2D II Project 1- Que Sera Sera Final

FINALISED

Below are the finalised compositions:

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Watermelon Farmer

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For this composition, I used complimentary colours to represent that to be a farmer, it can tend to be tiring and demanding, but however, on the other hand, to be able to have a good harvest will even out the toughness of the job. Just like the colour wheel, although green and red, which is just nice the colour of watermelon, are on different spectrum of the colour wheel, they compliment each other well aesthetically.

screen-shot-2017-02-13-at-3-20-28-amAlso, I have my text as LEE which is my surname as this job tends to be less interpersonal, hence, it is more common to address farmers by their surname. The text is tilted upwards to express that one needs to have a positive outlook and mindset to be able to handle the job well due to it’s physically tiring nature.

Having the stripes of the watermelon skin as a background mimic the scene of a plantation. Having the stripes down will countereffect the upwards facing text to create a balanced dynamic flow.

Cup Noodle Designer

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I used illustration for this as designers will normally create an illustration of their designs before sending it in for publishing on the real object. I used triad colours here to represent the infinite possibilities and ways of designing or coming out with a design just like the three spectrums which covers the whole colour wheel. This also creates a balance in colour in the whole composition.

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The utilisation of the decorative font type here is so that this can capture the attention of the viewer immediately due to the quirkiness of it and entice people to buy the cup noodle.

I used my English name, JAE, as cup noodle is very much international now and it will suit the international theme with an English name than my Chinese name, Yi Jie. However, I kept the essence of it being originating from Japan and using sakura flowers as my design on the cup noodle. Also, I transformed the chopsticks into paintbrush to further emphasize on the designer part and a “create your own’ concept. At this point, I felt that the colour scheme was abit unbalance hence I added watercolour(complementary with the paintbrush) as background with pink and blue to balance out the composition’s colour scheme.

Doctor

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Using a cotton mattress(to signify patient) and a stethoscope as semiotic signs, this represents the doctor-patient relationship and hence letting the readers interpret that the job is being a doctor.

I used serif font here as serif fonts are normally associated with professionalism, formal and prestige which is also normally associated with being a doctor.

As the name tags of doctors are normally initials of the doctor, like E. Lim, I used this concept and have my initials Y.LEE. Adding on, we normally read from left to right, hence I have the letter panning from left to right. To further emphasize the reading pathway of the letters, I have Y in yellow as this is the colour which can grab the attention of viewers immediately followed by using red which will capture the secondary attention of the viewer. Thereby, this will force viewers to read all the letters Y L E E in order.

Plant Sculpture Artist

img_2546This is actually an experimental work for me other than normal techniques like photoshop and illustration. By having my name YIJIE, this evokes the sense of familiarity and closeness like how a plant sculpture works- to connect with the viewers so that they understand the whole form. The letters might be hard to see but I guess this also links to the sculpture industry where people tend to overlook in real life. San serif fonts are normally like to young, less formal and for personal use only. I feel that using san serif will create more impact with the viewers as this is more interpersonal and it creates more flow when viewers read the text (something to ease the difficulty in reading from the flower petals).


Reflection

This project gave me a good platform to try out different techniques and experiment new compositions that I have been wanting to try. Although some of them failed, but this gave me more exposure and experience nonetheless. Through this project, it really forces me to research more on the colour schemes and font types and how to relate them to your aim.  I am also more sensitive to the orientation and dynamic of the whole composition after this. I also realised that I need to focus more on learning illustration as this is my second time using adobe illustration.

 

2D II Project 1: Que Sera Sera Process

Curating Ideas

Being someone who likes to try new things, when given this project, I found myself to quickly think of these few ideas.

  • Barista
  • Florist
  • Spy
  • Watermelon Farmer
  • Doctor
  • Culture Research Artist

Originally, I was very inspired by the Chinese and Japanese art culture and wanted to have all my 4 designs to be of the same job, Culture Research Artist.

However, after doing some research and thinking process, I find that I should incorporate more diversity into my designs and compositions. Hence, my 4 jobs are Barista, Florist, Watermelon Farmer and Doctor.

 

CUP NOODLE DESIGNER

My first thought was to do coffee art, hence I wanted my concept to be a barista. However, I have done coffee art before and least to say that it didnt work out well for me the previous time. Hence, I’ve decided to scrap off the idea of coffee art.

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Moving on, I was quite inspired by this photo I came across online.

I wanted the milk swirls to form letters however, I tried to mimic the process with nail polish, but it turns out to be a mess and din’t work out too. 🙁

Therefore, I’ve decided to scrap off the idea of being a barista.

 

As I was thinking of a job to replace this, I had an idea one day while eating cup noodle and was quickly reminded of a cup noodle museum in Japan whereby people could customise their cup noodle according to their preference. Hence, I came up with the idea of being a CUP NOODLE DESIGNER.

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I tried using watercolour for this but the colour didn’t turn out as well I thought.

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Therefore, I thought of manipulating the words on the the and use illustration for this.

 

PLANT SCULPTURE ARTIST

My initial job was to be a FLORIST. But I must say this job took up the greatest time and part of my project and I spent alot of effort on this job.

I used mainly script writings initially as it has a more feminine and floral theme to it and gives the readers a more familiar feeling which is what the job entitles.

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In the end, I changed my job yet again as the aesthetics of these does not meet up with what I wanted.

Again, I came across a moss writings online and wanted to mimic the style of it.

Therefore, I changed my job to PLANT SCULPTURE ARTISTThis time, I wanted to be experimental, hence, I bought some fake flowers and tried to create something using them.

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WATERMELON FARMER

To create something out of watermelon was relatively easy to me as really like watermelons(HAHA) and I quickly have an idea on what I wanted to do.

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However, after consultation with Shirley, she felt that I should emphasize the watermelon on the words and suggest I incorporate the text on the watermelon and I proceeded on to making some changes.

DOCTOR

As I was very inspired to do something like a top-down flatlay photography for this, I went to do some research on it. As I do not have a stethoscope, I used photoshop and collage style for this.

 

I did different text by hand and used photoshop to add into my collage.

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2D II Project 1 Research

This project was fun for me as I was able to research on my dream jobs which I have been fascinated all along. My main source of inspiration comes mainly from pinterest and tumblr as both sources have a huge datebase of pictures and artist works. I am more of a visual person hence, I have a lot of inspirations photos.

Before I embarked on my project, I researched abit about font types.

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1) Serif: Serif fonts have little “feet” or lines attached the ends of their letters. They’re generally thought to look more serious or traditional.

2) Sans-Serif: “Sans-serif” literally means “without serif” — these fonts don’t have the extra lines on the ends of letters. For that reason, they’re generally thought to look more modern and streamlined.

Though this point is often debated, it’s commonly said that serifs make long passages (in print) easier to navigate visually, helping move your eyes along the lines of text. However, because serifs are usually small and thin, they often don’t display as well on pixel-based screens (looking distorted and “noisy” rather than clear and crisp), so many designers favor sans-serif fonts for web use, especially at small sizes.

3) Script: Scripts are what we might think of as cursive- or handwriting-style fonts. They generally have connecting letters. You’ll find that script fonts come in many different styles, from elegant, to fun and casual, to hand-drawn.

4) Decorative / Display: When you hear a font categorized as decorative, display, or novelty, it all means the same thing — that font is meant to get your attention. They’re often more unusual than practical and should only be used in small doses and for a specific effect or purpose.

BARISTA

Finding fonts related to coffee was abit challenging as people seldom relate to coffee or beans regarding fonts and I was able to find much inspiration as seen below.

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Hence, I decided to just source anything that I could make out from being barista and collate them together later on.

           

                     

I was deeply inspired by the milk stains in the coffee.

FLORIST

I really like the aesthetic of flowers hence I decided to go forth with florist as my job. My first thought for florist was to paste flowers on my work. Hence, I did some research regarding and surrounding flowers.

        

              

 

 

Some types using flowers

 

DOCTOR

Being a doctor is my lifelong aspiration hence I decided to go with being a doctor as my job.

I found this interesting overlay and it gives me an idea to do a layout print.

Watermelon Farmer

I really like watermelon hence I decided to go with a quirky job like watermelon farmer.

 

PLANT SCULPTURE ARTIST

From a florist, I developed the idea into a less generic job like plant sculpture artist.

 

 

4D II Project 1- Alter Ego Process

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Inspired by: Spirited Away

To use Chiihiro in Spirited Away as my Alter Ego was actually inspired by one of my classmate’s 10sec video whereby she used japanese anime to create in it. Immediately, I thought of using Spirited Away as it is one of my favourite animated film of all time and I really like the character- Chiihiro in the film.

I went to watch the whole film again to refresh my memory about Spirited Away and took some notes about Chii with what I get from watching the film. I guess I felt there’s an affinity between Chii and I was because we were very similar in terms of being very adamant to changes and we value friendship alot and I really want to develop these characteristics through my short film.

After mapping out Chii’s personality after the film, I quickly jot down the things that I want to include in my video as shown below.

sketch1Character Development

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Chii refusing to accept that she’s thrown into a deep mess. Ambience is dark and heavy.

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Chii refused to accept that she’s moving into a new town and has to adapt to new changes.

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She made a friend during her adventure to save her parents

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This film shows alot of scenery scenes to curate the whole atmosphere and tone.

Other Inspirations

I was always a fan of wongfu’s videos and always wanted to create a video that is something similar to theirs. Hence, given this opportunity, I tried to create my version of wongfu.

These videos emphasizes alot on speeches and sceneries which is my underlying motive when I thought of creating my video.

Spirited Away also revolves around the theme of seen and unseen literally (between humans and spirits). I decided to take upon this idea and create my version of seen and unseen of intangible force of refusing to accept new changes in terms of friendships and friends.

Storyboard

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I cant draw for nut (xD) so stickman is my go to.

Film Direction

The story will be narrated in the form of monologue. 

Lighting– High Saturation which is common in many anime film (keeping the essence of the inspiration film)

Monologue– Highlight character’s state of mind

Music– One Summer’s Day- Joe Hiraishi

This is the ost for Spirited Away and I found the transitions in the music really suits the directions and tone of my video alot.

Story

My story will start out with a scene to set the atmosphere of the video. With it being dark and gloomy initially to highlight the loneliness and current state of mind of the character. As the story proceeds, we see people asking the main character to sit with them but she

We see people asking the main character to sit with them but she didnt. We hear her train of thoughts through the monologue and how she is adamant to changes and how she missed her friends in her old town. We can see here that she value her existing friendships alot and refused to move on because of this which is quite similar to how Chii refused to accept her new town as she likes her old life and refused to accept the new changes.

However, through the process, the character starts to reflect her own actions and realised that if this keeps going on she will be lonely and sad forever. She wants to make a change but she doesnt know how and dont have the courage. 

As she is once again asked by her friends to eat with them, she picks up her courage and decided that its time to move on.

Script

But life is just boring for me. i can’t remember the last time i was excited for something.

I missed all my friends in my old town. How long has it been since i moved here? 195 days or so it seems.

I missed all my friends in my old town. Making friends here is so hard. How do I strike a decent conversation with them or even gather some courage to speak out?

And then I realised, for the longest time, I was so rugged out for change that this secluded me from making any new friends.

Maybe, I should give myself a chance and a chance for these people, whom have been nice to me all the while.

Challenges

I speak to my friends in Mandarin normally so to narrate monologues with English is a huge feat!!! Omg I dont know how many times I burst into laughing while recording as my English sounded very very broken and very very Singlish.

Editing the film was another problem for me too as this is my second time using Premiere other than my last 4D project. I had to google how to do everything in the end. But im glad it turned out how I wanted it to be so all’s good.

Character development was also quite tough as I had to set the personality and characteristics and also the changing process all under one minute.

Final video in next post.