IVN Assignment 1 - Editorial Illustration (Decisive Moment)

1st Nov 2023 - 22nd Nov 2023 (Week 6 - Week 9)

Sin Jun Ming (0364638)

Illustration and Visual Narrative / Design in Creative Media / Taylor's University

Assignment 1 - Editorial Illustration (Decisive Moment)

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INSTRUCTIONS

Week 6

Assignment 1 - Editorial Illustration (Decisive Moment)

In this week, Mr. Hafiz introduced a new assignment called Editorial Illustration to us. In this assignment, we need to choose an urban legend that has the particular climatic turning point to be illustrated. From this week's lecture, we have learnt about Editorial Illustration. 

Editorial illustrations are produced for newspapers, magazines and websites to add a visual dimension to a piece of writing. This serves two main functions – it helps to grab the attention of the reader as they browse the publication but can also help to add a new perspective to the article.

In addition, the art style of illustration must be derived from Art Deco. Minimalist style of illustration is also required by Mr. Hafiz in this assignment. 

The urban legend that I chose for this assignment is an urban legend called Dark Watchers based in California, United States. I found this urban legend interesting, and it has the climatic turning point that match the requirement of this assignment, hence it is a perfect fit. Here is the short brief of this urban legend that I found when I was doing research online.

Urban Legend - Dark Watchers

The Dark Watchers are described as being tall, shadowy figures that keep their distance from humans. They are said to be far taller than the average human, sometimes up to ten feet tall. They are essentially silhouettes of opaque shadow, with no facial or bodily features. From their silhouettes, many have reported them wearing wide-brimmed hats or cloaks. Despite the lack of facial features, those who have been in the presence of a Dark Watcher report knowing that the entity was watching or observing them. When approached, they simply vanish. They most often appear in the hours around twilight and dawn. Some iterations of the legend say that the Dark Watchers accept small gifts such as fruits or nuts, though the purpose of such gifts is not elaborated on.

After I familiar with the whole story concept, I started to search for some photos regarding to this urban legend to seek for inspiration and I started to create my color palette using Adobe Color to determine the colorway of my illustration. Here is the moodboard that I come up with to aid my illustration.

 

Fig 1.1.1 Moodboard

After doing research on the Dark Watchers, I started to work on my sketches of the decisive moment in Art Deco style and minimalist art style.

Figure 1.1.2 Sketches (1)

Fig 1.1.3 Sketches (2）

Week 7

In this week, Mr. Hafiz moved on to a new exercise which is related to transparency gradient and noise. The purpose of this exercise is to learn how to create textures by adding shading to your illustrations by using the Grain Effect combined with linear, radial and freeform gradients.

Mr. Hafiz show us an example of creating textures and colour gradient by using triangles, I also experimented it by working on my own triangles.

Fig 1.2.1 My colour gradients and textures on triangles

After this warmup exercise, we were assigned another exercise which we need to choose a person to create gradients and textures from this illustration below. 

Fig 1.2.2 Illustration provided by Mr. Hafiz

I chose the gentlemen standing on the far left to create textures and gradients. Here is what I have done. 

Fig 1.2.3 Exercise: transparency gradient and noise 

Week 8

We need to do the final illustration of the decisive moment of the urban legend that we chose in this independent learning week. Hence, I started to work on my digitised illustration on Adobe Illustrator with the idea of sketches that I came up with previously. 

Fig 1.3.1 Final Illustration (PNG)

This urban legend gives me a spooky feeling and mysteriousness, hence I think it is a perfect fit for this assignment. I plan to interpret it by illustrating the figure of Dark Watchers in mountain range from the angle of view of someone that he accidentally noticed the Dark Watchers were standing there. Since the Dark Watchers did not see him at that moment, so the figure of Dark Watchers is clear and valid. For the animation, I want to create the moment that Dark Watchers disappear immediately after they noticed someone was watching them through illustrate the moment of eye blinking follow by the vanishment of the Dark Watchers. According to the story, the Dark Watchers usually appear in hours around twilight and dawn, hence I added sunset scene into my design to match with the story. Furthermore, I use dark colours for the illustration of cloud to create more spooky feelings with the show up of the Dark Watchers. Instead of having shadows like stones on the ground, I intentionally did not illustrate the shadow of the Dark Watchers to show that they are not human being or object, I believe this can increase its creepiness.

Fig 1.3.2 Final Animation (GIF)

Fig 1.3.3 Concept Board

Feedback from Mr. Hafiz on my animation

REFLECTIONS

Experience

I think I enjoy doing this assignment a lot as I really like mysterious things like urban legends that can chill my bones. Overall experience is fun as I have learnt about a new art style which is Art Deco, by doing research, it is an art style that is widely used in many industries. I also discovered a lot of interesting urban legends when I was doing research to determine on the urban legend for this assignment. 

Observation

Research is important and it aids us in our design work effectively. We will not produce a good work of illustration of urban legend without fully understand the urban legend that we work on. A good preparation before work can bring our design quality to a higher level. 

Findings

From this assignment, I found that minimalist style is important in Editorial Illustration as it is clean and simple yet can interpret the message clearly through an illustration.