Illustration & Visual Narrative: Task #1 Vormator Character

 26.08.2020 - 04.09.2020 (Week 1 - Week 3)

Seerat Tayyab Mukhtar Qureshi - 0345576 (BDCM)

Illustration & Visual Narrative

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 Lectures

1. Character design and iconic shapes

Lecture 1 slides

We were introduced to our first project task which would be the Vormator challenge. This challenge consists of creating a character from using basic shapes and then later creating a trading card out of the character. Next we learnt on how characters are made iconic through their shapes and colours. Our first task was to find 3 characters with iconic shapes and how the shapes reflect their personality traits. 

In Big Hero 6, Baymax has an iconic and easily recognisable silhouette. He is made up of mostly ovals which gives him a strong basis. Ovals and circles are softer with no hard edges like other shapes such as triangles and squares. This is important to his character as he is shown as a very soft and caring robot. 

Fig 1: Baymax from Big Hero 6
SOURCE: https://bighero6.fandom.com/wiki/Baymax

2. Chiaroscuro

We were introduced to the concept of Chiaroscuro which is the combination of light and shadows to create high contrast.

 

Lecture 2 slides

Miss Noranis then asked us to experiment on Photoshop to try and create a high contrast photo by using the curves tool. 

Fig 1.1: Original photo 

SOURCE: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/319192692372967506/?d=t&mt=login&nic_v2=1aKWQzpY5

Fig 1.2: Experimenting on Photoshop

Fig 1.3: Final result 

Chiaroscuro will be helpful to us in the future when we create our comic and narrative as it is a technique commonly used. A good example would be in Japanese manga where there is a high contrast. I think my final image could have a stronger contrast, however, I still need to learn how to create contrast whilst maintaining the balance

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Tutorial/Practical:

After our introduction to the module and tasks, our lecturer Mr. Faizul gave us a tutorial on some of the features of Adobe Illustrator that would be helpful in our upcoming tasks. We followed along as he traced the outline of a cartoon figure as we would have to do the same for the Vormator challenge.

Challenge instructions

Challenge shapes

We started our next practical by Mr. Faizul showing us how to make basic vector landscapes on Ai. 

Fig 1.4: My vector landscape

We also started the early development of our Vormator character. I started by sketching out some of the basic ideas I had. 

Fig 1.5: My digital sketch

I then experimented on Adobe Illustrator to try and create a proper character in the same why Mr. Faizul had shown us. 

Fig 1.6: My first draft of my character

Fig 1.7: Final character as a JPEG

Fig 1.8: Character Trading Card

I chose a tarot style card for the trading card design. I like it because it was simplistic and the character was quite prominent. I named him The Hellion because a hellion is usually a mischievous person and it matched the personality of my character that I wanted to create. I also added a simple background in the back to complete the card. 

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Feedback: 

W1: We didn't receive any feedback this week as we have not submitted any work yet. 

W2&3: Mr. Faizul gave us advice on our vector landscapes and told us to sketch out 5 landscapes to explore and expand our creativity. 

Reflections:

W1: Looking at the assignments and tasks that we have to do in the future I am feeling a bit overwhelmed as they seem a bit difficult and all the example works we were shown were of a high quality and I want to be able to meet the standard. Besides that, I am also quite excited to create my own characters and give them their own stories later on. I am looking forward to learning new skills as well. 

W2&3: The vormator challenge was a bit scary to me at first since I am not so good at character design. However, once I started on it, it became easier and I actually really enjoyed having the freedom to do any sort of design I want.