Illustration and visual narrative - Exercise 1: Vormator Challenge (Task 1)

 25/9/2024 - 11/10/2024 Week 1 - Week 3

Komugi Uchibori / 0363900

Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Exercise 1: Vormator Challenge (Task 1)


LECTURES

Week 1 - No lecture

Week 2 - Character design basics

  • Stylized design
Iconic: immediately recognizable even in silhouettes.
Simplicity: allows one to digest the purpose of the characters.
Unique: not only memorable but impressive.

  • Principal of character design
Shapes: identify characters, combine different shapes & add some weight.
Colour: establish the roles of the characters & give impressions of different emotions. 
Emphasis & Contrast: exaggerate to memorize.
Harmony: complement each element to reflect narrative & character.
Expressions (Poses): easier to appeal to characters' behaviors, quirks, personalities



Week 3 - Chiaroscuro

  • Chiaroscuro 
The use of light and dark to create the illusion of three-dimensional volume on a flat surface. (Italian term means 'light-dark')
the futuristic is clear tonal contrast. The purpose is to increase the scene's dramatic tension by exaggerating the subject's importance using color or light contrast. 

Tenebrism: a type of painting method in which significant details such as faces and hands are illuminated by highlights which are contrasted with a predominantly dark setting. The focus point or subject of a scene is brightly colored.

fig.1-1 The taking of Christ (Caravaggio, 1602)


fig.1-2 Girl With A Pearl Earing (Movie, 2003) and (Vermeer, 1665)

Low-key lighting: a style of lighting for photography, film, or television. It accentuates the contours of the subject by throwing areas into shade while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow area to control contrast.

fig.1-3 Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975)

Chiaroscuro is used in visual narrative which is an excellent lighting choice to differentiate positive vs negative spaces.

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

  • The effects 
Increase dramatic tension
fig.1-4 Houseki No Kuni (Haruko Ichikawa, 2020)


Create sensational effects 
fig.1-5 batman (Bob Kane & Bill Finger)


Attract attention
fig.1-6 Intro the Spiderverse (Sony Pictures, 2018)


Make tasteful compositions
fig.1-7 Moon Knight (Smallwood, Bellaire & Petit)



PRACTICAL & TUTORIAL

Week 1 - No classes

Week 2 - Lab 1 The Pen Tool & Recreating shapes

In this class we played The Bezier Game and got used to knowing how to use the pen tool, especially using Shift and Alt. Moreoner, we recreated shapes given for Task 1, Vormator.

fig.2-1 The Bezier Game



fig.2-2 Recreating shapes



Week 3 - Tracing logo

This week, we learned how to use Pathfinder to recreate the Adidas and Twitter logos. When using Pathfinder, pressing Alt allows me to delete the areas I choose, which saves me time.

fig.2-3 Recreating adidas logo

fig.2-4 Recreating Twitter Logo


VISUAL RESEARCH


One of my favorite characters is Jack Frost from the Megami Tensei series, developed by Atlus. He has a cute and round appearance but also has a cheeky personality and devilish traits, which are reflected in the triangular and sharp shapes in his headgear. His eyes lack light, giving him a mysterious and somewhat creepy vibe because you cannot know what he is thinking. It makes him not only cute but also unsettling. As for the color, yellow is an accent to blue because of its complementary color.


This Pokemon represents a chandelier and gives an elegant impression. The overall appearance is circular and wavy but personally, I think this character is cool rather than cute. However, this has all stylized design elements and is made well. The color plays a role in emitting the opposite atmosphere to cuteness, which is elegance, and mysterious charm that draws you in. Moreover, the stripe on the main body even added stylishness.

INSTRUCTIONS


EXERCISE 1 - Vormator Challenge

Sketch

My ideal concept is basically modeled after a jellyfish. The head and main body parts are spread out, so I balanced the appearance by exaggerating thin arms and legs. I used different shapes for the eye and mouth to give different impressions from the head and body parts.

fig.3-1 Sketch


Digitalization

In this section, it took a lot of time. I was deciding what kind of shape, based on my sketch, I could use while exploring. There are four circles in the character's head, but it was difficult for me to recreate the circles, so I changed the design a bit, creating brain-like circles. The distorted circles needed more shapes than I had expected. As for the other parts, I made them by adjusting the size and direction.


fig.3-2 Only stroke

Final Vector

The design has changed slightly due to the changes I made, but I think you can still see the atmosphere I was trying to convey, with a hint of a slightly grumpy expression within the cute shapes like curves.

fig.3-3 Final vormator


Extra

I tried to add the shadow and some detail, however, I was not sure how it looked more three-dimensional by shading. So I added some of them and experimented. For the shadow in the curve part, I compiled circles and used Pathfinder to cut them off. I think I mastered basic pathfinder skills so I'll try to use it more effectively to save time and understand shape combining. Plus Studying how to shadow through sketch or something.


fig.3-4 Compiling circles


fig.3-5 Adding shadow


fig.3-6 Vormator with some details


FEEDBACK

Week 2 - Use different shapes without distorting the original shapes.

Week 3 - If you like challenge Pathfinder to add some details and save works as PNG.

REFLECTION

At first, I was very confused that we had to make characters with limited shapes. This task is kind of a puzzle for me, but I have no sense of combining shapes, so it took a long time to create a silhouette. On the other hand, I like to explore how to use each tool, which makes me concentrate on this task. So the next stage is using it more effectively when I shape. As for the character design, It was my first time designing a Monster, so I searched for some examples on Pinterest and got to know the shape, position, etc. In the end, I used jellyfish as a basic model.

 I tried to do an extra task which is using pathfinder and adding shadow and some detail. I could learn the basic skills of Pathfinder, but the most struggle thing for me was where I should add the shadows. I think this cause is simply a lack of basic observation or Spatial awareness so I have to learn about it through drawing and observation while getting used to using AI.

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