Illustration and Visual Narrative | Task 1: Exercises (Vormator and Game Card Design)
Vormator Challenge
We were introduced to our first task: the vormator challenge. This challenge
was to design a unique character using limited shapes. There was quite some
freedom given; we were allowed to duplicate, scale and rotate the shapes and
use any colours we like.
Figure 1.1: Vormator challenge elements, Week 1 (27/8/21)
Inspiration
Figure 1.2: Inspiration Board, Week 2 (3/9/21)
First I went to Pinterest and gathered designs and ideas that inspired me. I
was leaning more towards cuter and animal-like designs.
Ideas & Sketches
Idea #1: Freesia
Figure 1.3: Sketch progression of Freesia, Week 2 (3/9/21)
The first idea I had in mind was a plant-based bird. I knew I wanted it to be
vibrant and colourful, but not resembling a parrot. When deciding its name and
story, I decided to make it a 'healer' type character. Hence, I used more
round shapes and more greens. The name 'Freesia' was taken from a flower of
that name; the flower symbolized innocence and purity, which is what I had
imagined this character to behave like. As its main job is to heal (and
perhaps, accompany, like a support :D), it should have no ill-intent. The
shapes used in this were quite obvious, hence, I did not outline them.
Idea #2: Lullaby
Figure 1.4: Sketch progression of Lullaby, Week 2 (3/9/21)
This design took inspiration from fictional characters, such as the Night
Light dragons from How to Train Your Dragon and Bruni from Frozen 2, as well
as seahorses and axolotls. Like the previous design, I started this by
attempting to build it from the shape. I experimented with overlaying more
shapes to create more weird and unique shapes. I started off with a
tadpole-like shape but decided it did not look that great so I took
inspiration in the shape of seahorses. The slight slant and curl of the tail
make it seem like it's tucked nicely in bed, hence, I named it Lullaby and
decided it can help someone sleep better :).
Idea #3: Kairi
Figure 1.5: Sketch progression of Kairi, Week 2 (3/9/21)
I struggled to come up with another design, so I asked people around me
for different animals. My favourite suggestion was a beta fish, which had
these large, flowy, and vibrant tails. I also had the image of the pokemon
'Rapidash' in mind, but I made it with a body pattern of a whale instead.
As the theme was aquatic, I made the shield around its waist based on the
armour of 'Nami' from League of Legends.
The process for this was different from the previous two designs. I
started off with the organic shapes and design first and then only made
the shapes fit in the design. There were a lot more overlaying shapes to
achieve the shape of its body, flowy mane, and tail. I chose the name
'Kairi' as it meant 'ocean village' in Japanese, which portrayed an image
of a warrior protecting its village in the ocean.
Bonus: Card Designs!
Figure 1.6: Card design sketches, Week 2 (3/9/21)
Feedback: Ms Noranis suggested that I go with Freesia and incorporate
it into Adobe Illustrator.
A little secret: I actually liked Kairi a little more than Freesia (only
by a little, I love them all), but I realised to actually digitize it with
the Vormator shapes will take me much much longer than a week as
there were more complex shapes :(.. I vow to finish it during my free time
and I shall update when the time comes.
Digitalization
Figure 2.1: Progression, initial flat shapes (top left), with black line
art (top right), shading and depth (bottom left), shape outlines (bottom
right), Week 2 (6/9/21)
I followed Ms Jennifer's tutorial and traced the vormator shapes using the
pen tool in Illustrator. After getting the shapes needed, I arranged it and
assigned the appropriate colours to it, creating the first draft of Freesia
in Fig 2.1 (top left) and it already looked adorable :D. I felt that it
lacked contrast even though it was colourful, hence, I tried to add a thin
black line art to distinguish each shape from others. It looked better but
line art was not encouraged, so I decided to try out gradients and added
more layers of shapes to make the character less flat. I ended up with the
fully shaded character and was satisfied with it. I then proceeded to
explore different colour schemes, sourcing palettes from Pinterest.
Figure 2.2: Colour scheme exploration 1, Week 2 (6/9/21)
Aside from the original colour scheme, I tried out a more desaturated
palette (2) and another one that was completely different from the original
one (3).
Figure 2.3: Colour scheme exploration 2, Week 2 (6/9/21)
As if the above wasn't enough, I also attempted colour schemes with cooler
colours. For the variations in Fig 2.3, the main experimentation was to try
out and see which colours matched the dark blues the best.
Feedback: Colour-wise it was suggested to keep the original as it
fits the character and 'birds of paradise' more. The blue in the original
can be made to have more contrast.
From the feedback I altered the blue. I also adjusted Freesia's green were
to be on the cooler side to not clash with the bright orange wings and added
a small heart on its chest (it's so cute :D!!).
Final Vormator Character:
Figure 2.4: Final Vormator Character, "Freesia", Week 3 (13/9/21)
Game Card
For the card design, we were instructed to design a tarot-sized card for our
character. I did not follow the tarot size in Fig 1.6 (stupidly), so I
decided to redesign the card elements to fit the dimensions better. But
first, inspiration board.
Inspiration
Figure 3.1: Game card inspiration board, Week 4 (15/9/21)
As I had sketched out an idea before, I kind of knew the direction I wanted
to go with, which involved a forest background. However, upon stumbling on
the image at the far right, I wanted to try something that plays with a kind
of 'royal' shape and negative spacing.
Sketches
I extended the forest background to cover the whole tarot card while
tweaking it to have clear foreground, midground and background
definition.
Figure 3.2: Tarot card sketches (front), Week 4 (16/9/21)
I started with creating rough shapes of colours instead of line-art to fit
Freesia's vector style. At first, I thought to just create a 'framing' with
the most foreground trees and leaves, but I felt I can do something a little
extra, hence, the negative spacing and golden borders. The white shapes were
made to be 'straighter' and more jagged to contrast Freesia's general soft
shape. Only after I was satisfied with the layout, I traced a line-art over
each layer to refer to in Illustrator.
Figure 3.4: Tarot card initial sketch (back), Week 4 (16/9/21)
I liked the idea of inter-weaving geometric patterns, it felt fitting to the
front of the card as well. At the centre I tried to create a winged symbol in
resemblance to Freesia as a bird but it didn't really feel right. I then came
across a cool spades design (refer Fig 3.1, bottom right) and thought the
shape of spades will fit really well in the centre, almost like a heart in
disguise. Other than that, I began to search for potential words to place as
the main statement/characteristic of the card; something that relates to
healing. I was ecstatic to find out that such a perfect word exists:
THERAPEUO.
I contemplated whether I should add more detail to the illustration to better
show the lighting and texture of the trees and leaves. However, I ended up not
doing it because 1) It will take a lot more time and 2) Most of it is covered
either by the extra elements or Freesia :,). I also learnt how to make use of
the 'Type to Path' tool for the 'HEALER' word at the top.
A little insight behind THERAPEUO
In Greek, it is the most common word used that means 'to heal, cure or to
restore to health'. So this already fits the role Freesia was intended to
portray. Moreover, in the New Testament, it has a deeper and broader
definition, also meaning 'to serve or to do service'. I felt that it adds a
little more depth to Freesia's character: it isn't just there to heal and
leave after it has done its job, but to also stay until full health is
restored and it bids its service to you in full loyalty.
Wait, there's more!
Remember the spades in the center? It looks empty without a letter or design
in it. A design would make this complicated design even more complicated, so
a letter is better. And what letter sits right smack in the middle of
THERAPEUO? The letter 'A'!! Which can be an Ace, as in the Ace of Spades
(mind blown?!?!) :D! You can tell I was in awe of this perfect
coincidence.
Figure 3.5: Tarot card full sketch (back), Week 4 (16/9/21)
Figure 3.6: Final tarot card sketches, Week 4 (16/9/21)
Digitizing
With that, I started tracing the background, all in separate layers.
Figure 3.7: Forest background vectorized, Week 4 (16/9/21)
Figure 3.8: Forest background with extra elements, Week 4 (16/9/21)
Figure 3.9: Tarot card vectorized (front), Week 4 (16/9/21)
I moved on to the back of the card and it was, surprisingly, much easier
than I thought. I just had to trace one quadrant and use the power of Ctrl C
+ Ctrl V :D. The trickier part was the spades and the aligning the words
'THERAPEUO'. I went with the Futura Std typeface as it was narrow. There
wasn't really any extra description added for Freesia as I imagined it to be
a sort of collection type of card instead of a playing card.
Figure 3.10: Tarot card vectorized (back), Week 6 (16/9/21)
Feedback: Some sort of texture can be added to the back of the card;
the dark green part (which will be shown in the practical)
I added a 'mosaic tile' texture but the dark green was...too dark to be
visible. So I added on different textures to other parts of the cards. The
back design had more play area for textures compared to the front.
Figure 3.11: Close up on added textures, Week 4 (18/9/21)
Final Tarot Card Design:
Hover me! (Or touch the bottom corners if you're using phone)
Figure 3.12: Final Tarot card design - Freesia, Week 4 (18/9/21)
Reflection
Experience
Designing with limited shapes in mind was more difficult than I thought. However, it was an interesting challenge as I rarely design animal characters and the process of experimenting and story-making was something that I kept thinking of at the back of my mind. While I did not totally go out of my comfort zone, I feel that designing characters and thinking of their background was something a little new for me. I have illustrated cards for a client before, but it was for a fantasy role-playing game, so I did not want to have something similar to that.
Looking at the work as a whole, I think I had a very strong subconscious (the irony) pokemon-type designs as inspiration too. The research and execution process for the back design was very fun to do as well~
Observation
I realised how useful this challenge is in getting you familiarized with
Illustrator, especially with the pen tool; started from the bottom now I'm
somewhere in the middle. It is almost perfectly designed to let your
creativity flow yet teach the proper function of the software.
Finding
Adobe Illustrator is scary powerful, symmetry never looked so perfect and
vectors are so so so much better to manipulate that rasterized objects. It
was very interesting to see what other peers came up with, so many of them
had great ideas that I would have never imagined!
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