Week 5 - Week 9 [23/10/2023 - 20/11/2023]
Kong Ga Wai 0359692
Bachelor in Design Creative Media
COM61304 - Illustration and Visual Narrative
INSTRUCTIONS
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Editorial Illustrations & Digital Triptych
We have to create a minimalistic editorial illustration based on an urban legend. After we have to
make it into a short animated GIF. Then we have to apply Scott McCloud's theory on transitions to create a digital triptych comprising three panels: one before, one during (climactic turning
point), and one after a significant event.
The urban legend I chose was "The Last Bus To Beijing Fragrant Hills".
The Last Bus To Beijing Fragrant Hills
On November 14, 1995, on a dark and possibly stormy night, a young man
boarded the last bus heading to Beijing’s Fragrant Hills, located in
Haidian District.
Shortly after the man boarded the Route 302 bus, two men tried to wave
the bus down. According to a 2013 Global Times article, the bus driver was
initially reluctant to pick up the men because they weren’t waiting at a
bus stop. However, the driver eventually decided to stop after the
conductor reminded him that it was the last bus.
Once the mysterious roadside men were on board, passengers were surprised
to see they were wearing some pretty Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) robes and
that there were actually three men – the third sporting long messy hair,
supported by the two roadside creepers.
As the story goes, the men’s faces were white as snow and they didn’t
interact with any other passengers on the bus. Gradually, the bus began to
empty, according to the tale, until only an old lady and the young man
remained inside with the mystery trio.
All was quiet until the old woman abruptly accused the young man of
stealing her wallet – a claim that resulted in an intense argument. The
quarrel was resolved when the old lady insisted the two get off the bus
and go to the nearest police station.
Once off the bus, the young man grew enraged with the old woman,
realizing he had just exited the last bus and there was no police station
in sight. Fortunately for the young man, the elderly woman picked up on
something he had missed: she said the three-robed men did not have legs
and, by default, must have been ghosts.
Source:
Process
- For the first illustration I messed up by doing it in the wrong format. We
were supposed to do it in a portrait poster format. By the time I found out, I
had already submitted it and its pass the due date.
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First design
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- For the second part of this assignment, animation GIF, I redo the whole
thing in the right format this time. First I did the sketch on my tablet,
sketched how I wanted it to look like and the colour to use.
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Sketch
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- After finishing the sketch I imported it into Adobe Illustrator and traced
over it. I decided to simplify it a little more for the final and added
gradient.
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One for trace and another for colour eye dropper
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Added gradient
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Writing the talisman
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Bus background
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Separate road background
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Finished Illustration
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Animation
- After finishing in Adobe Illustrator, I move to Photoshop to do the
animation. I already made the frames needed for the animation in Illustrator.
In Photoshop I combined the bus with the road background and added text.
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Frames
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Illustration Combining the
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frames for animation
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Finished GIF
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Panels
- The theory I chose for this is
Scene to scene theory. I sketch the
panel on my tablet then upload it to Adobe Illustrator and adjust it.
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Sketch Panel 1
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Sketch Panel 3
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- Once again I moved the sketch to Adobe Illustrator and traced over
it.
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Imported Sketch
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Eyedropping Colour Gradient
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Panel 1
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Panel 3 (Passengers' Expression)
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Finish Panels 1 and 3
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All Panel Combined
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- Panel 1, 2, 3:
After the two men board the bus they walk past the passengers to sit at the
seats at the very back. The odd presence and aura of the two men concern the
other passengers.
- For panel 2 I decide to remove the passengers' eyes and instead only use
eyebrows to express their feelings. This is to match the first Illustration
with the two men where I also didn't draw faces for them to give them a more
mysterious aura.
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Final Panels (Scene to Scene Theory)
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REFLECTION
I have mixed feelings about this task. It was enjoyable but due to how
much has to be completed in a short time. (Well it felt like a short
time to me because of some other workload)
There are many areas where I want to improve/add on. For the illustration, I wanted to add the unknown third man with the
two. For the animated GIF, I was planning to make another scene where
the bus broke down with an unknown corps in. I also wanted to add some
street lights shining by and will sometimes show the faces of the two
men. But due to some rush, I wasn't able to.
