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1.4.2022 - 22.4.2022 (Week 1 - Week 4)
Loh Qiao Yin/ 0348923
Illustration and Visual Narrative/ Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Task 2/ Exercises
[Exercise 1- Vormator Challenge Character]
[Exercise 2- Game Card Design]
LECTURES
Week 1:Lecture: none; Module briefing
Week 2: [Character Design]- Iconic + Simplicity + Unique
Fig 1.1 Visual representation of the 3 points, 14 April 2022
Elements of character design:- Shape
- Colour
- Emphasis
- Contrast
- Harmony
- Expressions/ Poses
- Iconic + Simplicity + Unique
- Shape
- Colour
- Emphasis
- Contrast
- Harmony
- Expressions/ Poses
Lecture report 1:
Favourite Character Analysis
Gir from Invader ZIM (When in disguise as a dog)
Fig 1.2 Gir's usual state of expression and body language, 13 April 2022
Shape
Gir's head and body is mainly composed with blocky-squarish shapes with a pair of big round eyes that are slightly bulging, making him look silly and cute like a pug. If I turn the character into a silhouette, I would be able to clearly see a 'P' shape with long ears, making Gir immediately recognisable because the character design is not made out of overly-complex and unrecognisable shapes, they are just simple and effective.
Contrast
There is a contrast in terms of the colour and character proportion. Colour-wise, it is like a lime green colour as the main and the black colour is used to contrast the green and represent his arms and legs. Proportion-wise, he has a really big head and a small body, conveying a sense of instability, reflecting his personality which I will be talking next.
Fig 1.3 Gir's jerky body language and expression, 13 April 2022
Expressions/Poses
He has a jerky and overly-excited expressions which comes off as crazy, but in a cute way due to his tiny size and gibberish voice. I realise how his head and eyes squash or elongate when he is conveying any facial expressions, it adds a nice exaggerated effect to further emphasize his craziness. I always chuckle whenever I see his body language that reflects his silliness and I just like that he looks so dumb, it makes me feel irritated but I find it humorous at the same time. His fast-paced, jerky and sudden actions in his body language are the reasons why his character strikes an impression in my mind.
Fig 1.4 Gir eating a chocolate cupcake, 13 April 2022
Week 3: Chiaroscuro
Lecture Report 2:
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Fig 1.5 Lecture report 2 on Chiaroscuro study, 22 April 2022
Week 4: Composition
Basic composition visual rules
- Visual narrative
- Visual flow
- Visual balance
- Visual hierarchy
Types of shots
- Establishing
- Bird's eyeview
- Frame within a frame
- Medium shot
- Close-up
- Worm's eyeview
Lecture report 3:
Establishing
Establishing
It was a view in Brisbane and I liked the shape language of the buildings as well as the perspective converging from both sides to the centre, slightly poking out. I am usually not a fan of architectural design in the city (they all look the same to me oops) but I somehow got attracted by this.
Fig 1.6 City buildings in Brisbane, 27 April 2022
*inhales, *exhales: "MANJAAAAAA!" I really hope this counts as bird's eyeview, the cat pic is too cute to not be shared.
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Fig 1.7 Meow, 27 April 2022
A photo frame in my house, showing the Chinese word 'home' or can also be interpreted as 'family'. Shot through the stairs handrails.
Fig 1.8 Photo frame, 28 April 2022
Medium shot
Shot in an LRT station when a train is passing by. I edited the photo using selective colour, making the subject the only coloured part and the background is black and white. Slight motion blur was also applied to the background to exaggerate the motion of the train.
Fig 1.9 Train goes nyoom, 27 April 2022
It was the raining season so I wanted to capture the moodiness and cloudiness during that period. I love to observe the rain droplets as they remind me of crystals and purity.
Fig 1.10 Raindrop and flower, 27 April 2022
Shot in Public Shopping Gallery, this was an art installation made out of just cardboard, called as Mendam Berahi Ship but with a twist of steampunk art style. Designer by Shahrul Nizam.
Fig 1.11 Art installation, 27 April 2022
Fig 1.12 A pic clogging my phone storage, 27 April 2022
INSTRUCTIONS
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Exercise 1: Vormator Challenge Character
i) Visual Research
I had a deep impression of Scott Flander's thought process in coming up with character designs and looking at his little character sketches each packed with personalities and interesting body gestures using shape languages. I enjoyed watching a few of his tutorials and here is one of them.
ii) Idea Development
Brainstormed some backstories for my characters to ensure that there is a narrative behind the design to act as the 'backbone'. I managed to think of two different character ideas; one is an antagonist and the other is a protagonist.
Fig 2.1 Ideas for 2 characters' basic backstories, 14 April 2022
iii) Sketch Development
Started off with drawing in silhouette as it allows me to focus on the big shapes and body language instead of the tiny details first.
Fig 2.2 Silhouette ideas for the antagonist character, 14 April 2022
Fig 2.3 Silhouette ideas for the protagonist character, 14 April 2022
In the end, I decided to go with the sixth silhouette design for the antagonist character as I like that there is more sense of dynamic in the antagonist character and I felt more creative juice flowing when working on it.
Fig 2.4 Further developed the silhouette design, 14 April 2022
iv) Refining stage
Fig 2.5 Using the shapes to build my character, 14 April 2022
Fig 2.6 Colouring and detailing stage, 14 April 2022
The pose is too rigid and awkward so I changed the position of the arms to achieve a better movement.
v) Final outcome
v) Final outcome
Fig 2.7 Final outcome of my character, Fritz, 14 April 2022
Fritz's head is made out of gas particles that are powered by yellow-orange orbs. You can see his body is full of them through the arrow-shaped glass, the middle part of his body, the tentacle-like lines as well as indicators on his legs and forearms. I try to express his mischievous attitude through his eyes (one big one small) and the design of his shoes are inspired by medieval jokers.
Fig 2.8 The mischievous feeling I get from a joker, 14 April 2022
Image from Sutori.com
Exercise 2: Game Card Design
I was not familiar with game card concepts so it was hard for me to come up with any ideas. After looking up some inspirations in Pinterest, I made myself sketch out at least something to get the groove going.
i) Sketch development
I roughly state the stuff I hope to put in my card design as well as the layout I am going for.
Fig 3.1 Initial sketch of card layout, 22 April 2022
ii) New shape development
I forgot that it would be difficult to create the smoke shape and fire shape. Honestly, I did not think that it was possible but I persisted in exploring and finding the right shapes to combine and subtract, to create what I want. Thankfully, it worked.
I forgot that it would be difficult to create the smoke shape and fire shape. Honestly, I did not think that it was possible but I persisted in exploring and finding the right shapes to combine and subtract, to create what I want. Thankfully, it worked.
Fig 3.2 New shape development, 27 April 2022
iii) Layout development
Then, I start to block in the main areas in my card design.
1- A simple and straightforward design, I like the part where it caves in but it is not what I planned in my sketch.
2- I reused the 'spike' shape I created using pathfinder to make the spiky edges. However, there were too many spikes and looked bent to upwards.
3- Made necessary changes and settled on this one.
2- I reused the 'spike' shape I created using pathfinder to make the spiky edges. However, there were too many spikes and looked bent to upwards.
3- Made necessary changes and settled on this one.
Fig 3.3 Main card layout, 27 April 2022
1- Went with this in the end. I like that it comes from the side, like pop-up quest boxes in video games.
2- This one looks the most interesting to me at first, and I used this for a very long time until I realised the sharp corners of the arrow is touching the edge of the card and I always want to avoid tangents.
Fig 3.4 Card layout development, 27 April 2022
The design of the catchphrase does not have enough impact if I were to imagine Fritz's voice shouting it.
1- Original
2- Tried out yellow. I chose this as it has a contrast with the red colour in the other parts of the card.
3- Red. It sure does give a sense of unity overall but too monotonous.
Fig 3.5 Design for the position of catchphrase, 27 April 2022
iv) Peer feedback
Fixed some slight misalignment of texts and also the annoying vertical gap of white space on the left side of the card. I got some useful peer feedback: the font of body text has to be reconsidered because my friend mentioned that she felt like someone is constantly shouting in her face, I don't notice that probably because I am used to getting shouted at (no just kidding) and also the colour choice has to be darker so it is more readable.
Fixed some slight misalignment of texts and also the annoying vertical gap of white space on the left side of the card. I got some useful peer feedback: the font of body text has to be reconsidered because my friend mentioned that she felt like someone is constantly shouting in her face, I don't notice that probably because I am used to getting shouted at (no just kidding) and also the colour choice has to be darker so it is more readable.
Fig 3.6 Card design shown for peer feedback, 27 April 2022
I explored different fonts to see which ones are more suitable and also tested out writing the body text in fully capital letters as well as capital letter only for the first word.
In the end, we have decided to go with the last one and also reduce the size of the arrow label because the word 'range' did not even use that much space.
v) Final outcome
v) Final outcome
Fig 3.8 Final outcome of card design, 20 April 2022
FEEDBACK
Week 3
Miss Anis said that my character is lit (pun not intended) and that my character design might make Mr Hafiz cry. I take it as a green light to proceed with my character and start the card design next.
Week 5
"Nice." I am glad that my design is decent and does not require any changes.
REFLECTION
Experience
I was definitely upset when I got to know that we have to use only Adobe Illustrator because I was just a raster kind of person instead of vector kind of person. Then, I went through 5 stages of grief after knowing that we are only limited to certain shapes and not allowed to skew them. However, this is actually very important to me as I know that I need to learn how to think in big, simplified shapes before rushing into the complex and flashy details every time I am designing a character.
Observations
The exercise got me reflecting on how I look at shapes, in terms of using them to subtract a shape. Previously, I do see shapes combining to form an object, but not how shapes subtract another shape to create a new one. I also enjoy looking at other students' work as I get to understand their style more and see how they create new shapes that I never thought of before.
Findings
The functions in pathfinder are amazing and they are the saviour of the limitations set in altering the shapes. In fact, it is the function that makes the impossible possible, if one knows how to use it. Despite still preferring raster drawings over vector designs, I greatly appreciate this exercise as it forces me to learn more about the navigation in Adobe Illustrator and how to use it efficiently.
FURTHER READING
Fig 4.1 Creative Character Design by Bryan Tillman, 14 April 2022
Storytelling aspect- Giving a character a story before focusing on their visuals is very beneficial in the long run. The basic ones are archetypes which encompass both the good and evil spectrums. When dealing with character design, remember that the character exists as a result of the story.
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