better late then never

our group was probably one of the latest to meet up.  we first met up a day before the tutorial for the final assignment, and managed to come up with a story that we could agree with.

we settled on a futuristic theme during the meeting and we quickly got to work.  i came up with a quick concept for the overall setting.

original concept art for unnamed future city

the features of the city includes 

1) higher ground - high tech futuristic architecture with flying cars, domes, etc etc

2) lower slums - older architectures, even slum-like architecture with junk yards and dumps

the setting was inspired by movies (District 9, Batman Begins, Skyline), games (Final Fantasy 7 and 8) and even novels (Dune Series).

When we met up again, I was assigned the role of designing backgrounds.  I was happy to get this role as I was not as good at drawing detailed objects, and better at landscape objects and its details.  i was required to do 4 locations: future city, slums, school, junkyard

city skyline

junkyard

school and classrooms

slums 

Other backgrounds (which reused previous concepts):

night skyline of future city with home background

side view of alley and dark alley (both in slums)

It was pretty fun conceptualizing backgrounds and creating them.  At times, I think I created too much detail to the danger of possibly overshadowing the foreground, but I hope that through coloring and touching up the backgrounds could appear to be less dominant.

somewhere over the rainbow....

assignment 6 was one of the harder assignments.  first of all, i wasn't able to understand the requirements well.  secondly, choosing a set of lyrics/quote that could easy make use of a myriad of typefaces and variations in typography was pretty difficult.

eventually, my playlist for the night made the decision.  i was listening to jason mraz's cover of "somewhere over the rainbow".  with my memories of the original wizard of oz, I decided to use this song for my assignment

someplace where there isn't any trouble
do you suppose there is such a place, Toro
there must be
its not a place you can get to by a boat or a train
its far far away
behind the moon
beyond the rain....
~ Dorothy, before singing the song


This quote sets the mood for the whole song.  Its about being free from troubles and going to someplace far away and relaxing.  With this mood and feeling (something which I was NOT feeling during the time of the assignment), I set out to complete my assignment.

I didn't get much comments again this time around cos time was running out.  Julian just asked me to do more.

the added criteria of allowing for 2 A3 papers would allow me to expand on this assignment.  I would now try to use more different font faces, and add more pictures and actions.  With 2 papers allowed, I would split up two stanzas which I both wanted to use but had problems creating it in one pictures.

in order to communicate my feeling and mood, I wanted it to seem like your troubles started from the chimney and slowly flew into the skies.  I tried to use continuity to direct the flow of reading.

i like the idea, but i don't really like the outcome. will be splitting it into two pages.

i wish it were summer right now

when i started on the assignment, i knew i didn't want to do christmas or new years.  originally i wanted to try to still keep in theme (yes! i actually had a theme), which was the whole running thing.

i actually felt it would be a good chance to experiment with color schemes because of the lack of colors (medal - 1-2 colors, string 3 colors, background 1 color).  but eventually, i found it tame and decided to think of something else.  moreover, i'm quite sad for losing the theme.  i initially wanted to do a running-stalker story for the photo assignment, and blisters & wearing proper footwear for the poster assignment.  i might actually try them for fun! (the list of to-dos from this module is getting longer and longer :S julian wasn't joking when he asked us to get it right the first time)

i like the idea of the whole warmth and cold colors from the presentation, and i wanted to do a piece that could convey temperature and climate.  so i thought of doing a summer greeting card! (cause the school is totally concerned about us enjoying a great summer vacation right? :S)

very first idea. then i decided to apply closure on the right eye

final mock up

color schemes!

i was quite happy to see my work quite well received! (at least for the first 30 minutes I was awake, subsequently i dozed off cos i did it over the night)

without light, warm sun, neon, cool breeze were generated automatically with illustrator's color scheme color wheel function.  after experimenting with those, i found out that i actually disliked the products from it so i stopped and manually chose colors for my 4 remaining pieces

i tried triad, split complementary but i didn't like both.

so most of my work is monochromatic, complementary and analogous.

things i want to experiement with:

1 high contrast piece

1 combination of hot and cold

1 traid

1 split complementary

some notable comments for improvement:

1. the hat looks like hair to several people. perhaps i could add more details?

2. warm sun is not warm enough.  lacking the range of warm colors i.e. darker orange, yellow, red.  i think i split this into 4, one for each color (orange, yellow and red) and combine them into one warm sun.  the existing one cane be converted into orange

3. sunny is a little dull :(

4. the sunglasses could be improved.  firstly i could add reflective ";" to the sides of the lens, and maybe reduce the transparency (yes, i did actually add a layer of transparent lens colors)

5. the white hat doesnt really make "logical" sense in dawn.  i might move the white hat to without light?

i'm surprisingly pleased with dusk and night. for my final product i'm gonna go with either sunny, day or dusk. although both sunny and day need to become more summery!

thanks for the feedback! this is one of the first assignment i'm more pleased with.

so all in all, i will try to add in 7 more (high contrast, red, yellow, orange, combination of hot and cold, triad, split complementary) and edit 4 (neon, day, sunny, warm sun).

if possible i will add details to the hat and glasses.