25/9/2024 - 11/10/2024 (Week 1 - Week 3)
Chang Wing / 0367807
Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelors of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Task 1: Vormator Challenge
Table of Content:
1. Lectures
Lectures
Week 1
Mr. Hafiz briefed us about the house rules and learning outcome of this module. He also uploaded tons of useful tutorial videos about Adobe Illustration and character design basics for us to watch so we could prepare ourselves first before practical classes start.
Figure 1.1 Tutorial Videos
Week 2
We started out by playing The Bezier Game to familiarize with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Then, Mr. Hafiz guided us to trace along the vormator shapes using the pen tool, rotate and mirror tool.
Figure 1.2 The Bezier Game
Figure 1.3 Tracing Vormator Shapes
Week 3
Mr. Hafiz explained about the shape language of character design where circles shows cuteness, triangles show menace and squares show strength. Next, he guided us along to use the pathfinder and shape builder tool to create shadings on our character. We practiced by tracing the Adidas Logo.
Figure 1.4 Character Design Shape Language
Figure 1.5 Tracing Adidas logo using the shape builder tool
Instructions
Task 1: Vormator Challenge
Inspiration
I began by exploring examples of the Vormator Challenge on Pinterest and reviewing seniors' work to gain a clear understanding of the expected outcomes for this task.
Figure 2.1 Colored and shaded character
Since the task involves designing a character for a Pokemon card template, I decided to draw inspiration from one of my favorite card games, Unstable Unicorns by The Oatmeal Games. I've always loved the cute and whimsical art style of The Oatmeal Games, so I chose to create my character with a similarly playful and adorable style.
Figure 2.2 "Unstable Unicorn" Card
Character Development
I started out by recreating body shape of the unicorn phoenix and added some new detail using the vormator shape.
Figure 2.3 Starting up (04/10/2024)
Then, I started to remove some parts of the body so my character doesn't look like a generic unicorn, I explored different forms for my character's body using the Vormator shapes. The silhouette of my character are composed of mostly round shapes and I wanted my character to look more menacing, so I decided to add horns to its head, balancing it's cuteness with sharp shapes.
Figure 2.4 Different body shapes (06/10/2024)
Inspired by
Huadian, a form of traditional Chinese women ornamental forehead makeup that symbolizes
nobility and
beauty (Chinese-Showcase, 2023), I added a snowflake-like motif to my character's forehead to represent its mind-control and hypnotic abilities. The idea is that when enemies gaze upon the beautiful motif, they become mesmerized, allowing my character to control their minds.
Figure 2.5 Huadian
Final Character Silhouette
I chose this design because I think this hand gesture best fit it's mind-controlling ability as if it's signaling enemies to focus on its head. I decided to call my character "Toromi" because it means
stagnancy in Japanese, symbolizing its ability to make enemies freeze under its mental control. Toromi's emotionless face shows that it is a master of manipulation, as if it fears no one because of it's power and strength.
Figure 2.6 Final Character Silhouette (07/10/2024)
Shading & Color
After making my character's silhouette, I applied colors to it to show more of it's personality and the details in it's hair. I've explored different color schemes with the Recolor Artwork tool in Adobe Illustrator. I decided to choose the one with black and purple tones referring to coisinhanamoda's Hypnotic color palette (No scientific proofs that these colors are the most hypnotic ones but I just happen to find it suits Toromi's mysterious and elegant vibe).
Figure 2.7 Exploration on different colors (08/10/2024)
Final Colored Character
I decided to apply gradients to my character because it looks magical (relating to it's superpower). I applied neon gradient colors to Toromi's horns and face features because they are the parts that lure the enemies with their vibrant colors. I chose these neon colors because it resembles the common colors in
psychedelic art, the art or visual that displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences or hallucinations (Wikipedia, 2024). It relates to my vision of how enemies would experience hallucinations when mind-controlled or hypnotized by Toromi. When the enemy falls under Toromi's hypnotic spell, Toromi's beautiful hair will grow intensely, tangling the enemy and absorbs their energy. The only way to stop Toromi's power is by breaking it's power source, the snowflake-like motif on it's forehead.
Figure 2.9 Colored and shaded character (10/10/2024)
Figure 2.10 Psychedelic Art
Reflection
I personally thought The Vormator Challenge was quite a fun task because I like to play Lego since childhood so overlapping the Vormator shapes feels like assembling Lego blocks to me, and I'm satisfied with the outcomes, they look so cute.
I knew most of my friends struggled using Adobe Illustrator but I had less trouble using it thanks to my past working experience as a junior graphic designer, but I did experienced the same thing as well when I just started to use Adobe Illustrator, it's hard to use because we have to explore so many of the features in it and there's also tons of shortcuts to memorize, but thanks to Mr. Hafiz I have now familiarise myself with the Shape Builder tool, a very useful tool to remove shapes geometrically, which I can now use it for Typography's task as well.
The hardest part for me in this task is actually the ideation process for the character's design, I just felt like I have to try so many times to get the perfect shape for my character, but as soon as I decided to recreate the unicorn, I felt so much easier developing my design from it, so I've learnt that starting from reference to good designs is very important for designers, it helps us to start with a solid foundation and gives us direction when we're feeling stuck. From there, I was able to build on the concept, adding my own unique elements. This process taught me that creativity often flourishes when we combine inspiration with our own vision. Overall, my experience with this project not only helped me improve my technical skills but also reinforced the importance of balancing creativity with structure in design.
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