Category: Zine: Locale

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Graphic Form Assignment 2 – Locale 1 & 2 – Zine: Kampong Lorong Buangkok

Part 1 Local

For assignment Zine, I have chosen Kampong (Village in Malay Lanugage) Lorong Buangkok, the last remaining Kampong in Singapore. This location is located near my residence of Hougang which is coincidentally beside my primrary school! During Primary five in 2007, I had the chance to visit the then undeveloped Kampong and it was a 12 year gap since I have visited it again and I am surprised to see how much it has developed.

A house that fits within the urban heartland
Aerial view of the kampong from the roof of car park. We can see how this kampong is literally getting “swalllowed” by the concrete jungle

A source from the URA 2014 plan stated that this Kampong is to be razed in the future for development of a highway that connects Seng Kang town to Yio Chu Kang Road as well as the building of two institutions. Presently, the village chief, Ms Sng Mui Hong, is struggling with the authorities’ development plan as she wants to preserve the village, which is also her home from getting raze.

I have found this to be a crucial location to pick on as many youths in Singapore does not know what is a Kampong and let alone even knowing that there is one hidden in the concrete jungle. Thus I felt that presenting Kampong Buangkok will be a good choice as I can use this to educate the public on the situation of the Kampong.

Before that,  researches were done to support my facts and also to let me set the direction of how I would want to present. Firstly, I went around to check on the current development at the estates around the Kampong. Seen below is the construction of the Buangkok link drive to be connected towards Yio Chu Kang Road via Gerald Drive.

 

On top of primary research, I had also conducted secondary survey research both online and face to face record.  The online research were crafted to question users about their knowledge towards Kampong and it also serves as an informative sharing on it’s current and future development, it was spread  to a wide demographic age range of age which made me realised that not many youths know about Kampong Buangkok.

On the other hand, the face to face survey interview were mainly asked around the vicinity for their thoughts towards the future development of Kampong Buangkok. These are the information of the survey responses collated in excel sheet, video recordings of the face to face interview and power point presentation slide show covering on the research information with pie chart visuals of the survey responses.

Locale Part 2.

From my research , the topics that I covered on were on the past, present and future of the Kampong. Which leads to the direction that I want to do – History, Gift and Mystery. Secondly, the approach of my Zine is based on the approach of an interactive comics which gives the audience a walk through from the current state of the comics to the future through humorous illustrations.

The comics that inspired me are Old Master Q, Crayon Shinchan and Doraemon. These are the childhood comics that saved me out of boredom before the technology kicks in.

A few examples of each comics and how do I share my reference from them.

Crayon Shinchan, the funny exaggerate reaction between human interaction is what I want to incorporate to pin point the facial expression of different characters.
Since young, what attracted me most is the vibrant colour of Doraemon comics, I have also incorporated the vibrant colours to make my comics more lively.
The classic Old Master Q, the author is a genius in depicting human interaction with animals, which is what I want to do. This harmony with exaggerated actions seems ridiculous, but it has the fresh style of conventional human characters interaction comics.

These are the drafts sketches that I had before touching up for scanning.

Different characters that I want to portray in my comics but I chose to use animals and plants to represent the people that I encounter to kick in the element of quirkiness and fantasy
Brief planning of what I want to do for my Zine. The character wise is me ( as the only human). Snowy the cat as the custodian around Buangkok district. Banana tree as representative of Singapore, or the villagers due to “土生土長” (local bred) and the stray dog (哈巴狗）as a nomad who travels around locations to stay.
Simple ideation sketches on the different scenes that I want to set for my Zine
A draft overview for the Zine story line fitted into a single A4, this allows me to visualise the flow of the story which allows me to make any necessary changes
Ms Joy mentioned that this cover page looks too plain on its own and I should add a little art element here to show how we can bring out the cover page to depict “History”

Similar to the front cover page, this rear cover page was pointed out by Ms Joy too, it looks to plain and dull, there should be art element infused with it to bring out the effect of “Mystery” more.

After consultation with Ms Joy, these are the changes that I had made for the final zine.

After consultation, this is what I had illustrated. Since Snowy, the cat, mentioned his father is a heartland cat while his mother is a Kampong cat, I felt that the cover page on “History” could be illustrated with the younger life of the parents to show their dating phase back in the old days of the Kampong before development occurs.
page 1 and 2, an introduction of the location overview of how the Kampong looks like which a brief discussion on the future of Kampong
Page 3 and 4, I wanted to show a transition of current day Kampong to the future through the development phase. In an anti-clockwise direction, it depicts the current progression which is the Buangkok link to Gerald Drive construction, to the future of highway linkage to Yio Chu Kang Road and lastly, the building of two institutions. Why was the school not illustrated? This is due to the fact that the information of the school is not reveal, thus it is considered a mystery that we do not know of.
Page 5 and 6, the inner scene of the Kampong and also a deeper picture of the issues of the Kampong that discuss the fate of how it will be in the future
Similarly over here, since the Kampong is to be razed on in the future, but no official statement or stance were brought up on the actual date. I decide show the effect of mystery on the foot prints, in the event of future where the Kampong is raze, Snowy’s family will have to relocated, but to where?

Overall, Zine is an interesting project that allows me to stretch beyond my boundary through illustrating the comics in a humorous direction to depict myself interviewing non-human living things. And also adding a little touch of political reference into the comics as well.

The problems that I had faced for this comics were the conceptualizing of the comics, as I had previously thought of depicting it as a children comics in which Joy mentioned that if I were to do it, there should not be any references of real life pictures as it will be too jarring for the children. After seeing how the comics has been churned out, I decided to conceptualized it into both children and adult, with a hint of political reference in the latter.

Lastly, what would I do better given the opportunity and from the feedback? I would want to show a visual story telling on the transition from history to future, in which the story basically illustrates on how did the Kampong develop over the years to it’s unknown underlying fate in the future.

References.

Q, Old. n.d. Serenading a donkey. (picture). Retrieved April 20, 2019 from. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/342062534190396442/

Fabiola, Ixora. n.d. Crayon Shin-Chan – chapter 32 (picture). Retrieved April 20, 2019 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/38/f4/79/38f47918b27bfe3ab09c9e565f8b91ca.png

feihong. August 16, 2010. Serenading a donkey. (picture). Retrieved April 20, 2019 https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/27419-grand-comic-reading-project-1-doraemon-color-collection/