Idea Dump
As for the final, I have chosen Interior space and Landscape.
Here are some reference images which I have chosen.
2 minutes (Nude)
5 minutes (Nude)
5 mins (clothed)
10 mins (Nude)
10 mins (Clothed)
20 mins (Nude)
20 mins (Clothed)
Reflections:
Before attending Jesse’s or Hannes’ class, I struggled a lot with understanding how the body worked. My knowledge of proportions and human anatomy was extremely shallow. Even in Poly, I couldn’t really pin down the right spots in my drawings as I was fundamentally weak.
After attending 14 weeks of class, this is what I have learned from both Professors:
After 14 weeks of lessons with Hannes and Jesse, I feel that the way I draw now is a lot more balanced as compared to before. I am able to apply looser strokes with careful placement as compared to the past, I would solely draw from what I saw without any considerations. I am thankful to have gone through this class as I am happy with my progress even though it may not be big.
For my final project, I decided to go with Project 2’s theme of a girl in a TV. I wanted it to have a slight horror feel to it and do something a little different.
My main inspiration is Sadako from The Ring.
https://images.app.goo.gl/aaPSahhjqmh2Ki1p6
I was also inspired by the Korean Netflix series, Kingdom which is set in a fictional historical era where the dead is brought back to life.
My project would be a mish-mash of these 2 series.
I initially laid out what I had wanted to animate in a brief thumbnail and worked out all the assets afterward.
Here are the completed assets!
I converted all the layers into 3D layers, animated them individually and followed this tutorial that Bryan uploaded to create depth of feel.
Granted I am not good with editing and I faced a lot of challenges throughout this project.
(wow, what a mess)
Here is my final piece!
Here’s another cool version that I thought was interesting.
Face of the New Generation
For my self portrait, I wanted to make use of shadows to create a silhouette of myself as the main focus point of my image.
Here are some of the images I had taken.
I gained inspiration from John Arsenault’s Italian Stallion. I really like how the shadow of his silhouette is so carefully casted over the model’s body and I wanted to emulate a similar idea.
While researching, I was very attracted to old coloured chinese photographs taken by Albert Kahn. These images were taken in olden day China. I really liked how even though these photos were grainy, it still managed to capture the vibrancy of the reds, greens and blues while the rest of the photos were rather desaturated. Hence, I had a vision in mind to accentuate these tones while editing.
In the end, I didn’t like the other 2 shots so I retook it and decided to use this one instead.
Growing up, I always felt the pressure of being yellow-skinned chinese. I could never really understand why we were taught to follow certain “rules” and “traditions” that are outdated in our time. However, looking back, I realised that many children in our generation are so detached from our own roots that it is a sad reality to many, including myself.
The Cheongsam was a dress that was often worn by chinese ladies in the past. With the westernisation of our current generation, the culture of wearing cheongsam in daily life is slowly being diminished and it is is no longer the norm. The cheongsam represents the chinese tradition and culture that is slowly left behind, thrown onto the floor like any regular trash.
I chose not to reveal myself in the shot as I wanted my silhouette to fit into the cheongsam, showing how I do not feel comfortable in my own tradition and culture, even though I am authentically “chinese”.
I used only 2 props in my shot, a hibiscus flower and a cheongsam dress. I had to angle my camera such that it would capture strong shadows under the 3 pm sunlight. My camera was set to auto as it was bright enough to take the shots that I wanted.
(1) I cleaned up the image. I used a combination of the Clone stamp tool and the Healing Brush tool.
(2) I desaturated the whole image using curves to decrease the contrast.
(3) I masked out the shadow and darkened it using curves.
(4) Using the same shadow mask, I added more blue by using a colour balance adjustment layer
(5) I cleaned up the shadow mask such that only the edges were masked and made it darker with curves.
(6) Next, I masked out the ground and desaturated it using curves.
(7) I added more yellow tones to the ground with a colour balance adjustment layer as it was too reddish. I darkened the bottom right corner of the ground with a curves adjustment.
(8) I masked out the hibiscus and proceeded to lighten it and saturate it.
(9) I masked the whole dress and lightened it with curves. I added more green into the dress with a colour balance adjustment layer and further refined it with a selective colour adjustment layer to tone down the green.
(10) I colour corrected the image as it was too yellow.
(11) I added some grain to imitate the graininess of Albert Kahn’s olden images.
(12) I proceeded to finish off the image with a slight vignette.
Here is a comparison of the Original (Top) and the Edited (Bottom).
Thank you for reading!
Here is the link to my files 🙂
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SYS2KltUHo_DMOtwxW-T3YL6wuXghPTV
Face of the New Generation.
For my self portrait, I wanted to make use of shadows to create a silhouette of myself as the main focus point of my image.
I gained inspiration from John Arsenault’s Italian Stallion.
I really like how the shadow of his silhouette is so carefully casted over the model’s body and I wanted to emulate a similar idea.
While researching, I was very attracted to old coloured chinese photographs taken by Albert Kahn.
I really like how the colours from the photographs are easy on the eyes but are not lacking in saturation.
Growing up, I always felt the pressure of being yellow-skinned chinese. I could never really understand why we were taught to follow certain “rules” and “traditions” that are outdated in our time. However, looking back, I realised that many children in our generation are so detached from our own roots that it is a sad reality to many, including myself.
The Cheongsam was a dress that was often worn by chinese ladies in the past. With the westernisation of our current generation, the culture of wearing cheongsam in daily life is slowly being diminished and it is is no longer the norm. The cheongsam represents the chinese tradition and culture that is slowly left behind, thrown onto the floor like any regular trash.
I chose not to reveal myself in the shot as I wanted my silhouette to fit into the cheongsam, showing how I do not feel comfortable in my own tradition and culture, even though I am authentically “chinese”.
I used only 2 props in my shot, a hibiscus flower and a cheongsam dress. I had to angle my camera such that it would capture strong shadows under the 3 pm sunlight. My camera was set to auto as it was bright enough to take the shots that I wanted.
I tried to imitate the colours that were developed then with older cameras. I played around with the colour balance to increase the greenish tones in the dress as well as the yellowish tones in the ground. I increased the contrast between the ground and the dress with curves and brightened the hibiscus flower while saturating the red tones with an adjustment layer.
Before:
After:
Drive files: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SYS2KltUHo_DMOtwxW-T3YL6wuXghPTV
I chose to look at a single material, bamboo. The material has been used to masterfully craft out objects varying in purpose, showing the versatility of bamboo.
These photos were taken in Malaysia, Thailand, and Japan respectively. I chose to focus on interesting structures that made use of cylindrical or rectilinear forms to build upon itself.
Researching for bamboo eventually led me to Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, and Bonsai, the Asian art of cultivating plants to look like mini trees in containers. I’m not sure if they are considered art in the western world but it’s interesting to see the irregular forms that come out of it. Somehow, I stumbled across a few artists who specialises in using plants in their instalments, such as Patrick Dougherty and John Grade.
Also, while looking at the branches, it reminded me of Tinus Vermeersch, whose art was displayed at the Parkview museum some time in November last year. These are some of the photos I took, you have to see it in person to understand how beautiful these pieces are.
Here are some studies I did after receiving feedback from Jesse. I sifted out those that really spoke to me and here’s what I got.
I’ll be including some of my sketches as well ( to be continued )
Here’s the link to a google drive just in case the photos turn out looking like crap: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-DKtr328fjzRh7yoS0IyHrEw41dtp8dZ?usp=sharing
Project Proposal
It starts off with a clock with the time ’01:00′ and you see an image of a baby, to signify the start of a new life through the 24 hour clock. As time passes, the baby ages and time moves on as well. Every time the character ages, the alarm would ring. At the end of the character’s life, at ’23:59′, it shows that the alarm clock was Death all along, waiting for the moment the character dies which is at ’00:00′. At the end, there a voice over of a poem by Ursula K Le Guin, Hymn To Time, which tells us about how we as humans chase this notion of time, using units, be it through inanimate or animate objects, daily natural occurrences such as day and night, etc to measure time when time is ever flowing and stops for no one. At the moment the poem ends, an alarm would ring in real time.
Honestly, while doing this project I felt really pressured as I dug myself a grave by raising the standards for myself through the previous project. I kept doubting my own concepts and was worried that people would not be impressed if I could not hit my own standards. Ironically, while overthinking things, I wasted lots of precious time that I could have used to work on my final project. Hence, I felt disappointed that my video fell short of my expectations and usual standards.
Audience Reactions
I am thankful that the audience were sensitive and encouraging, even though I felt pretty down. I’m also thankful to my friends for helping me through this project and for providing support, I would not have been able to move on without them. If I could work on a similar project again, I hope to be able to talk about my concepts confidently without doubting myself again.
RHYTHM
The dub step music in the background, constant chipmunk noises, the man groaning in the foreground, and the repetitive crow cawing creates a sense of rhythm in my work.
MOVEMENT
The entrance and exit of Dracula in the middle of the video indicates the presence of attack, sustain and decay as he enters through the portal, rings the bell and waits, before proceeding to enter the house. As the video is 360 degrees, you are able to see every little detail such as the characters moving and interacting with each other.
CAUSALITY
I think my video is rather predictable. There is little to no movement in my video and the only unexpected aspect is Dracula entering through the portal. If I had more time, I would have added more elements that could surprise the audience. For instance, I discussed my initial idea to Serena and she suggested for me to add explosions and aliens to further intensify my scene.
DURATION
I feel that my video was long only because it was lacking the elements that I wanted to include but could not due to time constraint. 1 min is definitely more than enough time to tell a simple, but straightforward narrative.
Fashion Week
For my fashion week item, I mainly gained inspiration off Jess’ unpleasant scent (Wine) and my pleasant scent (Medical Halls). What I found interesting was that Jess’ unpleasant scent actually smelled pleasant to me, hence I wanted to try and incorporate the 2 scents to create a more positive image.
Wine to me:
My part of the collection – Glove
Final Piece:
Reflections:
Our collection was modelled by Jess’ friend, Rachel Ng. She did a wonderful job of modelling our pieces. It was really fun to be teamed up with Jess as fashion is her strong point and as a collaborative effort, I felt that we managed to pull off our Mnemosyne project really well.
10 wants:
10 Don’t Wants