inthespace

[sketch] my french mistress has a blue bow

sherms — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:17:04 +0000

It’s 2 weeks to the final exam and I’m panicking a little. A lot. A catastrophical lot? Working on my corporate identity applications now and playing around with the colours (the logo colours are meant to be flexible so that 1.they can highlight the main point of an illustration; 2. reflect the range of illustration styles of the different artists/designers. )

So while I was working on the posters, I ended up doodling. Again. Sigh. There went another hour. Now it’s 336 hours till D-day.

[film] Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) conceptual art

sherms — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:31:00 +0000

Ever since I attended the LOTR exhibition back in 2004, I’ve been intrigued by the way a film’s visual concept is conceived. It’s a treat for the eyes to see the artwork these amazing conceptual artists turn out. I remember watching the ‘behind-the-scenes’ section of Mary Poppins (1964), and they had their own conceptual artist as well. He ended up painting a large backdrop of London at night, which the production crew then back lit (tiny lights that flickered through slits in the canvas), and it was used for certain camera sequences..

It’s always a delight to see the conceptural artist’s work for a film turned into reality on set, and finally, on film. I was curious about the look of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, in addition to how he always manages to come up with such brilliant concepts (what a solid crew he has), so I decided to look up the artist who did the conceptual artwork this time around.

Turns out it’s one Michael Kutsche who lives in Berlin. I’m don’t think he did all the work below, but he definitely did the first 3. His DeviantArt and website are filled with impressive CG + 3D images. The work’s quite stunning. I found out he also did SEGA’s/ The Creative Assembly’s Viking: Battle for Asgard. Of course, I’ve never played the game, but if I had any gaming inclinations, this would surely convince me to buy it.

Here’s the conceptual artwork I managed to piece together from various sources in the web (filmofilia.com, cinematical.com, artofdisney.canalblog.com, etc..)

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If you’re curious about the characters, trailer and exhibition, you can find them here.

UPDATE: I found how who did the characters for the 3 below ( + most of the posters that have been released)! It’s done by the designers/artists at Imaginism Studios . However, they mentioned in their blog that they did the characters, and not the surrounding enviroment. They said they’ll be releasing more art after the show opens, so can’t wait for that.

[sketches] Wacom Bamboo, I love you.

sherms — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:55:16 +0000

Had to do some sketches for Jonny’s website (he’s a freelance emcee/host) and I had to do them fast, so found an absolutely brilliant foolproof way of getting lovely proportionate sketches. You use a Wacom bamboo tablet and a photograph as a base. I’m sure people have been doing this since (tech)time immemorial, but I just found out and I’m thrilled. I guess it’s cheating a little, but it’s effective!

27/10/09: I must admit I’m happy I bought the Bamboo. I was concerned initially that I would waste the money since I’ve never drawn on a tablet before, and perhaps would never be able to, but the Bamboo’s very intuitive. I haven’t tried an Intuos yet, but the Bamboo’s touch-sensitivity more than satisfies me now.

[work] Odd Poems & Slogans : collaged journal layouts

sherms — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:28:26 +0000

Work done in ‘08 when I was with Qube:

The project was John O’Sullivan’s poem anthology, Odd Poems & Slogans. Q (the Boss) was patient with me. I was fresh out of SMU and didn’t have any formal design background. He had to explained the usual creative work processes (grids, master page layout, technicals, etc..) as we went along, and was tactful every time he thought my draft was ****. Haha. Thank God for the little things in life.

The concept was to house the anthology in a personal journal. There were almost 90 poems in total, and each poem was to have its own individual spread (or 2 poems in a spread as there were space constraints). The journal was to look weathered and believably masculine – I had some problems getting the feel right at first!

HE: A poem John wrote when he was 12

I had to read through and analyse the poems before I could start on the layouts. That sure took a while. Then, there was a lot of scanning, cutting, pasting, PS-ing involved… days when I couldn’t do a single spread right.. other days when the right combinations just fell into place…

CALKE ABBEY: I remember Q had to write to his mom in UK to "pick up some oak leaves in the paddock"

LA DINNER & BATAVIA

I horded string, paperclips, scraps of paper, magazine cutouts, tape and other randoms for months so I had enough material.. I probably had too much by the end, since I was keeping everything I came across and throwing away nothing, just like an old bag lady.

TREATY WITH SELF: The intial idea was to be able to pull out the "treaty" from the envelope, but you make do when cost prohibits

TRAPPED SOUL: One of my earliest layouts. The initial photograph was replaced by one of John's when he sent over an envelope full of wonderfully aged black+white / sepia pictures.

By the end, it was crazy how much I got to know John O’Sullivan even though I only met him a few times..I had photographs of his family, letters from his friends, scribbles and notes he jotted down, paintings he did……

ADORATION & CANAL WALK: Had to search for ages to find a decent picture of the appropriate canal!

THE ENEMY WITHIN: A poem on alcoholism

BEING & CONVERSATION WITH MY TWIN

I finished up all the spreads, appendix and cover, but had to leave (was going to start school at Orita S!) before the final version was confirmed. It was one of those projects that you learn an incredible lot along the way.

There were spreads with coloured-photographs, spreads with polaroids, spreads with paintings, but those with the old photos were the ones I ended up loving the most.

PARLOUR: About waiting for your parents at boarding school. I loved this photography of John's old class. It reminded me so much of Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall. I'd laugh every single time I pulled it out.

PAUL: Poem about his father. Photograph of his father + him en route to an inn.

[quickie] SMUAA halloween emailer

sherms — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:22:08 +0000

A quick 1-hour emailer pieced together for the SMU Alumni Association (SMUAA) Halloween Party taking place at the end of this month. The guidelines were something halloweeny, that was fun/happening but not overly creepy. I knew I was taking a slight risk when I did this version as it wasn’t the usual halloween feel : i.e. pumpkins, ghosts, etc… so wasn’t too surprised when the final chosen emailer was the pumpkin version instead. But personally, I liked this version better (: Oh well! At least, the whole exercise resulted in me being introduced to the CSA-Plastock images on Getty and anything to help Shal out !

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Images of masks : CSA-Plastock

[research] Bonjour, Hat.

sherms — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:59:21 +0000

While doing hat research for Design Fundamentals (Colour Cuttings), I came across FASHION MODE : 1500- 1954 in the library. Lots of yesteryear lithographs that make wonderful browsing. Matching gloves and hats and shoes and clutches.. veils and bows…what fun! These were some of the French fashion illustrations within:

Christian Lacroix the Costumier

sherms — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:33:19 +0000

May’09: One of my favourite exhibitions at NSM.

for more images that were taken

[early exercise] typography : a letter or two

sherms — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:11:05 +0000

Typographic class exercise where we played around with the letters of the alphabets to familiarize ourselves with the shapes. Here’s mine for K & A:

[early exercises] transformation // piracy scraps & plasticine

sherms — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:28:17 +0000

Two exercises that I did in the first few months of school : A transformation/morphing exercise for Design Fundamentals , and a Piracy scrap-collage and plasticine translation for Perceptive Skills.

exercise one.
TRANSFORMATION: windmill to duck

The brief was to transform one object to another in 12 steps. Each image should be seen as a gradual step forward/backward to the images adjacent to it, so that whether you view steps from image 1 to image 2, or vice-versa, it makes visual sense.

In other words, you can’t have i.e A FISH (image 1), a fish-like blob for the next 10 steps, then suddenly, ta-daahh! A FLOWER (image 2). No, that’s wrong. You could. If you wanted to get majorly screwed.

Amusingly enough, I started off wanting to morph a vintage fan into a hummingbird. However, along the way ( after the expected alterations and suggestions)…. I landed up with a paper windmill and a duck of some kind. At least they’re close enough to be relatives.

Some sketches I did for my research on ducks

Initial sketches for windmill to hummingbird

Initial sketches for windmill to duck

I spent a night measuring, cutting, sketching and inking the outlines. Of course, the hardworking adrenaline that got me through the dark wee hours was due to the beautiful deadline that loomed on the next day’s horizon.

Inking the ducks

Outlining the paper windmills

My instructor commented she was impressed with my neat documentation of the work process, but secretly, we know the truth is that my hand started cramping after 3 straight hours of inking and shading and I decided to put down that damn 0.1 pen and take photos to while away the time.

Getting ready to mount the work

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a good shot of the final work because I handed it up the moment I got to the school, but here’s a quick snap I took with my phone.

exercise two.
PERCEPTIVE SKILLS: piracy

One of the most fun class exercises I’ve had out of all the classes. We were told to fill an A3 sheet with scraps from magazines to represent our view on piracy and then explain our choices. The following class session, we were to mould a 3D representation of our views in plasticine. For each, we had about 1.5 hours to complete from brainstorming to end product.

Our quickly sculpted models

Some people filled their page with movie titles, another with different luxury brands and yet another with fashion. Mine was more on the internet side of piracy. It was text-heavy with jumbled phrases from the magazines to form the certain notions/ideas like:

[top right]
Piracy is “treasured trash” because what maybe one man’s junk might be treasure to another (which is why you find multitudes of random songs, videos, books, etc..) and “adults can find something to love”;

In this world where everybody is busy (“individuals on the move”), it’s so convenient to pirate because it’s usually right “at your doorstep”

[middle right]
It seems like an “inevitable community” that people end up “joining” . And community is 2x because it takes two parties to complete piracy exchange.

We’ve “lost count” of the millions of faceless, nameless “contributors”

[bottom left]
It’s “an endless war” between what’s right/what’s not ; what’s real/what’s fake; your copyright conscience/the easy,cheap attraction of piracy

This was going along the “treasured trash” idea where faceless figures are sieving through the trash and picking up bits that they like, making them into precious items that they store (e.g. the lady with her basket of rounded balls). The trash is spewing out from a giant – relatively – god-like head, like those you see on Easter island.. ..that no one really knows the beginning of a pirated product’s existence and that piracy combined is greater than the individual, and sometimes seems almost like a cult in terms of the number of people who subscribe to it.

There are thoughts I could have better visualised and not sound like such a pompous ass when I say them aloud, but…anyway, that’s what was going through my mind when I did the exercise months ago!

Hussalonia: a pop-music cult I’d like you to know

sherms — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:42:47 +0000

When it comes to music, I leave it to my friends to know it best. Indie, pop, electronic, genres-I-don’t-even-know-exist filter by our conversations sometimes and I’m always the one with a question mark on my face.

Yes, I like good music as much as the next person, but I don’t go online to search out obscure bands and find hidden indie gems somewhere on MySpace. I’m happy in my classical music/jazz/instrumental/indie-folk sphere and like I said, I have friends that really know their music well. Which means good recs always come my way.

However, recently I found one. One curious, delightful music entity that I’d like you to know.

It started with the hunt for music for the video mashup we were to do for VIDEO I&T class. We were looking for the Creative Commons license sort, so I was online wandering the Internet Archive that morning – which is a treasure trove, by the way – and I discover Hussalonia’s madly popular THE PUBLIC DOMAIN EP which is.. well, yeah, for the public domain.

In other words, Jesse Mank, the founder of Hussalonia, is GIVING the public these songs.

You don’t have to pay to download them (you don’t have to pay for anything at all!); you can use them in any way/manner/mixup you like…..this is what is stated on Internet Archive :

“Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.”

Incredible.

And what’s even better is that the music is good and it’s not a one-time scheme for him to get famous and rich quickly. This guy has been doing it for years, since 1997. Doing this is his way of life. That’s Respect with a capital R.

So head over and check out the music section on their website:

- click to enter the music section -

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For the video mashup school assignment, we were to take footage from the Prelinger Archives which is chocked full of old b/w or 1950s vintage colour commercials and do a short 1 min video. We could do a horror parody, comedy, instructional, music, etc anything we wanted. The main purpose was for us to have on-hands learning of Premier Pro.

After sieving through what felt like hundreds of commercials and songs, I decided on You Activate Me So: a quirky track from The Somewhat Surprising Return of Hussalonia Robot Singers.

YOU ACTIVATE ME SO

You stress my tranducers,
You’re a measurement outside of range.
Like Tesla to the radio,
You activate me so.

Take my end effector,
Oh, my sweet inventor!

I am a mindless android
I have no thoughts of feelings
With dead eyes, I wait for your command.
You validate me,
You animate me,
You activate me so.

The song makes references to Nikola Tesla, so I decided to use a fair amount of radio documentary/advertisement footage (Radio & Television 1940; On the Air 1937). The others are a mixture of clips from Soundie:I can’t give you anything but love (1941), Kodak Instamatic, Oldsmobile Futuramic Design (1948), Hillsborough (1959), Folgers Coffee, Classic Adverts No.w (1948). The film leader – the thing that counts down from 10 in the beginning – is from The Chosen One with some effects added.

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[links] video mashups……..

Wikipedia: video mashup
definition of a video mashup

The Recycled Cinema
choice selections of mashups

Re-cutting Room Floor
mashups of movie trailers