Illustration and Visual Narrative / Task 1

September 27 - November 1 / Week 1 - Week 6

Sheren Princessa Davon / 0362134

Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University

Task 1

LECTURES

Week 1

- Mr Hafiz briefed us to the Illustration and Visual Narrative module, along with joining the Microsoft Teams and Google Classroom

- He talked about the assignments, projects and the e-portfolio

- The first task is a character design in a Pokemon card worth 20% of our grade

- The second task is a minimalist poster worth 20% of our grade

- The third task is a comic panel worth 20% of our grade

- All of our tasks, exercises, and projects will be uploaded in our e-portfolio (the blog)

Week 2

- Mr Hafiz explained the exercise for the Vormator exercise

- Mr Hafiz introduced us to the Curvature Tool on Adobe Illustrator

Week 3

Chiaroscuro

- use of light and dark to create the illusion of 3d volumes on a flat surface

Tonal contrast

- to suggest 3d volume to objects & figures

- used by Leonardo da Vinci

Still Life with Fruit Painting by Caravaggio

purpose: to increase the scene's dramatic tension using color/light contrast

Tenebrism

- painting method using highlights contrasted w a predominantly dark setting

using light to create a "glow" in the paintings

The Taking of Christ painting by Caravaggio

Lowkey lighting

- in films/photography, using lighting to make the audience focus on a certain part

Still from Barry Lyndon

Chiaroscuro is used in visual narrative to:

- increase dramatic tension

- create sensational effect

- attract attention to a certain subject/object

- make tasteful composition: plays the negative vs positive space to create attractive scenes

INSTRUCTIONS

Week 1

Pen tool exercise

Mr Hafiz gave us a link to the Bezier Game in order for us to get the hang of the pen tool. He challenged us to get the car level in 9 nodes, which I completed below.

Fig 1.1 Bezier Game (car level)

Week 2

I used the pen tool and curvature tool to trace out the shapes for the Vormator exercise.

Fig 1.2 Vormator shapes

Fig 1.3 Vormator shapes racing on Illustrator

Week 3

For Week 3, Mr Hafiz introduced us to the Pathfinder tool, the Knife Tool, and the Pencil tool. We learned about Chiaroscuro and we did an exercise with coloring a pear with elements such as lightning and shadows.

Fig 1.4 Pear chiaroscuro on Illustrator

Week 4

Mr. Hafiz taught us about the ShapeBuilder tool, its purpose is quite similar to the Pathfinder tool. We also did an exercise related to the Chiaroscuro but with a person this time.

Fig Chiaroscuro Person Exercise 2

Vormator Challenge

The Vormator Challenge is challenge our creativity and create a character design from the shapes given. We're allowed to duplicate, flip, rotate, scale the shapes, but we are not allowed to distort the shapes in any form.

This is an example of the Vormator Challenge

Fig 1.4 Vormator challenge example

For Week 2-3 we were supposed to come up with a silhouette for the character. This is the character that I came up with:

Fig 1.5 Vormator character silhouette - Week 2

By Week 3, Mr Hafiz taught us about Chiaroscuro and he told us to color in our characters, free to our own imagination and creativity. Below is what I ended up with after experimenting with colors. I ended up with a color palette of blue, purple, and bits of yellow.

Fig 1.6 Vormator character colored - Week 3

Then, I created the background with mountains, however I didn't really like it.

Fig 1.7 First draft of Background - Week 4

Then I decided to recolor the mountains and ground to match the cool color scheme of the character I designed. I also added some shadows to put some depth into the overall work.

Fig 1.8 Vormator with updated background - Week 5

Then, I added the light coming through the portal. I did this by creating a yellow to white gradient shape with the pen tool, then changed the blending mode to "Soft light" and turned down the opacity to 85%.