Monday, October 17, 2011
I was asked by Nicole the other day to help do a blog design for her Uni Lit project regarding Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which argues that "the inclusion of zombies into the narrative is not one of
intrusion, but rather, this seemingly unnatural inversion is native to the
social critique that Austen enacts in Pride and Prejudice."
I guess we can just concern ourselves with Zombies and old English surroundings, to simplify things.
As in the Malay Dance Project, this kind of topic wasn't something I had attempted before, so I felt inclined to give it a go. She had provided reference photos from both the internet as well as the original book, (I always thought those were devoid of pictures) all of which showed more traditional drawing styles. Knowing that wasn't something I could do, much less attempt in a short span of time, I looked elsewhere for inspiration. Thankfully, I remembered I had kept A Horrible Histories book on *ahem* The Barmy British, something of Secondary School days. So this is what I did.
Here's the result of flipping through the pages and snapping pictures I felt were useable. They were cropped and pasted in rough locations without yet having a concept of how to blend them together.
Subsequently, I traced them out quickly, conjured a setting and filled in some colour. I felt for good measure, though, I should check if I was on the right track. It was quite obvious I wasn't, since it lacked that gothic charm, the old school drawing style and a required sense of seriousness to a uni project. Still, time wasn't on my side, and I felt maybe throwing off the professor for a bit could yield some results.
The man at the side was changed to a woman upon request, I tried to adapt a movie still of Lady Catherine into the same cartoon drawing. Not sure how well that turned out, though. The drawing of her reminds me of how I used to draw cartoons back in secondary school days.
Colour was filled in once the line art was neatened up. I tried to go for darker colours, as Nicole requested.
The crinkle paper effect, giving more texture to the drawing.
The footer was added later. As you can see, he's the same dead fellow whom I originally intended for the header. He looks much more natural here though. In his element, if I may say so.
The finished blog is located here. (I'll add a link once it's up)
Labels: blogskin, design, drawing
posted by joseph at 11:50 AM
Friday, September 16, 2011
I've just finished doing more design work for two new projects that I was tasked with by the ship. One is a small job, designing an emblem for the Best Sailor award given by our Squadron. The other is for a 20th anniversary event for the Flotilla. But first, the award.
This award is something new introduced by the Squadron, and it follows closely behind what our ship also introduced at the start of the year. As to whose idea it was, I have no clue.
Every season, or every three months, about five ratings (as in ME1, whose equivalent would be 3SG - 2SG in the old scheme, as well as NSFs) would be singled out from the Ship's Company by the Officers and Chiefs of Departments. What they'd look out for, I imagine, are qualities such as being hardworking, reliable, and simply doing above and beyond others. Subsequently, they'd be subjected to a mass vote by the rest of the ship's company, open to everyone, on a sheet of paper pasted in a passageway. The Best Sailor gets a nice plaque, a not-so-nice certificate, and a yet-to-be-finalised one day off.
So far, there've only been two seasons worth of sailors nominated. I kid you not, I was on the list for the very first season. And I was the only NSF on that list. I got kicked off that list when my iPod incident came to light. That, and my 14 extras.
But I digress. This squadron's one aimed to have an emblem to boot, and it goes that they had delegated the job to some clerk to design something. I was told the design was an anchor with an 'S' overlaid on it. Suffice to say, they felt it wouldn't do. Our Coxswain, or CSM equivalent, happened to be chummy with the Squadron Coxswain, and said he'd get his crew to do it. Two other guys and I were arrowed, of which verdict was left to the Sqn Coxn to decide whose to pick.
Truth is, I didn't put in 5mins of work in that. I put quite a lot of effort into thinking something up, much more than it took to execute it. I believe logos are difficult things to design, trying to make something simple and yet having to represent so much. Furthermore, anything with the Navy has been done to death with anchors, ship bows and wave crests. I thought about it for some time, even asking for a deadline extension.
On the other hand, my junior who studied at Lasalle with graphic design, was totally lackadaisical about the task he had been assigned with. I was told prior to this that his designs were of the whacky sort, which brought to mind those oddly drawn animals kind of designs I can't appreciate. When I told him he had been arrowed for the job, his first response was, "Oh, eh ask you ah, when you do this sort of thing for ship, would you get paid?" To which I laughed heartily (really, this time) and educated him to the sad job that was carrying out an arrow. Obviously, he responded by saying there's no point in putting effort into it if you're not going to get paid.
Anyway, after I got my off 'handed' to me that day, (I had actually been waiting for the verdict for some time as to the verdict that awaited the three designs) I went back and did a re-look at the design, like I told myself I'd do if my design got selected. This is because I didn't put in my all to the design, having been bogged down by other commitments. Here's the second draft, to which my Coxswain also felt was better than the previous one.
The Helms is actually the same model I had traced out earlier, backed by another copy and edited here and there to give it a slight three dimensional feel. The crocodile is not all the same; I spliced another photograph of a croc with it's mouth open. I also deviated from the source picture to make both the creature and object have a more intertwined feeling. The banner was redone as I felt the previous one looked too detached.
***
Regarding the other design I had done for the 20th Anniversary, it was also an arrowed job from my Chief, (WO equivalent) who had seen some of my previous efforts. He was put in charge of publicity for the event, and roped me in despite knowing the event's scheduled date was three days after my ORD. It has now been revised to a whole month after my ORD, on the 5th of June.
20 years in the making made me opt for a nostalgic, old school approach. Yet what was intended was for both old and new to be encapsulated, and I had to change tact and go for this. More posters are to come, but that'll be for the future.
Labels: design, drawing, jolly pirates, navy, NS, thoughts
posted by joseph at 9:39 PM
old school
Sunday, November 21, 2010
As the year draws to a close, I guess we all pretty much start getting drawn into a more relaxed mood, and nothing says a slow, nice weekend day out with friends like a movie. I found these three hand drawn movies coming out in the near future, and I really like the last two in particular. Pooh seems like an unlikely choice though, given that I confess I've never watched the television series or read the books. Still, I find the art and colouring in the movie just nice to gape at. I really hope some day I can achieve that kind of level. I do intend to watch the last one, though...
Labels: drawing, movie trailers
posted by joseph at 5:22 PM
lifeguard on duty
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Bought a book on fashion design the other day at the Page One book sale, where it was on a 50% discount. I saw the same book a month ago when I went to Malaysia, retailing for 100+ RM, but this time around, I paid just 24 bucks for it! Tried to put it to work today, adapting the anthropometric grid work and attempting a particular pose. I don't actually want to become a fashion designer, of course. It's just that I either draw girls or sci-fi things. Does that say something about me?
I just felt like squeezing off one piece before I book back in tomorrow, so this is what it's at now... skin colour a little bit bland, fingers and toes not yet attempted. Man, I really want to improve and have something really worthy of being a devart piece.Labels: drawing
posted by joseph at 9:08 PM