Week of 7/16

Last week I sent out the latest batch of “This is Democracy” drafts. I had to replace the Capitol building with the Lincoln Memorial, so I retraced the new building and played around with the composition. It was a bit difficult since the Lincoln Memorial’s overall shape is a lot different compared to that of the Capitol – it’s way more boxier and fills the space differently.

 

On the left, we have it zoomed out, which I think makes the monument more recognizable, but there might be too much empty space. On the right, the Lincoln Memorial is more zoomed in, but I feel like it’s a little too cluttered. My personal vote goes to the first one!

UPDATE: I just found out that I’m to make a draft with the Lincoln statue instead, so unfortunately the ones of the Lincoln Memorial above probably won’t be used…

It’ll look something like this. I still have to trace it, but I wonder if it looks like Lincoln is sitting there mediating the two characters’ discussion? (Is that a good or bad thing?)

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I also created these bus symbols for RUS412. This assignment was relatively simple since I just had to trace over the bus reference image.

The wheels are separate symbols so they can rotate. I made the wheels from the back view symbols too, but I’m not sure if they can be made to rotate?

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Another task was to update the banner for the Humanities Department on Cascade, since their original one had a blurry logo and was cropped the wrong dimensions. Here is a screenshot of the final version, uploaded on Cascade:

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Finally, I’m still working on my RUS412 illustration. Kathy, Suloni, and I have changed Oleg’s bedroom to a forest den, which is much more cozy for a hedgehog :^) I still have to line the students in the lecture hall, but everything is slowly coming together! (The Olegs are just there as placeholders for now)

I spent wayyyy too long on the perspective for that classroom, since I kept trying to stick with my original sketch lines but they were so far off! It’s an interesting composition where Oleg’s den in the foreground is more of a flat perspective, while the lecture hall dream has a way more depth. I also plan to make the den setting darker (nighttime) while the lecture hall will have bright light illuminating it, so that the illustration will have even more contrast.

This week was more bearable after the hectic workload of last week finally wrapped up a little.

For the RGT, I made a simple campus map base for the main page:

I first took the colored map into Illustrator, then removed all the numbered labels and made all the objects a solid color. Then, I used Photoshop and changed the color of the objects to white, and just added a black choked outer glow and a drop shadow for the outlines. The style is supposed to be similar to the hand icon I did before, i.e. an engraving. I think the map will look a lot more complete after we add the etching marks on specific buildings and stops.

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I also continued my work on the Russian Animations object creations with my Awake Girl and a notification bell:

Awake Girl’s looking cute! Not much to say on her other than the fact that it definitely gets easier the more you do. The pigtails are always the hardest part since the Kyle Legacy brush has a hard time drawing curves that look aesthetically pleasing 🙁 Meanwhile, the bell was especially fun for me since I finally got to do a little animation. I had some experience with motion/classic tweens from before, but it was mostly for rotations and position. I’m glad I got the opacity part figured out without much hassle! I look forward to animating more!

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For Russian illustration, I did this work for Kathy. It felt kind of rushed because I was doing it at the end of my week (since I only work 3 days) so I was frantically picking colors the last part of my shift. I don’t usually cell-shade when I color, so it was a bit of a challenge to create interesting textures with a solid brush. I also didn’t know if we were allowed to add effects like sparkles and sun rays (though in truth I was also just running out of time, #procrastination). I liked how my piece turned out overall though, especially the birds!

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I was also asked to do more edits on my “This is Democracy” design and incorporate a more “historical” look and feel by adding things like the parchment texture, a quill, and the relief of a neoclassical building. I also touched up the wigs a little, but I’m not sure how much more “realistic” they can be if I want to maintain the simplistic and minimalistic look. One thing I’m struggling with by adding all those images in the background is making the two puppet characters stand out just as much as they did in the other drafts. Compared to the older version, the new one has a darker but more “historical” mood, which may or may not be a bad thing? Anyways, I’ll keep working on it!

     

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Finally, I also did more Cascade work. I added contact info, staff pages, the sidebar video, some external links, and the magic trick. Most of the Cascade site is done now, I just need to fix a few details: