5/6/2023 - 30/6/2023 (Week 10 - Week 13)
Seh Zi Qi/ 0355872/ Bachelor of Design(Honours) in Creative Media
Module Name: Illustration and Visual Narrative
Task 3: Sequential Art
LIST
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Task 3: Digital Triptych
"Choose a story from the linked website. Break down the narrative of the chosen story into 3-act structures Introduction - Climax - Epilogue. Then create 3 panels digital triptych illustrating each of the acts."
The challenges are:
- Only one story from this website: https://poestories.com/stories.php
- No, you cannot use another story than the ones from the website
- Visuals are displayed in a series of three
- Include short non-spoiler text for each act
Submission format:
- Technical file: Final *.ai
- Design file: Final *.png
- 900px x 600px
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| Fig 1.1, Resolution of digital triptych |
I started by researching inspiration from Pinterest to get a sense of how I should make the triptych and what type of style I want to go for. I've found out that different types of art styles fit well with triptychs that can be found in old paintings, video games and digital artists. I decided to go with Genshin Impact's cutscenes as they give this sort of paper-like texture but also retain their generic anime art style which I would like to replicate.
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| Fig 2.1, References of different triptychs |
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| Fig 2.2, Genshin Impact cutscene art |
Before I started sketching, I also needed to find a story from
Poe Stories that I wanted to make a triptych out of. I searched and found a story called 'The Spectacles' written by Edgar Allan Poe that I would like to make a triptych out of.
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| Fig 2.3, 'The Spectacles' by Edgar Allan Poe |
Story breakdown:
The narrator, 22-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart, changes his last name to "Simpson" as a requirement to inherit a large sum from a distant cousin, Adolphus Simpson. At the opera, he sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly. He describes her beauty at length, despite not being able to see her well; he requires spectacles but, in his vanity, "resolutely refused to employ them". His companion Talbot identifies the woman as Madame Eugenie Lalande, a wealthy widow, and promises to introduce the two. He courts her and proposes marriage; she makes him promise that, on their wedding night, he will wear his spectacles.
When he puts on the spectacles, he sees that she is a toothless old woman. He expresses horror at her appearance, and even more so when he learns she is 82 years old. She begins a rant about a very foolish descendant of hers, one Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart. He realizes that she is his great-great-grandmother. Madame Lalande, who is also Mrs Simpson, had come to America to meet her husband's heir. She was accompanied by a much younger relative, Madame Stephanie Lalande. Whenever the narrator spoke of "Madame Lalande", everyone assumed he meant the younger woman. When the elder Madame Lalande discovered that he had mistaken her for a young woman because of his eyesight and that he had been openly courting her instead of being civil to a relative, she decided to play a trick on him with the help of Talbot and another confederate. Their wedding was fake. He ends by marrying Madame Stephanie and vows to "never be met without SPECTACLES" — having acquired a pair of his own at last.
3-Act Structure:
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| Fig 2.4, 3-Act Structure |
Based on the 3 act structure that I summarised from the story breakdown, I started with sketching out the digital triptychs.
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| Fig 3.1, Sketch #1 of digital triptych |
Sketch #1 summarises the entire 3 act structure using an emphasis as its main design principle. I wanted to emphasise each story to a main character or object the 1st act focuses on the glasses that were given to Napolean, the main character of the story, and the 2nd act focuses on the married woman.
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| Fig 3.2, Sketch #2 of digital triptych |
Sketch #2 shares a similar concept but this time it uses a pattern as the design principle. A triptych uses patterns to show the consistency of the story of how it starts and how it ends which in term sticks to what a triptych is. I also added a border that I'll later implement as it looks good and it helps with setting the era of the story which is in the 1850s.
After looking at both sketches, I felt that Sketch #1's Act 2 looked a bit too clustered so I switched to Sketch #2's Act 2. This personally helps me with the part of 'seemingly young lady' from the structure to look more mysterious as well as help with the setting of the hierarchy of that specific act.
Using the Brush Tool with a 3 pt. Oval brush definition to draw the style I'm envisioning. The art style of Genshin Impact consists of the generic anime art style of line art and base colour, I'll be starting off with drawing the line art for everything, ie the characters, objects and borders.
I drew the borders by using hearts as my main inspiration. The genre for this story was a rom-com so I wanted to add that element towards something I don't have to manually show but have the viewers find out by themselves.
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| Fig 4.1, Digitisation process of digital triptych |
After the line art, I went into colouring using the Pen and Blob Brush Tool. The Pen tool helps with the coverage while the Blob Brush Tool helps with colouring in the finer details.
- Napoleon having a green colour scheme represents his wealth and status. It also shows his prosperity and balance which is what he has from his life.
- The mob represents different colours. Purple's negative meanings imply arrogance and pomposity. Red's negative meanings are danger and vengeance. Lastly, blue's negative meanings show sadness and depression.
- The grandma in a white wedding dress signifies the fake wedding that will make Napoleon vow to wear glasses forever. The muted colours on her hair and skin show us her age.
- Madame Stephanie in pink shows that she's the actual love interest of the story as well as her being a kind and warm person.
- Borders being golden signifies the era it was in and how this story is a good opportunity to learn from Napoleon's mistakes.
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| Fig 4.2, Digitisation process of digital triptych |
To add an emphasis as a design principle, I used the Shape Tool and Direct Selection to make circles and rectangles to create that effect. Using Gaussian blur to create a gradient but also add more shine towards things I want to highlight as well as help the viewers to look where they need to.
- Yellow was chosen because it's known to be the brightest colour in the colour spectrum, it also creates this heavenly look where it looks like each opportunity Napoleon was given was a golden one.
Fig 4.3, Digitisation process of digital triptych
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FINAL Digital Triptych
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| Fig 5.1, Final Digital Triptych of 'The Spectacles' |
Fig 5.2, Final Digital Triptych of 'The Spectacles' PDF
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| Fig 5.3, Final Digital Triptych of 'The Spectacles' outline |
REFLECTION
I thought this assignment was harder out of all the 3 assignments I've had. It was tricky to summarise a whole story into 3 different triptychs and it was even harder to find the right ways to express those acts even if they are the summarised version of the story. Even though it was hard, I still found it enjoyably challenging as this is the first-ever digital triptych I've ever made, albeit looking rushed and unpolished. I also had a major art block during this period which made it even harder to think up any ideas that I could make into a triptych but I pushed through since I needed to produce results. I am thankful for my friends for being there to encourage me to keep on going even if it was tough, I'm also grateful for my classmates for letting me see their works as it somewhat inspired me to achieve the same thing as they did.
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