IVN Project 1
24.9.2024-31.10.2024/week1-week6
YANG YANG/0363575
Illustration & Visual Narrative/Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
INSTRUCTIONS
Lecture
Week 1：Character Design Basics
In this class, first of all, the instructor gave us an idea about the basic logic of character design, such as the basic shape silhouettes that characters have. This is very interesting to me, I often think about it when I watch anime films, how these designers create such distinctive characters, then the first thing that comes to mind is the shape of the character's silhouette. Characters are made up of different geometric shapes, and the ones that make up the largest portion of the character are often the ones that create the character's identity and influence the viewer's image of the character.
Then there's the main colour composition of the character, whether it's like an elf monster etc. which itself can be designed in different colours, the character's costume or hair colour can also be reflected on this, different colours tend to give people different impressions and emotions. When a character is always dressed in bright colours, most of the time the character itself carries a light or high mood.
The last thing that adds colour is the character's traits, sometimes a small accessory can turn the whole character around, while some of the character's habits can help the character quickly build up an image in the eyes of the audience, whether it's a haughty look up or a timid cowering. All of these factors make up a character, and are the building blocks to character design.
Week 2：Chiaroscuro
Light and shadow are often ubiquitous in works, but it is also a shaping condition that many people overlook. Strong light contrasts can often shape more impactful images and impressions, and we can usually see these strong contrasts between light and dark in oil paintings and black and white comics, some of which set the main colours as dark and look for light shaping in them, which is what TENEBRISM is all about.
Of course, there is also low key lighting, as opposed to the former, which results in a greyer, less contrasting image, but with a softer and more subdued mood.
Both comics and movies often use black and white, or the relationship between light and dark to express different emotions. The positive and negative shapes of the colours can enhance the overall texture, and are also used to create different atmospheres, and strong contrasts can often bring shocking and profound visual effects to the audience, and thus deepen the emotions they want to express.
Week 3：Visual Types and Shots
The following four are the basic rules of composition, and likewise the different rules that designers need to consider and can refer to when making a composition.
Firstly, the perspective of the narrative should be consistent with the characters or the emotions shown in the story, the main purpose is to strengthen the characters' feelings in the picture, and to achieve some effects similar to the change of time or the transformation of feelings by the way of perspective shift.
Similarly, line of sight guidance is also very common in high-impact images, where it is often necessary to guide the viewer's eyes to move in order to achieve the effect of strengthening the tension of the image. In addition, there are also two points to guide the audience's eyes to gather the focus of the picture and pay attention to the balance of the picture, which are often seen in anime or film works.
In addition to this there are many different perspectives, most of which are compositions that we've seen in film and television but perhaps haven't paid much attention to until now.
One of my favourites is the bird's eye view, because I think it's usually a very tense composition, and sometimes it's perfect for falling from a height, which is one of the most popular compositions used in American comics.
Week 4：Perspective
Perspective is ubiquitous in our lives, the so-called near big and far small is the most common and simple understanding, of course, perspective is also divided into many kinds, composed of different numbers of points and lines, one-point perspective, two-point perspective and three-point perspective, the more points need to pay attention to the perspective of the relationship between the more complex.
One-point perspective is very common in artwork, often used in scenes with alleys or streets, and sometimes in group portraits where the main characters or those who need to be noticed are placed in the perspective point. Sometimes it is also used in group portraits where the main character or the person to be noticed is placed at the point of perspective.
Two-point perspective is not very complicated, it is still the same as one-point perspective, the whole picture is a flat state, but two-point perspective tends to make the picture look wider, compared to one-point perspective to be more tension.
Three-point perspective is the most complex, because on this basis, often the picture is no longer flat, but either slightly downward or slightly upward, and this painting technique will also greatly enhance the expressiveness and tension of the picture, making the picture more impactful and reflecting the sense of shock that the picture wants to express. Whether it is in the portrayal of the landscape or the relationship between the characters and objects, three-point perspective can achieve very good results, but relatively, it is also very difficult to control, the complexity of the perspective relationship for the novice is simply puzzling, but once controlled, you can easily draw a strong feelings and tension of the picture.
Week 5：Fore, Mid and Background
At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher introduced us to the simple structure of a picture, which is used in both painting and photography, and which is generally divided into foreground, midground and background. In a complete picture, it is often necessary to have all three in order to make the picture richer. I also use this technique in my own painting, often the character or the main body is placed in the middle part of the scene, while the foreground and background are mostly used to create an atmosphere or enrich the picture information, of course, this is not the only use, but only the most conventional arrangement.
In the design, the visual orientation of a picture is also very important, often using the surrounding things or lines towards etc. to guide the audience's visual direction, can achieve the effect of focusing on the main body or the sense of impact of the movement. It can also make the picture more vivid, and allow the author to subjectively guide the viewer's visual direction, so as to achieve emphasis or better narrative effect.
Week 6：3-Acts Structure
The making of a complete story cannot be divorced from its structure, and wanting the narrative to be exciting enough often divides the pace of the story into three parts, pre-mid as well as post, and these three different parts have different directions as well. The most common narrative technique is to use the early stage as a pad, to build the worldview and let the story and image of the characters engraved into the reader's impression, while in the middle of the story is often the story of the atmosphere began to stack high, and at the same time for the upcoming climax of the story to do the preparation, the story of the conflict also appeared at this time, to the later stage of the story is the conflict is a complete outbreak of the story of the climax is presented, and finally, it is to be from the conflict of the slow down to come over! In the end, it's all about easing out of the conflict, and slowly the atmosphere of the story calms down again to usher in the ending.
Characterisation is crucial to a good story, and often a story needs a ‘protagonist’ and a ‘villain’, not necessarily an odd number of people, and in many stories there is a group of protagonists, but even in a group there is a so-called ‘protagonist’. Designing these characters is the fun part for me, taking the complexity and qualities of a character and overlaying them with events in the story, or a line spoken by the character, to give the reader an impression of the character, which can be a very difficult thing to do. But it's also very rare and rewarding to be able to create a charismatic persona.
Task 1: Exercises (Vormator)
Reflections:
In this assignment I was introduced to illustrator for the first time, and after understanding the basic tools and combinations, I used my imagination to create a monster of my own according to the requirements given.
At first I had no idea what to do with it, whether it was to create a non-humanoid creature or to use the software it was all very strange and difficult for me, but in the process of figuring it out I gradually began to get the hang of it, and a sense of achievement arose after I had created it. I had to go through many revisions before finalising it, but in the end I chose the simplest version, which was definitely a very memorable and beneficial experience for me.
Task 1: Composition
Pokémon card:
Background:
Final board:
Process:
First of all, I drew two drafts of the background composition of this Pokémon. When I drew Figure 1, it was just my first attempt, and I didn't have a complete idea of the background design, but it was a good preparation for the subsequent design. After talking with my teacher, I chose to use the composition of Figure 3 as a reference and made Figure 2. At the same time, I also unified the colours at this time, I was worried that the picture would be too poor, but I found that the use of a small amount of colours can make the picture more simple and clean. I have to say I like this style.
Figure 1
Figure 2
After colouring I placed the subject into the background and initially painted the tones of the cave in the distance, while fine-tuning the perspective of the subject to give a slightly more top-down look and to more closely match the reference composition, and adjusting the position of the subject's shadows so that the light source would be coming down from a slanting angle. Then, step by step, I drew the middle scene to make the picture more rich, and enriched the character's setting with the tentacles sticking out from the water.
After the background was drawn I had a dilemma with the parts that were out of the frame that I didn't know how to remove. At first I thought that this out-of-canvas part would disappear after exporting, but after trying I realised that this was not the case, so I tried again to excise the unwanted part, but the result was not very practical either. So I started searching the internet for a solution and found that all I needed to do was to create a new layer, fill it with canvas-sized shapes and create a clipping mask. I was happy with the sense of achievement that I got from finding a solution to my own problem.
All that was left to do was to put the created backgrounds and characters into the Pokémon cards, it was very interesting to have a card designed by myself for the first time, but as I hadn't played the game I had quite a few problems along the way, for this reason I searched and looked at a lot of Pokémon cards but found that there were a lot of different styles of them, and after a bit of experimenting and sifting through they were available, I chose this version.
Feedback:
During the making of this practice, my teacher and I were very active in communicating about the composition part, and at first I felt very confused about what to do and where to start. Although the draft presented was only two versions, there were many ideas that I discarded without finishing the drawing, but after discussing and exchanging with my teacher, I soon found a way and produced a work that I was personally satisfied with. Although it is not necessarily very complicated and exquisite, I personally prefer such a simple and smooth design and uniform colours, and at the same time it is like making a child of my own, I like it very much.
The Show Graduate Showcase
In the activity ‘the show’, we participated in the competition as the fourth group, the theme of the competition is to draw an A1-sized painting with the theme of unity in diversity, before the official competition began we were very nervous and close to the arrangement of the discussion about ‘unity in diversity’. Before the start of the competition, we were all very nervous and closely lined up to discuss our understanding of the term ‘multifaceted’ and its derivation, as well as how to present it on the canvas. Our final design consisted of four differently coloured hands reaching out to the centre of the picture, supplemented by a number of faces extending outwards from the crosshairs. The background is enriched with different cultural decorations such as Chinese lion dance, Indian curry, Malay Twin Towers and so on.
Reflection:
In this activity, we had a clear division of labour, after a short exchange of ideas we quickly decided how to divide the work amongst ourselves, I was responsible for drawing the line drawings of the cultural elements in the background, which was not particularly difficult for me, on the contrary, I preferred drawing line drawings to colouring. The conditions were a bit harsh, we didn't have formal benches and chairs, we put the paintings on boards, put the boards on side-by-side chairs, and all of us crawled and crouched on the chairs in various positions or knelt on the floor to complete the paintings that we had put our hearts and souls into. Some of our knees were so red that they almost bled, but we all devoted ourselves to the production of this painting, and after two hours of high concentration, we almost forgot about the discomfort and hunger, and I also felt a strong team cohesion, we all worked hard for the same goal, which is a very rare feeling. From that moment on, the final result of the race was no longer the biggest reward for me, and I enjoyed the process of working together with all of you. This event was a very memorable experience.
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