Self portrait

27/May/2022

All I have learnt so far

1, Data

ID       : 0351579

Name   : Mabuchi Arata

Course : Bachelor of Design in Creative Media 
             Design Principle

Date    : 2022/5/27

2, Ideas

From 2 weeks before, We have started a new project to create a selp portrait, however the portrait can't be just drawing the face of ourself. In this task, we must express our own characteristics with design principles we have leanr so far.

I have understood that I have to express myself from facial design by using the design topics we have learnt so far.

I started from gahering ideas by making mind map to understand myself, but after creating my first work, I desided to represent easy changable mind and feelings as my priority to represent in my portrait.

(Fig 2.1 Mind Map about myself)

3, Visual Research

Before I am going to show my own self portrait work, I am going to explain about the technique I used in my every self portrait works, which includes artworks and design technique.

1, Golden spiral

(Fig 3.1 Golden Spiral)

This is the design principle that uses golden ratio which is almost 1.618. That is used for stable design for art long time. People tend to focus on the edge of the end of the spiral or center of the spiral. I used this design principle to emphasis the visual elements I want to show most.

2, Movement

This design idea is trying to represent the act of object going towards particular direction by using one of the simple design element, "line". Thdesign element of "line" has particular function that our brain tend to follow the direction of the lines. Many comic books use this design ideas to represent the movement of the object, however, we can use other design elements like shapes, if we place groups of shapes or dots with changing its size gradually, we can easily represents the movement.

This idea is also able to use in colours, if we change colours slowly in the design, we can represent the movement.

To sum up the ideas, we can represent the movement in the static design by adding lines having same direction or other design elements such as dots or shapes which changing its size and direstion as it goes opposite direction of the movement.

(Fig 3.2 The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai 1830–1833)

 

3, Balance

This also provides stable impression to the design so it looks static and comfortable to see for viewers. There are mainly two different types, symmetrical balance and asymetrical balance, symmetrically balance is the idea that locating same visual elements in both side, on the other hand, asymetrical balance is creating stability by applying same visual weight intead same visual elements.

(Fig 3.3 Taj Mahal, India)

(Fig 3.4 Restroom Mark)

4, Unity

Unity is the design idea that combines more than two different design elements to create oneness which is basically forming every design elements into one group so it can create a visual impession as single and equal group although thay are actually different and separated.

To make a unity in the design, every visual elements must have share same design features, like colours, shapes or direction. It can also create a unity by grouping or making a similar or same design element group, for example, it's effective to have same colour or similar shape to form a unity.

(Fig 3.5 My artwork using Unity)

5, Pop art

There were many art styles made in America after 1950s, which was based on the American culture during that time period. There were several different art style was made in this period, I choose the art style which Andy Warhol created it, it is called "Pop Art". Pop art is the art style which representing a things we normally use in our life such as soup can or Coca cola or famous celebrities and print it with different colours to represent American mass production.

I love the idea to duplicate single artwork with different colours and I have made similar artwork before Taylor's university.

I decided to use this art style because I hough it was suitable to represent my personality which is basically having similar habit and favourites but also differen to the other people.

(Fig 3.6 My pop art made in previus school I've been before.)

4, My visual ideas

I have made 3 different portraits with using different design principles and they are all representing my own personalities as well. Unfortunatelly, I have received a feedback from my first portrait, therefore please understand that I have only one final outcome.

1, Fire man come from space

(Fig 4.1 Fire Man come from Space)

This self portrait may be seem complicated, but I inport my personality as many as possible in this portrait artwork. First of all, we can see that portrait of myself is combined my real selfies and drawing version of myself, I tried to express about my future goal, concept artist, by drawing my face and I also tried to represent my passion to make my drea come true. 

(Fig 4.2 My self portrait painted by Krita)

Secondly, I combined two different landscape photograph of Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur to represent that I came from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur. Additionally, I also apply fire to represent my personality as I am very easy to get anger.

(Fig 4.3 Combined landscape of Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur)

The point is that after applying combined image of landscape of Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur, I erased the boarder line of image as going dounwards and edit the image of fire to look as going upwards. I tried this to make a movement in my artwork by using change of given shape size, to make emphasis to my portrait.

(Fig 4.4 Spaceship work)

I applied the iage of spaceship going left in the upper side of image, the reason I made this is to make my design balanced with whiter place in the background against the foreground of the image, additionally, by making an image that spaceship going left to let viewers watching right hand side of the image so it can produce golden spiral with foreground image that makes viewers to look left hand side. To explain more about this image of spaceship, I used pixel art to create my own spaceship design to represent my hobby is playing video games. 

(Fig 4.5 Pixel art of spaceship)

I tried to design my own spaceship from sketching 2d side scrolling shooter game's playable spaceship as shown below.

(Fig 4.6 My spaceship sketch from 2d sidescroll shooting game)

Here is the references for designing my own spaceship design. My spaceship design used for my portrait is came from Japanse classic 2D sidescrolling shooting game.

Thunder Force IV (Technosoft, 1992)

Gradius, Nemesis(for foreign title) (KONAMI, 1985)

2, Four dimention

(Fig 4.7 4 Dimention Face)

Before I am going to explain about my second work, let me explain about art style about "cubism". The cubism is art style born about 100 years ago, it was about the idea to take visual outlook from different angle and build them as one new design again. The famous cubism artist is Pablo Picasso, the Spanish artist.

To go back to my artwork, my artwork was inspired Russian art called "Portrait of a The Philosopher" created by Liubov S. Popova (native spelling is Любовь Сергеевна Попова) in 1915.

(Fig 4.8 Portrait of a The Philosopher, Liubov S. Popova, 1915)

I was so impressed the idea to creating one portrait by taking many images from different angle and rebuild as one portrait, I have similar experience by making average face of myself as shown below, so I decided to cubism by taking photo of myself and rebuild as one image.

(Fig 4.9 My average face)

When I gathering my selfies from different angles and piling up to form one image, I realised that the image is distorted a bit, so I pick each facian parts from different photograph so we can easily determine each facial parts and even the image is person's face.

(Fig 4.10 Combined differentt angled face 1)

(Fig 4.11 Combined differentt angled face 2)

After ediing my photography work, I realised that rather than editing photographs by photoshop, it's going to be easy to edit by using paint tool, so I drawing boarder line and applying colours on it.

(Fig 4.12 Combined differentt angled face 3)

(Fig 4.13 Combined differentt angled face 4)

When I finished to add colours on my image, I added details by using brush tool to add shadows and lights on my face and clothes. The point I forcused is that adding the colour tones from each different side face so the face in the middke looks more natural. I also reffered to the different portrait of myself to make viewers to relise that each facial parts come from different photographs.

(Fig 4.14 Combined differentt angled face 5)

After adding details on the background, my second portrait inspired by cubism was complited.

(Fig 4.15 my final outcome for second ortrait)

I tried to look this portrait real by adding details of shadow on my photographs, as the result, this portrait looks like a real even it's digital image made by paint tool.

3, 8 different faces

(Fig 4.16 8 different work)

This portrait was inspired by Andy Warhol's pop art, which duplicate images with changing colour. This artwork was inspired his artstyle to represent my characteristic which is about easy changable mind and feelings. 

(Fig 4.17 Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, 1967)

In this artwork, I used Adobe software called "Illustrator" and paint tool called "Krita" to design this artwork. First, I used pen tool to draw each facial part in both straight and curved line, then I applied colour each shape to create my work, after that, I combined each of my artworks into one big group by applying every images onto one big image.

(Fig 4.18 My own Pop art of myself)

To sum up this portrait work itself, this portrait is basically mistake, this is because I had no time to plan he details about this portrait work, I should hae chosen the colour to represent abouty feelings like Disney movie Inside out, therefore I should have enough time to plan to choose colours for my works in next time.

5, Feedback from Lecturer

First of all, I just show my first portrait work, "", therefore I firstly state that I have only one final artwork.

When I show my portrait work. Dr Yip Jinchi said about my work "Fire Man come from Space" as shown below. :

・My portrait shoul be moved left more.

・The boarder line of combined landscape of Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur  should be softer.

・The fire should be moved more right position.

From the advices Dr Yip Jinchi told me, I recreate my art by using paint tool "Krita". The reason why I didn't use Photoshop is because my recent Phototshop doesn't work as I expected and I think my photoshop is either brokenn or glitched.

6, My final outcome

After receiving feedback from Dr Yip Jinchi, I started to recreae my final outcome by using using Krita as I explained above. Here is my final oucome I made.

(Fig 6.1 My final outcome for My first portrait "Fire man come from space")

The design may be not seem good enogh as previous work, This is because I had no time to edit this work because I had other subject's task to be completed, However, I have accomplished every problem that Dr Yip Jinchi told me so. Additionally I resize self portrait, fire and the spaceship to arrange the visual weight to maintain visual balance too. As the result, New my self portrait work may be seemed stable.

To sum up this portrait work, It can be said that I successfully use design principle "Movement" but I could use more design principle "Balance". Additionally, I think the Portrait work of myself which is combined form of actual photograph and painted work went pretty well. 

7, Reflection

To say about good point first, I think it was good to think more than one idea to create portraits. It is also good idea to use design principles like balance, movement, Harmony and so on. The idea to make a reference from other artists was also good idea. I want to create more portrait works with different design principles if I can spend more time.

The bad point is about time. When I look back about my progress, I think I did not organize my time to spend time to create my portrait well, as the result I could not spend time for final portrait. Next time I should organize time to spend enough time for create mutiple numbers of portrait works.

To sum up about this task, I think it goes successfull to use different design principles to make multiple portraits, however, I should organize time more to spend each works to create much better works. 

8, References

Images I used for creating my protrait.

・https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/fire-flames-black-background_7120053.htm#query=fire&position=15&from_view=search

・https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/petronas-twin-towers-near-skyscrapers-trees-blue-sky-kuala-lumpur-malaysia_7814610.htm?query=klcc

・https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/fire-flames-black-background_7120053.htm#query=fire&position=15&from_view=search

My past blogs I used as references.

・https://aratamabuchi.blogspot.com/2022/04/two-principles-2.html#more

・https://aratamabuchi.blogspot.com/2022/04/contrast-and-gestalt-theory.html#more