Illustration & Visual Narrative Task 1/ Exercises 1 & 2

01.04.2022 - 22.04.2022 (Week 1 - Week 5)

Ng Ee Chyn, 0344762

Illustration & Visual Narrative

Task 1: Exercises 1 & 2

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INSTRUCTIONS 

Module Information Booklet

Exercise 1 & 2

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LECTURES

Week 1 - Subject outline & expectations

In the first week, Ms Noranis brief us on where to get the documentation, a basic intro to IVN and Mr Hafiz taught us some simple practical lessons on Adobe Illustrator. Mr Hafiz give us some time to try out the Bezier Game. The Bezier Game is very helpful for me, I learned Adobe Illustrator for 1 year but this Bezier Game taught me how to curve the pen tool in a simple and shortcut way which I had never known before.

The Bezier Game: https://bezier.method.ac/

Week 2 - Character Design Basic

This week, Mr Hafiz thought us how to use Adobe Illustrator. We learned to use pen tool to trace the 8 Vormator Shapes step by step. Later on, we need to use the shapes to create a unique character for exercise 1. To create a character, we are allowed to rotate, flip and duplicate the shapes.

My eight Vormator shape(Week 2, 11 April 2022)

Character Design Basic Slides(Week 2, 10 April 2022)

Example of Stylised Character(Week 2, 10 April 2022)

Stylised Design

• Iconic: People can instantly recognise the design even in black silhouette
• Simplicity: Allow the viewer to easily digest and understand the purpose of the character 
• Unique: Not only memorable but makes an impact on the viewers

Principles of Character Design(Week 2, 10 April 2022)

Principles Design

• Shape: Shape can symbolize the character's personality, the primary shapes are square, triangle and circle. 
• Colour: Easier to the establishment of the good guy and bad guy. Different colours easily relate to the personality and also the narrative of your character.
• Emphasis & Contrast: Exaggerate the emphasis and contrasting visual elements to make the design stand through colours and shape.
• Harmony: Different colours and shapes come together as a final design which has a pleasing factor to the audience.
• Expression poses: Clear visualization of your character's behaviours, quirks, and personalities makes it easier to appeal to your viewers.

Week 3 - Chiaroscuro

For week 3, we all continue with our Task 1 exercise. Mr Hafiz shows us how to apply shadow in illustrator by using "saturate" to adjust the shadow percentage. 

Saturate(Week 3, 17 April 2022)

 This is the way to apply "recolour" shapes.

Recolour(Week 3, 17 April 2022)

Mr Hafiz also show us how to use the colour wheel in Adobe Colour which could help to decide the colour. Moreover, we also could get or create colour pallets based on images. In my opinion, this is very useful for me because I always have no idea what to pick for colours. Adobe Colour can allow me to explore and download colour and more importantly it is simple and free to use.

Adobe Colour: https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel

Chiaroscuro Slides(Week 3, 17 April 2022)

Chiaroscuro

• Play on light and dark to create the illusion of three-dimensional volume on a flat surface
• Italian term: "light-dark"
• In paintings, the technique refers to clear tonal contrast
• Predominantly cast in light: Increase the scene’s dramatic tension using colour or light contrast.
• *Tenebrism: mainly on the dark setting, to highlight significant details such as facial expression, the shape of hand and muscles part
• application for visual artworks such as comics, film, digital works
• The focus point or subject of a scene is brightly coloured or contrasted with a dark background(applied with low-key lighting)
• To highlight the emotional change in character

Chiaroscuro: Postive and Negetive spaces (Week 3, 17 April 2022)

Positive vs negative spaces

• Positive: Refers to subject matter or object of interest in a visual
• Negative: Refers to the filled space or background that surrounds the subject matter or object of interest in

Week 4 - Chiaroscuro Pears // Composition Theory 1: Visual Types and Shots

Firstly, Mr Hafiz guided us on how to trace pears with shadow in Adobe Illustrator. We also learned how to use the knife tool to slice the pear into 5 pieces and separate it. Besides, we traced the skull on the pear to make it look like a skull shadow on a pear. The following pictures are my Chiaroscuro Exercise progress:

Progress 1: Trace pear and shadow (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Progress 2: Slice pear using knife tool (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Progress 3: Trace skull on pear (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Progress 4: Do the same things with other pears (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Final Chiaroscuro Exercise (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Composition Theory 1(Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Composition Visual Type and Shots

• This means the arrangement of the elements in your visual
• Decide how to arrange the objects that are in your frame

Basic Composition Visual Rules (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

Basic composition Visual Rules

1. Visual Narrative: Get the emotion on the same page
2. Visual Flow: Determines the path of a viewer's eyes
3. Visual Balance: arrange to balance the composition in the scene
4. Visual Hierarchy: Visualize and focus on the subject matter, direct viewers eyes to specific details first

6 different types of shots (Week 4, 22 April 2022)

6 different types of shots

1. Establish: Establish what's going to happen in the next line of narrative
2. Bird's eye views: It means happens up in the air, like a drone eyeview, from the top looking down.
3. Frame within a frame: Frame by blooming cherry blossoms, create visual interest and deliver a story, supporting the narrative of what the scene is going on.
4. Medium shot: 3 quarters shot (3/4) portrays the interaction of 2 characters
5. Close-up: Show an intimate moment, usually involving in change face expression
6. Worm's eyes view: View from underground, force the views to be outside the comfort zone

Week 5 - Chiaroscuro people // Composition Theory 2: Fore, Mid & Background

For week 5 practica, Mr Hafiz taught us how to trace a chiaroscuro people and make a textue background in Adobe Illustrator. 

Clipping Mask(Week 5, 29 April 2022)

To select the same colour,grouping and make clipping mask

1. Ctrl+Shift+G=ungroup
2. Select > Same > Fill colour
3. Object > compound path > make
4. Select colour with shapes> right-click > Make clipping mask

Darken the shadow(Week 5, 29 April 2022)

To make the colour darker: Object > Transparency > Multiply

Process & Final sketch of Chiaroscuro People(Week 5, 29 April 2022)

Composition Theory 3(Week 5, 29 April 2022)

Composition essentially

• How your images are put together

3 Different Types of Planes

1. Foreground(close to the viewer): 

• Objects that are nearest to the viewer, the biggest 
• Size differences and colour contrast

2. Middle-ground:

• Objects in between foreground and background, sandwich
•  Size differences and light/shadow contrast

3. Background(far away): 

• Objects that are the furthest away from the viewer
• Shapes and light/shadow contrast

3 Different Types of Planes(Week 5, 29 April 2022)

Design Flow

• Good arrangement of visual focus
• Lead the viewers' eyes throughout the layout
• Influence the way the viewer will digest your content

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EXERCISE 1: VORMATOR CHALLENGE!

My eight Vormator shape(Week 3, 11 April 2022)

Visual Research(Week 3, 11 April 2022)

Sketches & ideas(Week 3, 11 April 2022)

Vormator character outline(Week 3, 11 April 2022)

The final vormator character outcome(Week 3, 11 April 2022)

Exercise 1 progress(Week 3, 14 April 2022)

Character background
Name: Hono

Special powers: Hono tails is to store foods and flame ability. Fire erupts from the mouth which will cause constant burning when encountering an enemy.
Wacky weakness: Hono only can run fast when the tails drop, it will take 1 month to grow back the tails.

EXERCISE 2: VECTOR ILLUSTRATION

 

Visual Research(Week 5, 26 April 2022)

Based on my visual research, I decided to make a game card like a Tarot card. I also made some changes of Hono's colour to purple, round spots to flower spots, and outline the character. The fire and the dash shapes at the corner symbolised Hono's ability. 

• Fire(Special powers): Hono tails is to store foods and flame ability. Fire erupts from the mouth which will cause constant burning when encountering an enemy.
• Dash(Wacky weakness): Hono only can run fast when the tails drop, it will take 1 month to grow back the tails.

 Final vormator character outcome 2(Week 5, 26 April 2022)

 Final vormator game card outcome(Week 5, 26 April 2022)

Final game card outcome(Week 5, 26 April 2022)

Exercise 2 progress(Week 5, 26 April 2022)

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VISUAL STUDY

Lecture report 1 - Visual Study: Character Design Basics

We Bare Bears, a comedy series which is animated as a cartoon in the year of 2015. The series is created by Daniel Chong and composed by Brad Breeck. The main narration of this story is based on these 3 bears, Grizzly, Panda and Ice, going on an adventure to explore and live their lives amongst humans in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of the unique stands about these three bears is the bear stack position which gained lots of fame and love from its viewer. It is hilarious and exaggerated to watch them struggling to fit themselves with the humans.

Each of these 3 bears has its own unique design that goes according to its personality which exemplifies the 3 Principles of Stylised Designs. First of all, the principle of icon, by just looking at its silhouettes, the viewers can immediately recognise them as the 3 bears. Moreover, the personality of the bears is designed according to their original behaviour such that the leader of the bear, Grizzly is originally a grizzly bear which is a playful bear with great sociable skill. Panda is known as anti-social, it is obsessed with social networking but it has the least confidence among the other three bears. Lastly, Ice, which is originally a polar bear that always remains quiet but is a careful planner, is the calmest of all bears.

The principles of character design are always greatly applied in the design of these bears. For example, the “ Bear Stack” position can be recognised easily due to its shape being overly similar to 3 vertical circles. Furthermore, the colours of the 3 bears have their own meaning too such as grizzly with the colour of brown which is known as a sense of reliability and strength which greatly exemplifies the needs of a leader. The principle of harmony is utilised as well, Ice is designed with a plain poker face which shows that it is an introvert but calms in any situation.

We Bare Bears(Week 3, 14 April 2022)

Lecture report 2 - Visual Study: Chiaroscuro

Jujutsu Kaisen, an animation which was screened on September 19, 2020, by MAPPA. It is about the existence of cursed spirits which are harmful to humans and the sorcerers are responsible to ensure the safety of citizens by exorcising the cursed spirits. The main protagonist, Yuji Itadori was introduced as a normal high school student. One day, Yuji’s friends have discovered one of the cursed items which is the Sukuna’s finger. Due to their ignorance and curiosity, Yuji ended up swallowing the finger and became the vessel of Sukuna. Afterwards, Yuji was locked in a fully concealed room and sentenced to be secretly executed. In this scenario, Chiaroscuro is being utilised perfectly to create a dense atmosphere to exhibit terror to its viewers. The “Low-key Lighting” did not just change the surroundings but also utterly brings up another level of terror to the conversation between the protagonist and the person in charge, which is Gojo Satoru.

Yuji Itadori inherited the power from Sukuna’s finger and became the vessel of the Special Grade Cursed, Sukuna Ryomen. Immediately, Yuji has become the most dangerous threat against humanity and must be executed without any hesitation. From a normal student who lives his life casually suddenly becoming the most dangerous threat is completely unpredictable and unexpected. Although Yuji is still clueless, the execution has clearly terrified him. With the help of dark and light lighting, this scene has become more intense and exaggerated.

Furthermore, the Chiaroscuro was utilised here well because it has perfectly blended itself with the surrounding. Such as the walls are completely filled with sealing tags, the surroundings are plainly dark and empty, the main protagonist was handcuffed knowing he’s going to be executed soon. The density of horror in this one scene has utterly been exemplified coming along with the aspect ratio, camera movement and contrast from Chiaroscuro. In the aspect ratio, we can see the portion of darkness is undoubtedly comparable with the intensive scenario. Whenever there’s the joy we see bright but when we see the darkness that will mean something unimaginable is coming. The camera movement is utilised as well, the perfect angle from the third person view, looking at the movement of both characters allows the viewers to understand their thoughts and feelings.

Lecture report 3 - Visual Types and Shorts

Lecture report 4 - Fore, Middle & Background

Anime scenes: Jujutsu Kaisen

Foreground: The frontest character

Middle-Ground: The character sitting on a chair

Background: The background of the character

Task 1: Exercises - https://ngeechyn.blogspot.com/2022/03/illustration-visual-narrative-exercises.html 

Task 2: Decisive Moment - https://ngeechyn.blogspot.com/2022/03/illustration-visual-narrative-exercises_31.html

Task 3+Task4: Graphic Novel & Final Project - https://ngeechyn.blogspot.com/2022/04/illustration-visual-narrative-task-3.html

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FEEDBACK

Week 5: Ms. Anis recommend adding an attack description for the game card

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REFLECTION

Experience, Observations & Findings:

In these exercises, I have experienced creating a game card character by using the given Vormator shapes. It was quite interesting but at the same time, it was a bit tired because we have to do lecture reports and exercises every weeks. But gratefully, I managed to complete everything on the time. During completing the tasks, I found out I have learned some shortcut techniques and tools that I have never used before from Mr Hafiz in Illustrator. Besides, Ms Noranis has taught us about the theories that have let me deeply understand the Chiaroscuro concept and the meaning behind different types of visual shots. Besides, I also found out that in a lot of animations such as Doraemon, Adventure Time and We Bare Bears character design shapes can symbolize the character's personality. Although the tasks and extra exercises are a lot, I believed that the effort and amount of time have shown great results. I believed it was worth it.