ILLUSTRATION AND VISUAL NARRATIVE

June 14, 2018

ILLUSTRATION AND VISUAL NARRATIVE | PROJECT 1

07/05/18 - 30/06/18 | Week 7 - Week 10
Yeoh Xiao Shi (0331577)
Illustration & Visual Narrative
Project 1 - That (Decisive) Moment

INSTRUCTIONS

PROJECT 1

Week 7
(07/05/18)

This week, we were assigned to our first project - That (Decisive) Moment. We were required to come out with an animated illustration for the urban legend in an art deco style. The legends can be either local or international. Our first task for this project is to do some researches on the urban legends and choose one of it to work with.

The story that I choose is a Shanghai urban legend called The Dragon Pillar of Yan'an Elevated Highway. To know the story better, I have read through the stories for few times in different website.

Here is the summary of the story below :

The Dragon Pillar of Yan’an Elevated Highway

Fig1.1: Story of the urban legend chosen.

Week 8

(14/05/18)

In this week class, Mr Hafiz went through with our urban legends and gave some feedbacks one by one. Then, we were told to start compiling the ideas and put it in slides which we will need to submit with animated illustration at last. We were also told to find the turning point of the urban legend that we choose and do some sketches on it.

Fig.1.2: Mind map.

Fig.2.1: Mind map.

Fig.2.2: References for the dragon pillar.

Fig.2.3: Mood board.

(17/05/18)

In the same week, we had a practical class with Mr Kannan to update our progress for this project. I showed the sketches and explaining my ideas to him. The turning point of this story is when the monk was invited to the site and discover there is a dragon lurking under the pillar. Then, the monk agree to perform the praying ceremony to invite the dragon out from the pillar. However, the monk found out death with unknown reason after the praying. To animate the turning point, my idea is to use the fade in and fade out concept by changing the opacity of the colour. The dragon fade in to represent the moment it came out and the monk fade out to represent the moment of his death. After listening to my idea, Mr Kannan said that it does show the decisive moment and he also reminded me to consider the frame for it as we were not allowed to do more than 5 frames.

Fig.3.1: Sketches.

Fig.3.2: Sketches.

Fig.3.3: Sketches.

Week 9

(21/05/18)

After sketching my final idea, I transferred it to Adobe illustrator and start to trace the drawing. Later on, I start adding colour to my drawing by refering to the colour of the mood board. It took me a lot of times to trace the drawing and colour it as there are lots of details in the drawing.

Fig.4.1: Trace the drawing at Adobe Illustrator.

Fig.4.2: Move on to colour the drawing.

Fig.4.3: Outcome after adding colour with the colour scheme.

I moved on to make the frame for animation once I finish colouring it. I made it into 5 frames and changed the opacity of the colour for the monk and also the dragon in each frame. Then, I transfer all the art boards to Photoshop and start creating the animation.

Fig4.4: Frames for animation. (first attempt)

Fig.4.5: First attempt for this animation.

Week 10

(28/05/18)

This week will be the deadline for this project. Mr Hafiz had checked on the progress and commented on our work. He said that I need to add more lights and shadows to create the depth so it will looks nicer. After adding lights and shadows on some parts, I showed it to Mr. Kannan for some feedbacks since I have no idea on how to create the depth with lights and shadows. He showed me that I could actually use gradient,transparency and pathfinder tool in Adobe Illustrator to create the lights and shadows.