 1 work that’s wearable! Let’s see how that goes.

October 23, 2017

2D Forrest Gump – Silkscreen process and Final Outcome

Ah. A new learning point again…..SILKSCREEN, YAY. It was my first time trying it out and it takes patience for the process but the outcome of it all amazed me.

Here’s the red room where most of the silkscreen processes were done.

That’s me holding my work printed on transparency paper.

Washing away the blue stuff on it to get the pattern out.

This is before all that blue stuff is being poured on it, also before washing them off. This is to heat it to get the pattern to sort of stay on the silkscreen material permanently.

Before doing it on all the above bags, in the previous lesson I tried it out on paper and just ragged cloth first to test it out. What I learnt was to control the amount of ink you want to put on your silkscreen, as it will affect the outcome of it – you want the ink to seep into the blank spaces just enough to look decent on paper/cloth.

So in the end, for my final outcome, this is it:

This was a challenging project because firstly I’m a beginner in photoshop and so I had no photoshop skills but I try and try and ask for help again and again in a short period of time. Although I felt that I could have done much better for the below two works printed on paper (as seen above), I knew I improved further on my works as seen on the 2 works placed above them.

Learning point to myself is: Don’t be scared to try new things and ASK for help. And maybe next time input what you learn from your presentation such as the principles of Gestalt into your projects. Take what you can from those presentations in class and use them into your works, that’s the whole point of learning new things after all.

October 23, 2017October 24, 2017

2D Forrest Gump – Process

Just to refresh back from previous post. These are my final quotes:

“To infinity and beyond.” by Buzz Lightyear from the movie ‘Toy Story’

“We don’t get to choose our time.” by The Ancient One from the movie ‘Dr Strange’

“Don’t grow up, it’s a trap.” by Peter from the movie ‘Peter Pan’

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.” by Peeta from the movie ‘The Hunger Games’

Inititially I wanted to focus more on the quote from Peter Pan – “Don’t grow up it’s a trap”. So here are my processes:

I focused on the idea of “trap” and not “growing up”. Since i didn’t have photoshop initially, I sketched my first idea out which was having the innocent but “scared” Wendy look being trapped through the symbolism of hands around her. ( as seen below)

But after consultation, my professor and I agreed that it looked like as if she’s being groped or molested and that was definitely not how i want it to come across.

So i came up with a few more ideas. Why not Wendy being trapped in a mousetrap and the stuff that she is going for is a ‘dream house’ that resembles adulthood? Which was also part of growing up? (seen below)

But in the end I didn’t like how it turned out as it looked abit literal, and i wanted a minimalistic kind of work which was not represented here.

I tried using the cage as a trap instead and a huge hand that was suppose to resemble the ‘bigger’ person in adulthood. And the ghostly-shaped blackhole was suppose to represent her going into a ‘lost’ zone once she grows up.

I liked where i was going from here but i felt that some things was abit off for example: Wendy is too literal here, I didn’t want people to know who or what this person is suppose to be. And I felt that the blackhole was taking most of the attention hence it was not necessary for it to be there in the first place. And then I had an idea where the big hand could be replaced by a hook, you know, to put a touch of Captain Hook (the evil man) in the movie Peter Pan.

So then I ended up with the one below, and I liked it.

I used a normal innocent-looking girl that looks slightly lost hence the circular motions behind to represent her state of confusion and lost after being trapped in the cage, stopping her from growing. Ands this cage supposedly comes from an evil thing or person, as symbolised from the hook, the hook which in Peter Pan’s context, is part of a grown man that is evil (hence representing adulthood).

That’s for my final idea for the quote on “Don’t grow up, it’s a trap.”

For the quote: “We don’t get to choose our time” – Dr Strange, I chose to do a simple one where the man is in an hour glass, trying to grab hold of time itself as seen from him floating grasping for something that he couldn’t. (seen below)

But i felt that the lines could have been clearer to show that it is an hour glass. Also the reason for the water inside the hour glass is to show the illusion, since in the movie Dr Strange they played with illusions and time very well. They were intertwined, which was what I tried to do here.

For the quote “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever.” – The Hunger Games, I wanted to put both the silhoutte of Katniss and Peeta in an ice cube to show like as if they ARE in the moment, and frozen in it – like as if that ice cube is also their home to live in. (seen below)

I just felt that it was too simple, maybe i could have added a slight touch of simple geometrical designs behind? Hmmm.

Aaanyways here comes my favourite work of all for the quote on “To infinity and beyond.” – Toy Story. Like the movie Peter Pan, I grew up watching this too and I will never get tired of it. I focused on the keywords of “infinity” and “beyond”.

To portray the infinity, I made it look like theres a galaxy behind and also include the circular portion as circles are always the clsoest to symbolise something infinite. Oooh and the planets in there too because when I think of infinity, i think of the vast space and galaxies which have planets included.

To represent the beyond, the triangular pedestal infront of the man is suppose to portray the fact that there’s a horizon and BEYOND that is something more, something infinite. Hence to infinity and beyond. I added a touch of Buzz Lightyear (the character who said this in Toy Story) in it as seen from the ‘bagpack’ design in the man’s hoodie at the back, because that’s the rocket ‘bagpack’ Buzz had on him.

I did another as a process:

Buttttt I didn’t like it.

Overall I ended up liking the work above this one the most because I made use of the background space and to me this may not be so minimalistic but it was aesthetically pleasing, and it shows the huge meaning behind it.

I was excited to see this on my totebag so…..let’s go all infinity annnnnd beyoooonnnddd!

October 23, 2017

2D Forrest Gump – Quotes & Inspo Research

On my previous post I only talked about the quotes itself (link below) that I was interested in using,

2D Forrest Gump – Quotes

but I decided to add on new ones which will be part of my finalised quotes (plus using some from previous post) behind my final works.

The new ones that I will be focusing on is:

“To infinity and beyond.” by Buzz Lightyear from the movie ‘Toy Story’

and

“We don’t get to choose our time.” by The Ancient One from the movie ‘Dr Strange’

In overall, the all 4 final quotes behind my works will be those stated above and 2 from the previous post which are:

“Don’t grow up, it’s a trap.” by Peter from the movie ‘Peter Pan’

and

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.” by Peeta from the movie ‘The Hunger Games’

MY INSPIRATION-RESEARCH.

One of my inspirations for illustration is this artist named Dan Hillier

and another from an Instagram user called @oasis_of_hate.

The reason being, some of their works focus on filling the empty white spaces and made good use of it. Some managed to give off the dark-fantasy effect with the use of black portions and that was something I was inclining towards.

I was also intrigued by how in some of Dan Hillier’s works, he makes use of geometry or cubes as his background or part of his illustration (such as the one below) and I wanted to do the same in my works.

Above all, most of the good illustration-artists have one thing in common: their works are centralised and minimalistic hence giving it a touch of simplicity. I strive to achieve that in my works.

October 11, 2017

4D Sequencing Images – “Am I Pretty Now?”

PROCESS: IDEATION

So in my group, there’s Bala, Hui En, Karen and me. We had 3 different stories. Mine was about a friend whose life was going downhill when he took drugs and that was when our friendship just kind of strained. I wanted to continue the story in a positive light where he changed into a better person after NS.

Bala’s story was about a friend who was smart and also pretty, everyone in school would tell her to be a model. Hui En’s story was about her friend from boarding school, and how she see her change drastically in terms of looks by going for a lot of plastic surgery. She could not even recognise her friend after.

AND SO, we decided to go with Hui En’s idea and make our own continuation because someway somehow when we discussed, our ideas clicked on the idea of Fantasy/Tragedy coming from her story.

We came up with our storyboard and some of the props we needed.

(Leaving this space to post the fuller version once it’s edited properly!)

RESEARCH (for task 2):

In terms of image, I wanted the dark warm tone, but at the same time focusing on the lighting exposure on certain images to focus on the protagonist and depending on the mood at that point of time.

One of the films I was inspired by was Pan’s Labryinth (2006) as we were leaning towards the idea of Fantasy. And I wanted to focus more on ‘Dark Fantasy’ which was what this film is all about.

Because I loved the film, I went to look at Guillermo del Toro’s (the film director and producer of this film) other works such as Crimson Peak (2015).

I loved how he managed to use dark tones to portray the dark mood. Which was what I wanted in some of my photos.

I tried out B&W just to see how different the effect will feel and look. I changed it to a slightly warmer tone to make a vintage-y effect as I thought it will look good. I added on a whimsical creepy music to further portray the dark fantasy. But overall, I didn’t quite like it because I felt that it looked better with colour hence I decided this one should just be a trailer. And I did another for the main image sequencing. (the one way below)

I guess it was really tough for me in the process of this project because of the editing, as I was not familiar with any of the professional video app such as Audience CC or Premiere Pro. I was only familiar with iMovie BUT on my iPhone, not on Mac book pro. SIGH. So there was still alot to learn. Overall I think I like how it turned out. It could be better if I learn to better pace out my time during the process.

October 2, 2017October 2, 2017

Gaia’s Ikebana (III) – process and final

Hi – welcoming you to this post with my newfound buddy on that day, my twigs. I call them “autumn”, for some reason idk.

Funny story behind this is, I was trying to look like i’m just taking a stroll around our neighbourhood field but my friend which is also my neighbour drove past me when I was almost done with picking branches and he caught me anyways. Hahahaha how lovely.

Before getting those branches done for art, of course i would clean them to rid of any insects.

Preparing for ikebana 1:

Using pebbles of different sizes and almost same tone of colours that resembles nature, to create my sphere, my dominant:

End result of sphere:

Then making fake pastel pink flowers to be poked through the twigs, to make them look like spring flowers. I also tried to use real little flowers you usually see growing out of those vast grasses:

Wedging the twigs into the pebble sphere, putting it in the right order and placement to make the long leaves hang loose like one of the Japan’s flowers that bloom during Spring, the Japan wisteria tree annnnnd voilaaa!

Initially I didn’t want to show this in class because for me, i was not satisfied as I couldn’t find a right place to put a cone, it just seemed lovely this way. BUT after viewing it in class, the best ideas came from professor and my friends where they suggested I could just get more of those long flowy leaves and stack them like the direction you see above and it will already be shaped into a loose cone on the other end!

HOW INTERESTING.

So because I didn’t know this, and because I still was excited to create more, I just decided to create 1 more. A different style.

Ikebana 2: I used 3 bendable gold wires for this, to create another huge sphere as my dominant.

In the end after putting marshmallows (i thought of spring flowers as something that scented vanilla and sweet) and fake red flowers made out of ribbons wedged into the twigs, this is the outcome:

I could have made the cone be less obvious by simply just attaching 4 wires at the top and shape it into a cone as the handler. But overall I liked this one too, and the previous ikebana too. There’s room for improvements but I like what I did and that’s just something to be proud of.

So here my 2 SO(s) are the red and white ‘flowers’ that represent my hopeless romantic state whenever i think of Spring and their new beginnings. My 2 SD(s) are the twigs and the cone/wires on top as the handler (that could have been more obvious if i just amde the cone out of long thin wires). And my D is of course, the huge gold wire sphere. Purposely made it gold so it also seemed simple but elegant.

Overall, this was probably the best 3D class i’ve had because I truly enjoyed what I did and I loved the Gaia Ikebana idea – so enriching! And my classmates’ works are so unique it makes me smile so much, it was honestly a fun lesson. The process towards this made it worthwhile.

These beautiful works from these beautiful faces.

October 2, 2017

Gaia’s Ikebana (II) – research process

I was given the theme Spring.

When it comes to Ikebana, it is not just some flower arrangement, but it is “the art of Japanese flower arrangement, with formal display according to strict rules”.’

Before doing my final Ikebana, I researched more on the spring season in Japan as I wanted to know more about it first – like what are it’s features in the flowers that bloom? what kind of flowers are they? when do they take place during the seaon?

I didn’t want to just know what an “ikebana” is, I wanted to know how to make a good one by incorporating the different features of the each blossoming flowers in Japan and what’s so special about different ikebana styles, hence researching on what I had to. The picture below are my initial ideas i came up with on the day we were given the Ikebana task.

My moodboard – mainly for colour and flower features.

The picture above are the kinds of flowers that bloom during the Spring season in Japan. Notice that I did not include any other bright colours such as yellow (which also blossom during Spring there) as I wanted to focus on these colours for my flowers in Ikebana. And also looking at some of the plants that simply fall elegantly with flowers clinging onto them – that’s one of my inspiration when making one of my Ikebana works.

So I wrote all of what I know down on my sketchbook.

From there I went on to see the kinds of ikebana style i wanted to make. So i searched up a few and these few caught my attention.

I was also interested in some other artist works such as Andy Goldsworthy and Jordyn Miley. This is because it shows the amount of patience they had to make unique sculptures out of branches and twigs and basically nature, without destroying much of their initial stage, which is what I am trying to do when making my ikebana.

For Goldsworthy, it’s because he made use of nature ONLY without destroying the aspect of it to create such an interesting sculpture, a land art. He would work with nature alone and not use other materials to say for example, stick them together to make a sculpture. An example would be the one below.

For Jordyn Miley, she does abstract nature weaving like the one below.

So the rough ideas I got from these was that, hmm maybe try weaving branches or twigs together to make a sphere? Since we still needed to incorporate spheres, cylinders and cones. And that itself could be my dominant, while the little flowers could be my double SO(s). And what if i also used pebbles instead?

I got alot of inspiration from all these and there was so many “what ifs” so I thought why not try making 1 first and see how it goes then maybe make another.

These are my final outcome ideas:

Stay close for the upcoming post where I will share my final Ikebana work (or should say “works”)! TEEHEE.

October 1, 2017October 1, 2017

My application for 3D Pandora’s Box FINAL

I don’t know if this was overdue but i’m gonna share it anyway. [hi Ms Cheryl I have already included the link on my previous post on ‘progress’ stated below like you wanted] Before I go into the details, here is the link to my previous posts on my 3D Pandora Progress (the 1st link) and my 3D Pandora Final (the 2nd link)

3D Pandora – Progress Towards Final ‘Counter-Balance’ Structure

3D Pandora – Final ‘Counter-Balance’ Structure

So my application for my structure would be a hugeeee shower panel for the public’s usage that could cater to more than 5 people at once. Meaning, it could be placed at swimming pool areas or especially at the beaches where people need to take some rinse before and after getting into the waters.

I apologise if i can only afford to draw stickman here……but yeah they are bathing there.

In the 1st picture below, if you see closely, I changed up the material for the SO digitally by using marble colour because I decided the marble material would be better when we are using this in wet areas as it last longer when we talk about non-corrosion or rust (they don’t rust). In the following pictures after, I decided to decorate the shower panels with colours of turquoise-blue and water droplets as it resembles well with the idea of shower, water and the surroundings.

Yeah I took a long time editing and moving the cubes to the right places for this but my drawing ends up looking horrid to show what my application would be like, my apologies. I hope it still makes sense!