Illustration and Visual Narrative - Project 1

Azmina Fathima Haris (0337113)

Illustration and Visual Narrative 
Project 1

Week 1: Introduction

27/08/18

We began our first class with Mr. Hafiz giving us a brief introduction to the module and what software we will be using, primarily Adobe Illustrator. Then, we were taught to use the pen tool, along with keyboard shortcuts by tracing the figures from a file from Google Classroom.

Week 2: Character Design

3/09/18

We were asked to the Vormator challenge, which is to create a character from the traced shapes. We also had to adhere to these rules when doing so: 

- You can rotate, flip and duplicate elements

- You are not obliged to use all the elements

- Scaling is allowed, but only proportionally, so no skewing or free transform

- You can add, subtract, intersect and group elements as you see fit

- The use of colour is unrestricted, you can create your own colour schemes

- You are allowed to use gradients

- The elements may only be filled, the use of strokes is not allowed

- You are not allowed to use filters or effects (e.g. drop shadows).

After some experimenting, I finally came up with this character. I liked the idea of a character being sluggish and harmless most of the time, but a formidable opponent when provoked. 

We were shown a presentation on character design - how we could portray our character's personality and role through the shape of the body or the colours used. For example, the protagonist would be more squarish, the villain would be more triangle-shaped and the side character would be of a rounded form.

In the tutorial session, we learnt how to use the knife tool and pathfinder to add a bit more dimension; with highlights and shadows, to our character. 

Before and after using the knife tool and pathfinder 

Week 3 
14/09/18

In this week's class with Mr. Kannan, we learnt more about another way to use pathfinder - with the shapebuiler tool. We also went over gradient again - adding and removing colours, different types, adjusting the angle and so on.
After the tutorial, we practiced the techniques we learnt for creating shadows on our characters and refined them a bit more. I also showed Mr. Kannan my character and he said it was good, but I could add more highlights.

Final work: after adding highest and refining the shadows.

Week 4 - 5

This week, I began creating the background for my character's Pokemon card. I tried making something similar to a forest, with colours that matched my character's.

Final background with character

Next, we had to laser cut the character and take prints of the actual Pokemon card. 

Laser cut character
(note: colours turned out more green than blue)

Pokemon card, front and back with details of my character

Final work - printed Pokemon card and laser cut character

Link to compilation of progress for the project: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fdVt9rH3gvtjaN3rUhmJo4QTOW9Dv9jYwZeaM0kg76g/edit?usp=sharing