VISUAL NARRATIVE AND ILLUSTRATION - PROJECT 2

VISUAL NARRATIVE AND ILLUSTRATION - PROJECT 2

8/5/2018 - 28/5/2018 week 7 - week 10

Ng Shu Zhi (0327158)

Visual Narrative and Illustration - Project 2 - Decisive Moment

LECTURES
Week 7:  We were briefed this assignemnt

Week 8: Work on the assignment

Week 9: We were taught about composition to give our posters an interesting composition, the examples given in the lecture was Mr Robot with the rule of thirds composition.

Week 10: We learned about the brushes on photoshop and the usage of the mixer brush which can take a sample of something and turn it into a brush which can also mix colours. WORK

concept art for the story and since it was a Spanish urban legend I wanted to go with the ghost being a skeleton according to Hispanic culture and beliefs. 

 I referred to Pixar's Coco for the decorations and ideation for her design.

  as for her dress and hair I had gone with traditional Spanish dresses and hair as I'm not very sure of the exact era this urban legend started.

I also went with a blue colour scheme with cool colours to give that eerie feeling of death. Like someone once taught me "Warm shadows mean live objects and Cool blue shadows mean dead objects." So I stuck to that theory of hers and went with the cooler hues, including the greens too.

Mind map for the story and making storyboards to choose a scene to do from the story. I broke the story up into 5 parts according to the different scenes they're played in. From the beginning in the time when she was alive in the town to her drowned in the river to her in heaven  when they wouldn't allow her to past through because of her sin and her back again at the river as a ghost. 

I chose the scene which I wanted to do which was the infamous part where the ghost drowned the children by the river. At first I tried a piece where she would appear from the river and drag kids in to drown them, then later came up with the idea to just have already drowned children in the river and she is standing in the middle of the river, waiting for her next victim.

So this was the first composition with the idea of having already drowned children with her.

Then after our lecture on composition, I had changed composition of the poster, still keeping the same idea of dead children in the river and the ghost waiting but now using the rule of thirds to give an interesting composition. 

Then I was advised to change the angle of the composition to see the victims first and to use them as a foreground leading the eye to the ghost which is waiting for her next victim. I've also tried a texture in this piece just for testing and it wasn't the best texture to use as it made the poster look detached like a lag.

This was the texture I tested out where the grains were far apart from each other resulting in a grainy detached texture.

Then I added more details like the trees and tints to the image to give it a more eerie feeling and the textures for the art deco look.

This was the texture I used for the final outcome where everything is more blended together.

 The final outcome.

I didn't want to touch the background because of my past experience doing that to the 1st composition, everything became too messy and it was hard to focus on the poster so I only animated the foreground and mid ground. Animating the green tint upwards, I wanted to make something like a foggy effect to make it even more eerie as she is a ghost.

The paint splatter I used to make my brush

The ball colouring and using the mixer brush to take it as a sample to make its own brush.

The outcome of week 10's lessons of learning about brushes and the mixer brush tool's exercises

REFLECTION

Experience:

Week 7: I was very excited for the project, to do the research, find reference material and concept art for the piece. At first it was hard to get the decisive moment for this story because in each of the 5 parts, there is a decisive moment for everyone of them but after discussion with the teacher I was able to settle for the infamous scene of the drowned children.

Week 8: After the lecture on composition, I've realised the composition I chose is very boring so I changed it to be something else which I had planned beforehand but didn't go with which was the ghost by the side of the river. This time I had chosen to go with a more realistic approach like one of the teachers advised me to do.

Week 9: I added details to the piece like the trees and rocks and everything was starting to come together very nicely, the best touch was adding the grainy texture and green tint which gave more atmosphere to the piece.

Observations:

Week 7: I should pay attention to the composition of my pieces as fir the first composition I had rushed it and it came out mediocre.

Week 8: Adding details are important to this assignment, it doesn't take away attention from the main subject but gives a good atmosphere.

Findings:

Week 7: I found that ideation, story-boarding and thumbnails are very important when wanting to make a story. Concept art and colour scheme are helpful as it is the basic need to know what I'm going to be drawing into the thumbnails. 

Week 8: Composition is also very important and I should get the opinions of different people in every stage to get the best outcome. Detailing is also important but it depends on which part, since this assignment is a still piece with little animation and movement, it is okay to have a detailed background but I still find a need for the mid and foreground to be more simple or else people will not know where to look at in the poster. There has to be a contrast when designing a scene to grab the attention of viewers.

Week 9: The little details like tints and fog are also important. The addition of texture is also very helpful as to setting the mood. Finding the right texture for the right mood is even more important to make a well pieced together final outcome.