Week 1 - Week 4 : 27 Aug 2021 - 17 Sept 2021
Tan Yi Yun
0345559
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
0345559
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Task 1 / Exercises
LECTURE
Week 1
Today we were introduced to Ms. Noranis and Ms. Jennifer. We went through
the TIMeS, our main platform to get the Module Information Booklet,
announcement and class works. This module aims to introduce the students
to the process of creating visual concepts from ideas and its pictorial
communication to an audience in the form of illustrations.
Like all the other modules, we will need to set up an e-Blog in Blogspot.
Then, we had a short briefing of all the projects throughout the 14 weeks.
I am sure they will be fun!
Week 2
Introduction to Character Design
Stylised designs are what stands out the most. This week we learnt about
the principles of character design.
a) Shapes - Shapes are very important because they define a
character's silhouette. It is used to identify a character from one
another. This is what sets the iconic look!
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| Figure 1.1, Examples of basic shapes of Aladdin characters |
b) Colours - Colours play an important role at determining who
are the heroes/protagonists or villains/antagonists. Different choices
of colours also give an impression on a character. Take a look at the
wheel of emotion. One of the best examples that shows the application of
colours emotion in characters is the film "Inside Out". (Joy = yellow,
Sadness = blue, etc.)
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| Figure 1.2, Wheel of emotion |
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| Figure 1.3, Characters from the film "Inside Out" |
c) Emphasis and Contrast - A good character design is when you
pick one visual element in a character and exaggerate it, making the
character outstanding and memorable. Sometimes picking a cultural
element and adding it to design makes it uniquely authentic, like
Disney's Hercules for example.
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| Figure 1.4, Hercules (1997) Comparison Chart |
d) Harmony - All shapes, lines, colours, motifs, patterns must be
put together in a tasteful manner. Every element used in a design should
work together like they compliment each other —— a balance of visual
elements that has a visual hierarchy.
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| Figure 1.5, Harmony is shown in the Disney's Frozen |
e) Expressions / Poses - The behaviour/quirks/personalities of
the character that are visually shown are the keys to win your audience
heart!
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| Figure 1.6, Poses of Mickey Mouse |
Colour Study
Color is perception. Our eyes see something (the sky, for example), and
data sent from our eyes to our brains tells us it’s a certain color
(blue). Objects reflect light in different combinations of wavelengths.
Our brains pick up on those wavelength combinations and translate them
into the phenomenon we call color.
According to numerous marketing surveys, the right choice of color makes
up 60% of a product or service’s success or failure. As a result, the
right color in any animation will directly impact your clients’ revenue
and lead generation.
As psychologists put it:
"Our subconscious mind is adept at making up meanings from
different colors. If the colors evoke a sense of dislike, we won’t
be happy looking at it."
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| Figure 1.7, Colour schemes |
Week 3
Composition (I)
The lecture begun with a question : Why and how the Instagram photos
look so good? Some answered contrast, emphasis, good use of lighting,
and the flow of direction.
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| Figure 2.1.1, Example of Instagram photos |
General speaking, all these pictures follow the principle of this
magical thing called "composition". Then we were brought to identify
different types of shots.
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Figure 2.2.1, Types of shots |
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| Figure 2.2.2, Use of positive and negative spaces in composition |
Figure 2.2.3, Environmental art compositions
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Figure 2.2.3, Environmental art compositions
Week 4
Composition (II)
Perspectives - Very important specially for environment/layout design.
Paintings before 14th century were rich and beautiful, but looks a bit lowkey "dorky" because of the lack of the knowledge on perspective. Huge difference can be observed between Figure 3.1.1 (without perspective) and Figure 3.1.2 (with perspective).
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| Figure 3.1.1, Paintings before 14th century |
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| Figure 3.1.2, "The Last Supper" |
Perspective is defined as the representation of objects in three-dimensional space on the two-dimensional surface of a picture.
There are several types of perspectives : 1 point, 2 point, 3 point, 4-5 points (Fisheye)
1 point perspective
One point perspective uses one vanishing point placed on the horizon line.
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| Figure 3.2.1, One point perspective |
2 point perspective
Two point perspective uses two points placed on the horizon line.
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| Figure 3.2.2, Two point perspective |
3 point perspective
Three point perspective uses three sets of orthogonal lines and three vanishing points to draw an object.
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| Figure 3.2.3, Three point perspective |
4-5 point perspective
The idea of 4/5 point perspective is that a scene that is contained within a globe shape. The light of the globe is altering your normal perception of the scene and creating a fish-eye view.
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| Figure 3.2.4, 5 point perspective |
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| Figure 3.2.5, Different types of perspectives |
Parallax Effect
Often used in comics, which only introduces layers to depict depth.
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| Figure 3.2.6, Parallax Effect |
INSTRUCTION
TASK 1 / EXERCISE 1 : Vormator Challenge
We were challenged to create a unique character by using a limited set of
shapes. This character
will then be assembled into a trading card game of our own creation. Think
wacky, think creative. Think of stylised designs that truly reflect your
imagination!
Here are the given shapes :
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| Figure 4.1.1, Shapes for Vormator Challenge |
My brain started to spin at light speed trying to generate some ideas.
However, I was stuck. I could only think of some random creatures made up
with these regular shapes. I decided to jump out of the box and stopped
worrying about "Can I make this complex shape?" "Is it possible to be done
in AI?"
I then looked for inspirations at Google, Behance and Pinterest. I wanted
to create a cute character (maybe more feminine, or unisex) with some
magic/power related to nature (water, sun or leaf).
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| Figure 4.1.2, Inspirations taken from Pinterest |
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| Figure 4.1.3, Inspirations taken from Pinterest |
Once I started to sketch, I couldn't stop. I made several versions of
each character, experiment with different apparels, props, and facial
expression. As "nature" is my main concept, I introduced leaves, and flowers in all
characters.
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| Figure 4.1.4, Initial sketch of characters, Week 1 (31/8/2021) |
I chose 3 of my favourite combinations and ink them using Sakura brush
pen. I love all the ideas and I really hope they exist.
Liberleaf
A tiny, cute creature can holds much more negative energy than you can
think of. Any troubles? Bad memories? Pour out your heart, it will help
you to digest the complex emotions and leave you with a calm, relax
mood.
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| Figure 4.2.1, Liberleaf, Week 1 (31/8/2021) |
Hymeria
Have a special power in healing physical wound, as well as
one's heart and soul. It will provide you a series of therapy
by using its props (Earth ball, leaf medicine and relaxing
petals).
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| Figure 4.2.2, Hymeria, Week 1 (31/8/2021) |
Aria Bloom
Here you have an energetic creature to boost your energy!
Consume its energy ball, it helps you recharge and stay
focus for whole day. When the flower on its head booms, the
nature perfume gives you extra rewards! Feel fresh,
stay fresh.
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| Figure 4.2.3, Aria Bloom, Week 1 (31/8/2021) |
I love "Liberleaf" the most, so I chose to digitise it in
Adobe Illustrator. Firstly, I traced the vormator shapes using
pen tool. Then, I experimented with different combinations by
intersecting, rotating and reflecting these simple shapes to
form more complex shapes. I managed to make a circle using the
Drop!
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| Figure 4.3.1, Process of tracing the vormator shapes, Week 2 (2/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.3.2, Circle is formed from the Drop, Week 2 (2/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.3.3, Experimenting with all the shapes, Week 2 (2/9/2021) |
With all the shapes at hand, I put the shapes together and
created the outline of Liberleaf.
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| Figure 4.3.4, Outline of Liberleaf, Week 2 (4/9/2921) |
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| Figure 4.3.5, Intersection of shapes, Week 2 (4/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.3.6, After cleaning up the lines using shape builder tool, Week 2 (4/9/2021) |
Before I move on to the colouring, I did some colour studies and
come up with my own colour palettes. As what have shown in
Figure 4.3.8, I did colouring in Clip Studio Paint first, so I
can preview its colour version.
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| Figure 4.3.7, Colour palettes, Week 2 (5/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.3.8, Colour I, Week 3 (6/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.3.9, Colour II, Week 3 (6/9/2021) |
I decided to use orange for Liberleaf, and light green for its little
entourages. For the leaves, I prefer the blue-purplish version of Figure
4.3.9. To make sure that the orange Liberleaf caught the attention, I
changed it into black and white and see the gradient contrast. I think I
need to slightly darken the orange and increase the saturation to make
it even stands out.
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| Figure 4.4.1, Colouring Process, Week 3 (11/9/2021) |
In week 3, I received some feedbacks from Ms. Anis and Ms. Jennifer,
which is to use a darker background so that my character could stand
out.
I added some noise texture using brush tool preset that I got from the
Internet.
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| Figure 4.4.2, Noise Texture were added, Week 4 (15/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.4.3, Textured brush taken from Internet, Week 4 (15/9/2021) |
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| Figure 4.5.1, Final jpeg for character design, Week 4 (15/9/2021) |
TASK 1 / EXERCISE 2 : Vector Illustration
We are required to create a gamecard design for our character.
I begun my searching journey with a more simple / minimalist
layout design. I think my cute character might be more suitable
in simple card design. For the back of the card, I will create a
pattern/logo in the middle.
Inspirations
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| Figure 5.1, Gamecard Design (Front) Moodboard 1, Week 4 (16/9/2021) |
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| Figure 5.2, Gamecard Design (Back) Moodboard 2, Week 4 (16/9/2021) |
I did a quite sketch based on the minimalism idea. However, I think
this is too simple. I wanted to challenge myself to create a more
complex design.
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| Figure 5.3, First sketch (Front), Week 4 (16/9/2021) |
Here is my another moodboard (refer to Figure 5.4). This time I looked
for tarot design that has interesting borders and more
details.
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| Figure 5.4, Gamecard Design (Front) Moodboard 3, Week 4 (16/9/2021) |
I like the center-based character so I just go with it. I placed its
name on the top and description at the bottom, and added some curvy
branches as decoration, also further enhance the theme of nature. This
also explains why I choose green as my colour palette.
Then, I moved on to the back of the card design. I placed the curvy
branches at the 4 corners of the card, and planned to add a flower/leaf
pattern in the middle.
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| Figure 5.5, Second sketch (Front), Week 4 (17/9/2021) |
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| Figure 5.6, Draft (Back), Week 4 (17/9/2021) |
Colour palette
Figure 5.7 shows the colour palatte I would use for my digitised
gamecard.
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| Figure 5.7, Colour palette, Week 4 (17/9/2021) |
Elements
These are some elements I would like to add in my design. I created
using Pen Tool and Brush Tool of Illustrator. I spent most of the time
adjusting the curves until I am satisfied.
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| Figure 5.8, Elements exploration, Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
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| Figure 5.9, Elements exploration, Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
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| Figure 6.1, Elements exploration, Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
Initially I created a flower pattern for the back of the card design.
When I arranged it in the middle using the alignment tool, I forgot to
group them and as the results, a random pattern was formed. Guess what,
I think this pattern is cool and decided to use it!
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| Figure 6.2, Interesting pattern was formed coincidentally, Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
Typeface Experimenting
I also experimented with different typefaces. The upper one has some
decoration around the texts, but the last letter "f" looks like "l" in
my opinion. So, I prefer the typeface at the bottom.
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| Figure 6.3, Typeface experimenting (Name), Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
Figure 6.4 shows the typeface experiment for the
description.
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| Figure 6.4, Typeface experimenting (Description), Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
Texture
To add details into my design, I've added some swirl branches texture
and used the soft light effect.
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| Figure 6.5, Texture, Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
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| Figure 6.6, Glowing effect, Week 4 (18/9/2021) |
Final Outcome
A tiny, cute creature can holds much more negative energy than you can think of. Any troubles? Bad memories? Pour out your heart, it will help you to digest the complex emotions and leave you with a calm, relax mood. Everyone needs this card!
Figure 7.1, Final Vector Illustration, Week 5
(24/9/2021)
Figure 7.2, Final Vector Illustration in PDF, Week 5 (24/9/2021)
FEEDBACK
Week 2
Have a good sense in designing the characters. Choose 1 out of the 3
sketches and develop it in Adobe Illustrator.
Week 3
Ms. Anis and Ms. Jennifer like my cute
character! They preferred the orange
Liberleaf because orange fits its joyful
attribute. They suggested me to add contrast
to the character by inserting a darker
background.
Week 4
The final character is well done! Now I can move on to work on the game card design. They are okay with the black game card background.
Week 5
Ms. Anis and Ms. Jennifer asked me to decide the typefaces on my own (both looks okay!). My designs are ready for submission!
REFLECTION
Experience
I have a good time working on these two exercises! Although I was struggling to get idea at first, I managed to think out of the box by not restricting my creativity because of those 8 little shapes. I also enjoy creating a background story for my character. I made good use of the importance of nature in psychology, which is to reduce our anxiety and stress.
All and all, these are some good exercises helping me to apply critical and creative thinking to solve the problems I faced in the process.
Observation
The sharing session in live class gave me a chance to learn from my peers. Everyone's ideas are unique! I also learnt a lot of Adobe Illustrator tricks from Ms. Jennifer during the tutorial session.
Findings
I learnt some techniques in using Adobe Illustrator. It is still very new to me, but I believe this is a good start. I also learnt about some theories like compositions and perspectives, which are very useful for every designers.
FURTHER READING
How character color palette can make or break a character design (best tips with examples)
This article shows some tips of colour theory in character design. I learnt about the importance of picking the most suitable colour palette so that the character can leave an ever-lasting impacts on others.