trying things out in class.

Starting to take a liking to texture brush dots. 

Maybe i need to spend more time into this. haha

Mr Hafiz : Week 11

Almost Home is finally done…

hahha :D

Cover page

End page

 

(Double page spread)
Mary leaves Burma to go to Malaysia

(single page spread)
Mary learns english

(double page spread)
Mary can now communicate in English

(Single page spread)
Mary sings for her graduation ceremony

Spot Illustration

YAYYERS ;3

Mr Hafiz : Week 10 ; Almost home progression

So,

here are some progression i made after receiving comments from Mr Hafiz,

Mr Hafiz commented that it looked flat and uninteresting.

He also said to add a sense of depth to my illustration, and lay low with the vectors. ( as well as, try my luck with the tablet)

And here i tried it again, even adding texture, as well as vector. 

Here Mr Hafiz helped by adding a vignette effect as a spotlight, shining over Mary.

Although he did comment that the audience look gooey. 

[i really dont know how to respond to that]

Here i played around with the colours and tried doing it in black and white.

I think it doesnt look half baddd~

AND I DREW A CELLO. 

AHHAHAHAHHAH

Mr Hafiz : Week 9

This week,

Mr Hafiz told us to borrow the tablet from ICT,
so today, 24th October 2013, marks the first time i used a wacom tablet to draw ahahahhahaha.

So as usual, we used a pear to work on. And using the tablet, we experimented with soft pressure and hard pressure to create thin strokes and thick strokes, respectively.

the image we worked on

First try

Had some fun myself. 

Weee

Mr Hafiz : Week 8

So today Mr Hafiz let us have some fun with shapes on Illustrator.

Or Vermators. 

So yeah, i pen-tooled the shapes and using the given shapes, we created a character.

So here's mine.

Mr Hafiz : Week 7

So this week, we continued with our refugee stories project. 

And today Mr Hafiz talked about breaking the story into 6 parts. Also know as the spline. 

This is what Mr Hafiz explained to us.

6 Splines in a Narrative

1. Exposition

The world, the characters and its rules and roles are introduced. Suspension of disbelief begins here

2. Inciting incident

An inciting incident is the event that throws the everyday life of the protagonist out of balance.

The inciting incident gets the story moving. In a problem-centric view, this is the basic problem that the protagonist is attempting to solve. 

3. Progressive complications

Progressive complications and conflict make the story emotionally charged and is key to maintain interest. The implication that every problem that the protagonist solves raises a new problem; Robert McKee calls it the “Law of Conflict.” McKee makes an interesting point that storytelling is a “temporal art” like music; and, conflict is very important for good stories. (Conflict is a very important element of games too). 

4. Crisis

Crisis is that stage of the story where the protagonist seems to be surrounded by insurmountable problems. 

Unlike the inciting incident, the protagonists usually have to make a choice here.

5. Climax

Climax is the stage where emotions reach their peak. 

Where the consequences of the choice unfolds.

6. Resolution.

Resolution is where all story problems are resolved.

And so me and Sharon separated our stories accordingly. 

And well,

Exposition

Mary is a 16 years old Burmese girl. She left Burma in 2008. And she only speaks her mother tongue, and no other language.

Inciting Incident

Got the chance to go to school in Malaysia

Progressive Complications

She had doubts, thoughts wondering in her head. On how the school was going to be like, since she has never been to a school before. She was afraid she could not make any friends, as she could not speak English.

Crisis

She had trouble communicating with the other students as she does not speak the language.

Climax

She became determine to learn English.

Her teacher noticed that Mary would start singing in her native tongue when she is homesick or feeling sad.

Her teacher taught her how to sing.

Sang in public at her school graduation.

Resolution

She made more friends since she can now speak English and could have proper conversations with the other students.

She overcame her fear of singing in public.

She was thankful she had kind friends and kind teachers.

Below is our mind map; 

Mr Hafiz : Week 6

So this week, after completing our I&VN presentation

We got a project to illustrate stories of students from a refugee school. 

Me and Sharon got paired up to be partners and we got Mary. 

And this is her story.

+ + + + + +

"My name is Mary, and I am 16 years old. I have been away from Burma since 2008. Not a lot of people talk about how it feels like to leave home. Especially when you don't really know when you will ever get the chance to return home again.

There's a reason why a certain language is identified as a "mother tongue". Often, it is a language we grew up speaking with our mothers. But it is also a language we speak with our friends and family and almost everyone we know back home. That is also why people call it the "motherland".

My mother tongue is Burmese. I did not speak any other languages except for Burmese.

And my motherland is Burma.

While most children my age in other parts of the world had to wake up early to get ready for school, I didn't have a school to go to. Then one day, the most unexpected thing happened. A friend of my mother informed me about their "harvit" center where I could go to attend school for the first time in my life. While it was an exciting opportunity, it also made me very nervous. I had no idea what attending school would be like. I didn't know if I would make new friends. I barely knew any English, and I couldn't communicate with others. First day of school was nerve-wrecking. I sat around looking at the faces of strangers who smiled at me. I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I tried reading their minds. Often, their faces gave clues as to what they were trying to say. The only language I understood at that time was the language of kindness. Even though the words sounded foreign to me, they always said them with a smile, and that made me feel better about being there and feeling lost.

It took a while before I started being able to speak English. I started off by learning the basics. "Book". "Friend". "School". "Teacher". Some people grew up speaking English, but I didn't. So I had to start from scratch. I had to learn how to pronounce them. I had to learn how to use them properly. And slowly, I began to form sentences. I could tell my stories. I could look at people and ask them, "How are you?" And I could understand when they told me, "Fine, thank you." This language that was so foreign to me began to make sense.

One of the things I have always enjoyed doing is singing. Whenever I felt sad or if I missed home, I would sing. My teachers started noticing this, and one day, my teacher Chris asked me if I would like to perform on graduation day. When that happened, I was full of self-doubt. "What would people think of my voice?" "What if I forget the words?" I only knew songs from back home. I grew up with those songs. Music is a big part of our culture. But I didn't keep those questions in my head to myself, so I asked my teachers. They gave me kind words of encouragement, but in the end, I knew that I had to do it for myself. So for the first time in my life, I sang to an audience. I sang to people with whom I started the journey with as strangers, but have grown to be friends. Having these familiar faces in the crowd helped.

I also got singing lessons from my teacher, Chris. It was refreshing to have such kind-hearted teachers in my school. They taught me how to speak in English. They taught me how to sing in public. But most importantly, they gave me a lesson for life - they taught me how to be more confident and to believe in myself."

+ + + + + +

 So yeah. Basically, we are to illustrate this story. And it will be publish, and all the profits made with the success of this book, will be wholly given to the refugee school.

As usual, the first thing we did, was create a mind map.