The Initial Stage – Brainstorming about ME
Here are some sketches I did during the lecture when brainstorming about how I should represent myself. These sketches form my initials “MG”. :)
In the first few sketches, I thought of using roses/flowers to represent myself because my name is Meigui, which sounds like the Chinese pronounciation for rose.
Here’s a really weird sketch I came up with. I was thinking of things that take the curvy “M” shape and the thing that came to mind was a camel’s humps. However, I ditched this idea because a camel doesn’t represent me in any way! In the sketch on the right, the shuttle forms “M” while the badminton racket forms “g”. This quite represents me because I love badminton, it’s been my CCA for 8 years!
And here are some other sketches I came up with. They were all rather random.
Chosen Sketch
And here’s the sketch I chose to work on. I chose to use rose because that’s a nickname that many people call me by (although I really don’t like it) and it’s something most people relate me to.
The rose flower itelf and the stalk forms “g” while the heart-shaped stalk above it forms “M”. I contemplated adding thorns to the stalks of the rose but I’m a really harmless person. :)
Researching
To develop on the thumbnail sketch I drew, I searched the web for illustrations of rose to gain inspiration on the style of drawing.
I could adopt such a style of drawing the rose, using mainly pencil lines and shading to create a more realistic look for the rose flower. The look of the portrait may be grainy or generally soft. However, as what I had in mind was a dark setting, I searched for other styles.
Alternatively, I can use discontinuous shapes to form the rose petals. Here’s an example.
We learned in lecture that although the shapes are discontinuous, the close proximity and the similarity in colours and shapes lead viewers to think that it belongs to a whole. I decided to adopt this style of creating the rose in my work and apply strong, bright colours to bring out its essence admist a darker background. Some shading may be applied to make the image look less ‘flat’.
Drawing the Roughs
I proceeded to sketch some roughs.
I experimented with different colours for the work. Although I thought of using a darker setting, I tried out how it will look in a bright background (for example, clear blue skies and green grass fields). However, I still chose the darker setting in the end because I want to make it appear as if the rose is the only life that sprouts from arid, cracked grounds in a gloomy environment.
Creating the final prototype
As this was my very first assignment, I faced several difficulties using Adobe Photoshop because I had limited knowledge on the application. Thankfully, through the workshops and numerous online Photoshop tutorials, I managed to work on my final prototype slowly.
First, I scanned in my rough sketch and traced it using Adobe Photoshop. Then I applied Live Trace to remove unwanted gray lines and to smoothen my tracing.
To create a cracked ground, I followed an online Photoshop tutorial that teaches how to create the cracked ground effect. First, I drew some lines of varying thickness using thick and thin brushes. Then I selected the entire layer, and changed its “perspective” so that it looks like the ground.
Lastly, I changed the layer blending properties (bevel and emboss – pillow emboss).
For the skies, I created a seperate layer and added in some clouds. (Render – Clouds) to give it a gloomy feel.
When colouring the rose and stalk, I used brighter colours to bring out the stark contrast between the rose and the background.
I also added in a moon in the skies to make it less plain. To do so, I followed this easy Photoshop online tutorial. Photoshop Moon Tutorial (Click to view the Photoshop tutorial for step-by-step instructions on how to create a moon.
The Final Prototype
(Click to enlarge)
Here’s my final prototype for Assignment 1. The strong juxtaposition between the rose and the background serves to signify life amidst the barren land. The primary reason for using a rose is the similarity in pronounciation between my name and rose in Mandarin.
Reflections
This assignment posed the greatest challenge for me because my ideas really ran dry trying to come up with an idea of what things take the shape of my name. During the developmental process, I kept running into the problem that my name may not be well-integrated into the design, which is one of the requirements for this assignment.
Here were some other sketches/roughs that I came up with, which I abandoned because during the critique session, it was mentioned that my name isn’t integrated into the whole design well enough.
I considered working on this and changing the way my name is represented. My peers suggested using rose petals to better incorporate rose in my design. However, for the roses to spell out my name, it appeared messy. I proceeded to cut down the letters from MEIGUI to just MG my initials. I then faced the problem that there is hardly any figure-ground relation and that the face becomes redundant in the design.
After much deliberation, I decided to redo the whole assignment.
This assignment has also provided me with much hands-on practice with Photoshop. I was much more familiar with Adobe Photoshop after this assignment concluded. But there’s still much to improve on! I’ve also come to realise that the internet is a really valuable source for Photoshop tutorials and crash courses to create certain effects that I’m after. :)
