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In a world where everyone is exactly the same, how will Pete figure out a way to embrace his difference?

In this town, everyone is seemingly made out of a cookie cutter, as if they were mass produced. Their faces, sizes, houses, even down to the way the chocolate chips are placed, are exact clones of one another.

Pete, a quiet and young cookie is the only different one. During production, someone mistakenly put M&M chips instead of chocolate chips in Pete. Bullied for his abnormality, Pete wants to change and become the same as everyone else. He embarks on a journey to seek his creator, hoping to correct his mistake. On his journey, he encounters people just like him: different, a “mistake”. Yet, they do not seem to mind their imperfections, but rather, are proud of it. Through these people, Pete learns not to be afraid of being different, but to embrace it.

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I had a lot of fun with this project! Although it took a long time for me to create my first image, it went rather smoothly from there. I had to find an image of a gingerbread house that was taken in the angle that I wanted, then duplicate it and resize it to form a street of gingerbread houses. I also took a while trying to figure out how to create the road.

I am glad that the story is clear and easy to understand from my 5 images!

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In week 3, we had to bring all our junk materials and assemble our animal in class.

 

I had only brought the three items that i had bought at the Thieves’ Market the previous week. After seeing my classmates’ pile of junk, I started to worry if I had brought enough. However, because I had a very clear idea of where everything should go, I decided to put down my worries and just start on my owl. The first thing I did was to cut out the wire from the headphones I had gotten for the eyes. Then I glued on the headphones to the remote control with a hot glue gun.

 

I then went on to cut the handle off my tongs. I was quite afraid of this part as the tool had made such a loud and scary noise during the demonstration. For the first side, it made a really loud noise and I moved the tool up and down a lot, which was what (I think) caused the cutting to take such a long time and make a lot of sparks. For the second side of the tong, I decided to keep the cutting tool still and to my surprise, it was almost silent and there were no sparks at all. This might also be because I used a different cutting tool for my other side.

 

I couldn’t decide the placement of the wings on my owl at first: do I put it in front like most photos I see of owls? Or at the back, spread out, like it was about to fly? I also had the problem of limited space as my remote control was rather narrow to fit the wings nicely. Calista then suggested that I put the wings one in front and one at the back. I tried it out and really liked the look of it.

First of all, it set a comical tone to my owl and it looked like it was singing, which I think portrayed the character of a psychotic owl really well. But also, I think it gave the owl a more dynamic silhouette, which brought more attention to the owl and made it more interesting.

 

Here is the final outcome of my psychotic owl!

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img_5679-1The yellow bottom is only used as a stand to hold my owl up for photo-taking!

All in all, it was really fun making this and I am glad that I kept it simple, using pieces to represent only the most iconic parts of an owl: the eyes and the wings.

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In a world where everyone is exactly the same, how will Pete figure out a way to embrace his difference?

 

In this town, everyone is made out of a cookie cutter, mass produced in a factory. Their faces, sizes, houses, even down to the way the chocolate chips are placed, are exact clones of one another.

 

Pete, a quiet and young cookie is the only different one. During production, someone mistakenly put M&M chips instead of chocolate chips in Pete. Bullied for his abnormality, Pete wants to change and become the same as everyone else. He embarks on a journey to seek his creator, hoping to correct his mistake. On his journey, he encounters people just like him: different, a “mistake”. Yet, they do not seem to mind their imperfections, but rather, are proud of it. Through these people, Pete learns not to be afraid of being different, but to embrace it.

 

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Pete the Outcast

character-1Pete is an outcast in his town because of his difference. He does not like being different and wishes he was the same as everyone else. For this character, I superimposed a cookie over the head of the gingerbread man cookie cutter.

 

Other two characters (not related to the story):

Bryce the Bionic Man

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This character was created to portray my take on future developments in technology. I think technology will continue to advance and we will eventually be so reliant on technology that the virtual reality will soon become our reality. Technology will also be embedded into our body where we can project holograms through our arms. I superimposed the VR glasses over his eyes and substituted the left side of his body with robotic parts. The holographic projection was also added.

 

Rick the Drunken

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Rick is perpetually drunk. However, he does not drink to forget his sorrows, he drinks to simply experience the euphoric state of drunkenness. I decided to leave out the legs on Rick as I wanted it to look slightly strange to people to let them experience the way Rick sees things when he is drunk.

 

Final Thoughts:

When I received the project brief, I immediately wanted to portray an idea that I had lingering in my mind for a while. The Cookie Cutter Society is inspired by the term “cookie cutter house”, which means that the house looks exactly the same as neighbouring houses and does not have any unique characteristics. The idea behind the other two characters are separate from the story. I really enjoyed the process of creating this story and had fun creating the quirky, unrealistic characters.

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(Note: Thought I had published this but apparently I had only saved it as a draft)

Addition

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I added an image of a maze to the head. What I wanted to portray is that we should not judge a book by its cover. While on the outside, the lady looks put together and confident, her thoughts are messy and jumbled on the inside.

 

Subtraction

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I subtracted the teeth of the tiger. I wanted to bring attention to the issue of animal cruelty. Hence, I took away the teeth of the tiger to portray it as helpless and that we are actually the ones harming them.

 

Substitution

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I substituted the cigar for a knife to portray that smoking is harmful and could kill your body from the inside.

 

Superimpose

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I superimposed the phone onto the image to portray how technology and our devices are causing us to be disconnected from our friends in real life even though it increases connection online.

 

Final Thoughts

For me, it was really tough to come up with the message I wanted to express through each image as I take a long time to generate ideas. However, once I was clear on the message I wanted to express, I had a clear idea of how I wanted my images to look quite quickly. The process was rather stressful but I enjoyed coming up with ideas on how to express the meaning behind each image. My favourite one would be the substitution image of the guy smoking a knife. I feel that while the message is very simple, it was understood almost immediately by my classmates. If I had a second go at this project, I would love to come up with a theme and try to bring across different issues in society today.

 

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After an arduous journey to discover what my emotions look like on paper, I finally completed my first 2D project!

For this project, I used a couple of different techniques and was quite happy with my pieces. However, if I were to do it again, I would have liked to try out more and be more experimental. Looking at other people’s works, I really enjoy seeing how different people think differently and produce entirely different outcomes from me even though we had the same emotion. Overall, I felt a great sense of satisfaction looking at all my pieces placed together but it was definitely emotionally draining and a tedious process.

 

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In Week 2, we embarked on an adventure to the Thieves’ Market along Kelantan Road to search for our junk and scrap materials to make our first project.

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(I couldn’t seem to upload any other photos other than one, so i will try to describe my shopping process as much as I can)

I had decided to make an owl and to me, the most iconic feature of an owl is its eyes. So that was the main thing i looked out for. Initially, it was really hard picking out the things i wanted and i didn’t know how to start bargaining with the aunties and uncles. However, i got to a stall where the uncle started talking to us and asked if we were students. At his stall, i spotted a helmet that i felt was very resemblant of an owl, and also picked out two round objects for its eyes. However, i did not end up getting them as they were too expensive and the uncle was not willing to bargain.

 

But after that, i started spotting more possible items for my owl and managed to find a pair of earphones that i thought really resembled an owl’s eyes. It even had spiral patterns on it which reminded me of a psychotic owl.

For its body, I had different ideas on what i could use: a fan cover, a cheese grater, a plate, a clock, etc. But after getting the earphones, i realised none of these items really matched in terms of scale and size. After walking around, i saw a bucket of remote controls and decided to get one for the owl’s body. By then, i had a suntan forming and the sun was starting to really get to me. I decided that those two items would be enough to make an owl and look like one. Then i saw a pair of tongs that really reminded me of wings. At first, i did not get them as i was hesitant whether i would be able to cut the metal handle off. But as i walked around with my friends, i kept walking past that stall and could not stop thinking about getting it. So i got it.

 

I had been to the Thieves’ Market once, but did not look at the items these aunties and uncles were selling. This trip has allowed me to see the wide variety of things sold here at the Thieves’ Market and i have a newfound respect for these aunties and uncles for bearing the heat everyday. I also saw these junk and scrap materials in a different light, now thinking of different purposes for them and various materials for my purpose. Overall, I really enjoyed myself despite the heat and scorching sun.

 

 

 

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In Week 2, we had to bring our own mark making tools and experiment with them, creating cool-looking marks and designs. It was hard at first to come up with different designs for the same tools, I thought too hard about it and ended up being too careful with my work, which was supposed to be experimental and instinctive. But after a while, I simply let my hand do all the work instead of overthinking it. The result of that? Designs that got people saying “Cool!”

 

It was fun allowing my instincts to take over and not think about what I’m creating. To end up with marks that I would never have made before this class! Here are my works!

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After getting used to the roller and playing around with it for a bit, I started making use of some mark making tools. Over here, I used a silicone pot mat with a waffle pattern, some string on a toilet roll, a net of some sort and a tiny fake rose. I also used a fork and the palette knife to create designs on the roller before rolling it out onto the newsprint. While this created some nice designs, I was told that it looked too careful, so i moved on to my second piece:

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My favourite pattern on this is the third one from the left. I like the different weights of the pattern, which was a result of me dabbing the spring onto the paper using varying degrees of pressure.

 

 

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We then had to crave our own lino. I didn’t have a specific idea in mind while I was carving, and was simply seeing where it takes me. As i carved the first part of it, it started to resemble angel wings so I decided to make a stream of wings. But when i turned it sideways, it started looking like fishes. So i started carving wavy lines to create waves and mountains. For my first print, it turned out quite nice: the ink was spread out really evenly and it came out really black, although the ink seeped through some parts. I then decided to try it out again and used a fork to create more lines on the lino. My second attempt came out really well and I thought the lines I created using a fork resembled the wind. My third attempt was done right after the second attempt, without re-inking the lino, creating a more faded effect.

 

Overall, I had a lot of fun in this class as I got to experiment with everyday objects that I never thought of using as mark making tools. It was interesting to see how these objects created such unique textures and patterns.