For this assignment we are tasked to create a A3 self portrait exploring the concept of visual narrative – or visual storytelling. We are to consider the best ways to represent our character and personality, and I approached this by considering the colours, composition and the elements that should be included in the final design.

First and foremost, we are asked to start by thinking of 5 – 8 words to describe ourselves. So here’s my list!

1. Dog lover: Having pet dogs in my life since I was born really make me love dogs and it is the best destresser after a long day. Currently, I have a beagle named Onion and he looks extremely droopy, which makes people surprised to hear he is only 1 years old. I think this has also equated to my personality being more dog-like than catty, like loving to go outdoors and being more of a extroverted. Here is a photo of Onion!

   

   

   

2. Potato lover: I love potatoes in any forms! Mash potato, rosti, hashbrowns, potato chips (my ultimate weakness, I can eat it in place of breakfast, lunch or dinner). Found these two images in my photo gallery haha.

3. Pinoy chinese: My mother is Filipino while my dad is Singaporean Chinese, and being mixed race has often led some interesting events in my life. Like finding my own identity, or being bullied when I was younger as I was different, or relating to things differently from my peers (like food). However I have done projects in the past based on this aspect so I did not touch on it for this module. Here was a photo of a project I did in y1 based on this topic!

4. Reckless/careless/forgetful: I lose my Ezlink card on a daily basis, and at this point of my life I know that I am extremely careless so I always take note of my items and surroundings as prevention is better than cure.

5. Vvid dreams: Weirdly I really have very vivid dreams and is able to recount them in details to my friends. My dreams are extremely weird yet feels real at the same time, and somehow my dreams are getting more vivid recently. I chose this aspect of myself to narrate in my self portrait, wanting to create a dream world far from reality, where everything seems real yet has little things that shows that I am not in the real world –  just like my own dreams.

Next, I looked up on some inspiration:

What I like about these works that I found on Pinterest are the bold colours and the style of illustrations. On top of wanting to convey my vivid dreams, I would like to also showcase my personality which some of my friends say is very quirky. Therefore, I want to include bright colours into my work.

Another artist I want to give a shoutout to is Sangho Bang.

I admire his intricate works and use of colours, what I incorporated into my work is trying to use the same method of colouring and shading. He seems to have added highlights and shading into the elements which does not make his work flat, and creates contrast.

Another style that I initially wanted to undertake was to use surrealism, similar to artist Eugenia Loli.

I consulted Lisa, and she recommended me to take note of the scale, size and surrealism. Meaning, a simple method to make things interesting is to make small things bigger, and large things smaller.

However, I did not use this method has it is an unfamiliar style that I have not done before, and I was concerned that I could not pass up a work I am satisfied with the initial deadline we had. Moreover, I wanted to sharpen my digital illustration skills that I haven’t touched in what it felt like a long time.

Compositions that I explored: 

Finally, I started to work on compositions and thinking about how to convey everything into an A3 paper. Here were some of the compositions I explored!