Illustration and Visual Narrative: Project 2 - Decisive Moment

7.5.2021 - 28.5.2021 (Week 6 - Week 9)
Wendy Seto / 0348805
COM61304 Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 2: Decisive Moment

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LECTURES

Week 6: This week, Ms. Anis introduced us to our second project. We were assigned to design a minimalist poster of a decisive moment from any kind of narrative like movie, manga, game etc.

Week 7: Public Holiday.

Week 8: Mid-Semester Independent Learning Week.

Week 9: Today, we did not really have a lecture. Mr. Kannan was only giving his feedback on some of the submitted students work for project 2 so we can still improvise before the submission deadline. However, I have not finished mine yet so I did not ask for any feedback. Hopefully my work is okay though.

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INSTRUCTIONS

PRACTICAL

1. Visual Research: 

fig 1.1 visual research from google and pinterest

I think I am obsessed with these minimalist poster designs now, they are very pleasing to the eye somehow. From my visual research, I found that the key to succeed on creating a minimalist design is to actually make it as simple as possible.

2. Idea Exploration:

#1 Trina "The One Woman Show" scene from Victorious, Episode 5: "Jade dumps Beck"

fig 2.1 idea #1

This was the scene I had first in mind when thinking of an iconic scene from my favourite show. However, Miss. Anis told me that iconic and decisive moment are a completely different thing. When I show her the clip she said she was lost and had no idea what was going on. It breaks my heart to hear that since Victorious is like one of the best series that has ever existed. But maybe she has to watch the entire series to understand why I love this show so much. Dear Miss. Anis,  if you are reading this please at least try to watch an episode, I promise you will not regret it. A sitcom can never go wrong :p

#2 Pokémon egg hatching moment

fig 2.2 idea #2

At this point, I had probably overthink about the word decisive moment. Ms. Anis explained that a decisive moment is a moment that impacted the plot or changed the story narrative. But why did this Pokémon egg hatching came to my mind in the first place though hahahaha I am laughing so hard when I am writing this. Well, basically after the egg given by the professor is hatched, our character will have their first Pokémon and the adventure starts here so I think it is a decisive moment. Just imagine if the egg did not hatched, our character is most likely to be watching TV at home and the game will have a completely different story plot or worse there might be no game at all. 

#3 Glitching Vanellope from Wreck-it Raplh

fig 2.3 idea #3

Disney Wreck-It Ralph is one of my favourite animation ever! So I tried to remember a decisive moment from the movie that I can use for this project and this is what I came up with. Remember when Vanellope started to glitch and then she is forbade from the race by King Candy? In order to reset the game and stop her glitch she has to win the race, otherwise she will be stucked in the game forever. This changed the story to her fighting her own glitch, so I am pretty sure it is one of the decisive moment from the movie.

#4 Charlie found the golden ticket on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

fig 2.4 idea #4

I cannot remember how many times have I watched this movie since I was a kid but anyway when Charlie opens the chocolate wrapper and finally found the golden ticket to the chocolate factory that he has been looking for, all viewers must be so happy for him because I do. This scene has a very strong narrative in my opinion. I can already imagine illustrating the chocolate bar for the poster, and a red coloured background would be perfect to get the feels. However, I am not sure what to animate here, maybe the wrapper being ripped? 

#5 Yoon Se Ri parachute crashes landing in North Korea from Crash Landing on You, Episode 1

fig 2.5 idea #5

This is definitely a decisive moment. Yoon Se Ri is a CEO of her own fashion and beauty company in South Korea, she is independently wealthy and living a luxurious life.. However, when she went paragliding there was a tornado that blew her to North Korea and this accident changed her life.

#6 The flying house in The Wizard of Oz

fig 2.6 idea #6

A scene from one of the greatest movie of all time, The Wizard of Oz. This scene is quite similar to the previous idea, it has the same element, a tornado. A scene where Dorothy is sent to the Island of Oz through a tornado that blown her house away, this completely changed the story plot and her journey made her realize how much she actually misses her home.

#7 Kotobuki awaring Hoshino to walk in the right path in GALS!, Episode 1.

fig 2.7 idea #7

This anime was adapted from a manga with the same name. I have read all the 10 mangas but only have watched a few episodes of the anime. This scene is one of the most important moment in GALS!, it was how Kotobuki and Hoshino became friends. Hoshino was desperate that her parents are so strict to her that made her took the wrong path to earn money but Kotobuki succeed on making her come to her sense.

#8 Shinku first appearance in Rozen Maiden, Episode 1

fig 2.8 idea #8

The scene when Jun opens one of the packages he received and find this doll. Shinku presence changed his life where suddenly he became the master of the fifth Rozen Maiden and involved in many of their battles.

#9 Naruto first successful shadow clones in Naruto Shippuden, Episode 1

fig 2.9 idea #9

Naruto being able to do the shadow clone jutsu in the first episode is a decisive moment. This anime is very emotional, everyone underestimated Naruto since the beginning and distant theirselves because they believe that a part of the nine-tailed demon fox lives in him. Naruto dreams on becoming the next Hokage so everyone will look up and respect him. Unfortunately, he failed passing the shadow clone jutsu test to graduate from the Ninja Academy. This upset him that he will never be able to become a Hokage. Later on, when he is trying to save Iruka Sensei he somehow succeed on creating his own clone, solid shadow clones and not only one but thousands. This triumph makes him graduate and become a Genin, he now can continue his journey on becoming the next Hokage.

Wow I have never did this many idea exploration before, but this project is really fun like there are a lot of possibilities which made me very indecisive. Mmm, should I add one more to make it ten? Hahaha. I finally decided to use the idea #6 to finalize my poster design, it was a long way to reach this stage but I am glad that I did some exploration.

3. Idea Visualization

3.1 References

fig 3.1.1 the decisive moment I want to visualize as a minimalist poster design

fig 3.1.2  extra pictures for references

3.2 Illustrating: 

fig 3.2.1 illustrating the house based on reference one 27/05/21

fig 3.2.2 illustrating another house based on reference two 27/05/21 

I then decided to go with the first design.

fig 3.2.3 illustrating other sides of the house and trying out different colour combination 27/05/21

fig 3.2.4 illustrating the tornado 28/05/21

fig 3.2.5 creating the rest of the tornados and attempting on more colour combination 28/05/21

3.3 Adding Typography:

I went to dafont.com to find a typeface that is suitable for my poster design and installed these 3 typefaces under the name Oz.

fig 3.3.1 searching for the right typeface to use 28/05/21

I then decided to not use any of them but instead this typeface called "Roskell". 

fig 3.3.2 my final typeface selection 28/05/21

fig 3.3.3 adding title and additional information (the producer media company) 28/05/21

I created two different typography compositions and asked the people around me to vote which one do they prefer. Actually it was 50 50, but then I go with the right one (the one I created on fig 3.3.3). 

fig 3.3.4 two different typography compositions 28/05/21

fig 3.3.5 applying the same thing to the rest of the frames 28/05/21

fig 3.3.6 final decisive moment poster design in pdf 28/05/21

3.4 Animating

I attempted to animate in Adobe Photoshop before adding the typography to see how the final animation might look like using the frames from fig 3.2.5 with the third colour combination.

fig 3.4.1 animation timeline 28/05/21

fig 3.4.2 GIF draft 28/05/21

I think that the animation can be better if each of the frame tilt angle is slightly different so I decided to do an adjustment back to Adobe Illustrator which resulted as shown on fig 3.3.4.

After adding the typography, I did another attempt on animating the poster design. Still with the same time delay; 0,1 seconds for each frame. If you notice, the typography also has a slight animation on it.

fig 3.4.5 final animation timeline 28/05/21

fig 3.4.6 final decisive moment poster GIF

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REFLECTION

This project is really fun, it makes me want to create more minimalist poster design in the future. Compared to the previous exercises, I am pretty sure that I spent less time working on this project. Illustrating the poster design is not as complicated as the vormator challenge since this time the concept is more simplified which does not require a lot of details. The most challenging part is probably animating it, I have to think of what can I animate and how to actually realizing it without making the decisive moment less decisive. Minimalism aims for simplicity which captures the less in more, I love this kind of artwork so much.