Illustration & Visual Narrative - Exercise & Projects

05/04/19 – 04/07/19 (Week 1- Week 14)
Qaezie Ayeman Ramlan (0332981)
Illustration & Visual Narrative -
Exercises & Projects

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Lecture Notes 

Week 1 _ Vormator Challenge

Its our first class for this sem and we are to use a set of shapes to make a character, it's called the Vormator Challenge. We're only allowed to use these shapes, we can resize them and repeat them but we're not allowed to manipulate it in anyway or add on any other shape.

We had to retrace these shapes and make our own character.

 My Vormator Character .

Week 2 _ Forms, Shapes and Shadows
(12/4/19)

This week we learned on Forms, Shapes and Shadows. Mr. Redzwan had us buy 3 shades of greyscale markers to practice our drawing.

Simple exercise just to give the shape a sense form and ground.

Week 3 _ Digital Light and Shadow
(19/4/19)

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this weeks class. But basing off what my friends had to say, they learnt how to create shadows within illustrator. This was done on a pear they had to digitise in illustrator. From this we were expected to colorise our Vormator character and add shadows to create more weight and depth to them.

Week 4 _ Facial Expressions
(26/4/19)

For our for exercise we practiced our work with our strokes and facial expressions for characters. From there Mr.Redzwan made us create our own characters and i chose the Copic Markers.

Week 5 _ Lines
(26/4/19)

This week's exercise we practiced lines and explored the different types of lines.

Research Exercise: Five Elements of Plot

As designers we don't only have to understand the fundamentals of drawing and design but also the art of story telling. This week we learned on what is called Story Mapping or also known as Stpry Mountain. The story mountain is typically made up of five or sometimes six essential part of a story. The Exposition, Rising Action, Rising Action 2 (sometimes), Climax, Falling Action and Resolution.

To understand thsi concept fully Mr.Hafidz made us pick a disney movie that was released within the last 10 years and dissect and identify the movie into the five or six said parts. And I picked 

"Lilo & Stich".

EXPOSITION

 The EXPOSITION starts off in the galaxy where Stitch was created. We were stright away introduced to galactic world and the fact that Stitch is an experiment. And was introduced to Jumba, Pleaky and Gantu.

RISING ACTION 1

 RISING ACTION 1 starts when we were introduced to the representative and we find out that Lilo could lose living with her sister Nani.

RISING ACTION 2

RISING ACTION 2 is when Jumba tried to catch Stich but instead end-up pulling Lilo with him, creating an unnecessary drama amongst the family members.

CLIMAX

 CLIMAX is when things start to get a heavy when Stitch was just trying to help out but ends up jeopardising Lilo's status. The house ended up burning down, giving the representative a good enoigh reason to take Lilo away from her sister.

FALLING ACTION

Grand council women came down to to take Stitch home. But Lilo bought Stitch so she has full rights over Stitch now and aliens are not ones gto break rules, leaving Stitch a new home. And because of the new addition the grand council women said the Nani and Lilo have to stay together.

RESOLUTION

RESOLUTION everyones, happy. Lilo gets to stay with Nani, Stitch gets a new family, Nani found new love, the house was rebuild and not forgetting with a new extension for the aliens to continue doing their research Jumba and Pleaky.

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Project 1 

Project 1_Physical Submission Of Vormator Character.

It was in week 4 when we were briefed about bringing our characters to life. Mr.Hafidz had brought us to Fab Space in Bukit Bintang.

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Project 2

Project 2_Frank Sinatra - A Digital Triptych

We are to choose one song from the list below, appreciate the song, hear it through and understand the lyrics. We were then required to sketch initial ideas, figure out story line, illustrate and animate ‘moments’ base of your understanding from the chosen song. Then songs list are as below:

Fly me to the moon
The way you look tonight
Come fly with me
Girl from Ipanema
New York, New York

Project criteria
Originality - how unique is your idea
Technique - your basic skills in composition, your illustration style and proposal that fits the song
Interpretation - How did you interpret the song into your drawing
Storytelling - Does your proposal tells a story? Does it show emotion? it's important not just to draw a character standing with a blank expression
Requirements - initial storyline, ideas + sketches| illustration | final animation gifs

And I chose the song "Fly Me To The Moon". 

The song starts by going, 

Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like

On a, Jupiter and Mars

And straight away i jumped into sketching. I had this idea of a caterpillar that was in a jar. Being put at the window seal, it always looks at the moon every single night, not knowing that it would transform to a butterfly one day. 

I began to digitise all three art works to tell the story. This digitisation process can be seen below with the final artworks.

Process

Process

Digital triptych piece 1

Digital triptych piece 2

Digital triptych piece 3

After that, we had to animate the three pictures. For the first one I wanted to emphasis on the moon, so i had it seem like its gleaming . For the second animation, I focused on how the catapiller has turned into a cocoon. Lastly I made the butterfly fluttering away.

Animated digital triptych 1

Animated digital triptych 2

Animated digital triptych 3

Project 3

Final Project_Decisive Moment

For our final project, the story I had gotten was the story titled "Old Folks Home" by Nicole Xin Yi. The synopsis of the story is of an old women in a old folks home. The story revolves around her point of view. Reminiscing her youth, she tells a story of how she was torn between a decision she made.

Excerpt 1

"Ah youth, such energy. Reminds me of my old days in my youth. Although

at the time, I wasn’t given much freedom you see. In the early years of

Malaysia, the jobs that were available for men and woman myself were

mostly factory work. Or to be married off to a wealthy family; which is

preferred by most women as the better option, because a women’s wage in

factory work is less that of a man’s wage for the same work"

Excerpt 2

"I mostly live alone. And I hadn’t been in contact with my family for years

now, as.. I hadn’t had the most delightful upbringing. My family life is mostly

revolved around fights between my parents. Where my father would beat

my mother so badly that I ran away just so that I don’t get caught in the

middle of it. I couldn’t even remember what was it that drove him to such

lengths… And to think marriage is supposed to be a happy prospect for the

pair involved… Maybe that’s also the reason why even at my old age, I

didn’t get married"

I then started building my mood and concept board.

I then continued on digitising it. and below are the final illustration and animation.

Process

Final piece for decisive moment 

Final animation for decisive moment