Illustration and Visual Narrative - Exercises

27.08.18 - 08.10.18 (Week 1 - Week 7)
Tamara Audrey Saputra (0335846)
Illustration and Visual Narrative
Exercises

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Lectures 

Week 1: Introduction

27.08.18 (Week 1)

Our first class began with an introduction to the module and the medium of communication the lecturer will use, in this case, Google Classroom. Our lecturer, Mr. Hafiz wanted us to really get used to the usage of Pen Tool in Illustrator as this will be an extremely essential tool in the design field. Hence, our first exercise is to trace out the Vormator objects and create a character out of these set of objects. Vormator was actually a challenge to showcase how limitations could trigger the best out of our creativity.¹

fig 1.1: The Vormator Challenge

fig. 1.2: Tracing Result

Week 2: Character Design

03.09.18 (Week 2)

This week's lecture we were taught that by infusing stereotypes into our character designs allow us to communicate our character's role/personalities better to our audience. May it be from the exaggeration of a specific part of the body or the form-stereotype. Often times, in cartoons the male lead's form is often square-ish and the villain is depicted in a more triangular form. Meanwhile, supporting characters are commonly associated with circle or bean form.

We were also told that we have to be able to identify our targeted audience before we proceed with our characters as it determines the visual or art style of it. 

As for the tutorial class, we were taught how to use pathfinder in order to create additional shapes from the existing Vormator shapes as well as adding colors and creating shadows using the knife tool.

fig 2.1: Before and After Shadows and Highlights are added

Week 4

18.09.18

This week Mr. Kannan Introduced us to Blob brush which will come in handy for our vormator's background and future assignments. Hence, I tried to create my background in Illustrator and add filters in Photoshop to give it a more dramatic effect.

Fig 3.1: Illustrator Process

Fig 3.2: Photoshop Process

Fig 3.3: Background Result

Week 5: Chiaroscuro

25.09.18

This time the exercise is about Chiaroscuro, where the focus is emphasized on the highlights and shadow. I used pen tool and knife tool to accomplish this exercise.

Fig 4.1: Referenced Photo

Fig 4.2: Result

Week 7: Transitions

08.10.18

We were introduced to the 5 main types of transitions that we will have to use in our second project. E.g. aspect-to-aspect, moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, and scene-to-scene.

Later on, Mr. Hafiz gave us a comic strip that we have to deduce it into 5 different transitions we have already learned.

Fig 5.1: Comic Strip

Fig 5.2: Exercise

Week 8

15.10.18

This week, Mr. Kannan thought us how to paint in Photoshop. He taught us how to give shadings to a ball in order to make it more alive. Other than that, he also taught us how to give texture to an object.

Fig 5.1: Ball shadows and highlights

Fig 5.2: Adding Texture

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Instructions

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1 THE VORMATOR CHALLENGE. (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2018, from http://www.blindelephantcollective.com/2010/03/vormator-challenge.html^↩