Design Principles Project 1

  28.3.2022 - 2.5.2022 (Week 1 - Week 6) 

Teo Javin 0349352

Design Principles / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's University

Task 1 - Exercise 2 - Harmony and Unity

Lecture

What is a self- portrait?

A self-portrait is a representation of themselves in the form of a drawing, sculpture or any form of media. It portrays the artist's feeling, or how they see themselves. It  doesn't has to be about creating a realistic version of yourself, but it could be as abstract as possible, it's all about self-exploration.

Figure1.1, Realistic portrait from webneel.com

Figure1.2, Abstract portrait by Saru Photo

    

Instructions

Visual Research

I've found some interesting references and inspirations for a self-portrait. 

The first thing I thought off when I saw this assignment was this, the ToonMe Challenge. It's a challenge where you draw the other half of your portrait into a cartoon version. Thought I would like to try it out for my work.

Figure2.1, ToonMe Challenge

This artist named Liz Y Ahmet took scribbles to a whole new level by creating portraits out of them, exploring the thickness of lines to the density of lines in an area to create an illusion of a person.

Figure2.2, Scribble art by Liz

What interests me into doing art is mainly mangas, those artists could simplify and exaggerate the human anatomy by playing around with the shapes and shadows and people could still recognize it as what the artists want it to be. The detail in mangas are also what excites me, they could make backgrounds look realistic by using shapes and tones.

Figure2.3, Exaggeration and simplification of anatomy on Nobita from Doraemon

Figure2.3, Simplification of a tree

Figure 2.4, Realistic background and simplified characters in mangas

Exploration

I started off with the outline of myself and added the base tone, then I started with some shadows.

Figure3.1, Outline and base tone

I shaped the hair first, then added some strands and smoothen it to look more realistic.

Figure3.2, shaping the hair

The top part of my portrait is shaded only initially because I planned to shade it with a different style later.

Figure3.3, top part of portrait nearly done

Figure3.4, lines were added to differentiate the artstyles

After touching up my portrait with some lighting, that part is done.

Figure3.5, realistic part of the portrait is completed

After that, I started editing myself with different artstyles. The artstyle on the right is inspired by the Japanese anime, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Figure3.6, JOJO

This canvas was drawn in between the Cubism part and the Realistic part, it tells the audience that I am deciding wether I should go for abstract art or realistic art.

Figure3.7, a canvas

In this part, I was "divided" into 4 parts... Realistic, Cartoon, Manga and Abstract. 

I like drawing manga-looking art as it looks simple yet understandable to the audience; the cartoon part was my favourite as I grew up reading comics. When I am talking about manga and comic, what I meant was Asian comics and Western comics, they both have a different point of view when it comes to drawing cartoons. Asian comics tend to create characters out of simple shapes and shadows to look either cute, handsome, buff etc. whereas Western comics tend to exaggerate the character's body parts to the artist's desired characteristics.

The Realistic part doesn't really interests me because of the time it takes to make it and I, as the audience rather take a photo and add some filters then to buy a realistic artwork, but I had learned how to create one, so it is put into consideration.

The abstract part was technically just a "filler" and not my expertise, but since I faintly knew how to create one, therefore it is put into consideration as well.

Figure3.8, parts of myself in different artstyle

Figure3.9, close-up

Final Result

I decided to draw myself in different artstyles. In the artwork, I looked like I am thinking of something while a pencil and canvas is floating around me, this conveys how I am trying to find my own artstyle by trying out other famous artists' artstyle, so one day I would have my own unique way of drawing that stands out from the rest.

Figure 4.0 Final result 

Feedback

It has a strong sense of balance, try to add more things to fill in the background.

Reflection

I think I did a pretty good job into creating this artwork. I personally think I had improved in making digital art as well and looking for more similar projects like this.