Movie Poster - Prerequisite

This assignment was our final assignment for our first semester. A synopsis of a story is required to be shown to both our lecturers and approved before we could proceed into the sketching part. Being a fan of dark-themed stories, I have made a story about a human and a demon that had made a deal.


This is the synopsis of my story, called Prerequisite:
Tagline: A debt must always be paid.

This story revolves around a supernatural being and a human, whose lives changed drastically ever since they first met. Daphne was the wallflower in her school. Never been noticed nor talked to by 90% of the school population. She has always been self-conscious of herself due to her huge scar and a tattoo, which can never be removed that she had since she was an infant. Daphne was curious as to how she got the scar but no one would tell her the truth and would always reply saying how she was too young to remember. She was about to be 21 years old when she first met him and she was somehow attracted to him without her realizing it. More like her heart was drawn to him but her mind was telling her to back off due to his dangerously dark aura.

Sebastian, a demon Soul Keeper has made a deal with a mother of an infant who had a rare disease that would not allow her to live past the age of 5. The deal was made to last until the child was at least 21 years old due to her mother wanting her to experience life at least until her school years. He was an emotionless demon that does his job colleting his payment without hesitation. However, his encaged frozen heart has been brought to life when he met her. The girl he literally gave his heart to. Sebastian’s heart was given to her in order to save her life but in exchange for her life when her time is up.

A tattoo that binds them together till the debt has been collected. Will Daphne be just another job that he was supposed to finish or will Daphne stir some emotions in Sebastian? Is he able to keep up with his unsympathetic reputation as a Soul Keeper?

Prerequisite means'a thing that is required as a prior condition for something else to happen or exist.' I named my story Prerequisite because if it weren't for Daphne's mother whom made a deal with the Soul Keeper, then Daphne would have just died due to the disease instead of living life waiting till the day of her death and meeting Sebastian. None of this would have led to these complicated situations if only Daphne's mother had not made that deal. Unlike other stories where the male and female usually ends up together, I did not plan to have them be together in the end whereas I was planning for the male character to continue his job and took his payment, which was the female's heart. Therefore, the female would die in the end. It was not a 'happily ever after' story.

These are some inspirations that I have found while looking through photos to be used for sketches for my poster:

These were the inspirations that made me wanted to draw the tattoo on the male and female, as I have mentioned in the synopsis that the both of them had tattoos showing that they had an ongoing deal.

My idea was for the female, Daphne to have her hair tied in a bun in order to have her tattoo shown at her back. 

As Sebastian was a demon/soul keeper, I wanted him to have a creepy or glowing eyes. Therefore I chose to draw these eyes as Sebastian's eyes. This photo is of a character named Uta from the anime called Tokyo Ghoul.

This was used as a reference for when I drew Daphne's bare back.

I used the skin tone from two of these guys from the picture above as references for Sebastian's skin colour.

I used this male runway model's picture as my reference when I was drawing the bare chested Sebastian.

These are some of the sketches that I have made:

 At first, I wanted to have Sebastian on the top part of the poster and was in an opposite position from Daphne's. But after sketching the second one, I changed my mind and continued with the second one because it looks much better that way.

This is what it looked like when I have finished drawing the main characters. If you have not noticed, I purposely drew their tattoos in an exchange positive and negative way. To explain it more clearly, for the female's tattoo, the star was black in colour and it has a black coloured half-winged heart. Whereas for Sebastian, he had a white star with his skin's colour as the half-winged heart and had a little extra black coloured outline. It is a pair tattoo where both designs were almost the same except for the colours which were opposite of each other. Besides that, I drew Daphne's bare back instead of her front in case if anyone was sensitive towards seeing a nude female. Her hair was in a bun so that her tattoo could be seen clearly as I have mentioned above.

This is what it looked like after I have added some effect at the background. I have used the font called Mesquite STD due to the fact that it gives off a creepy, eerie and a sense of horror when you see the font, especially when the font is in red. The tagline could be seen just below the title of the movie. I left a gap at the bottom of the female's back as well as below the year 2016, below the words 'coming soon' because the last time when I printed my artwork, the sides would always be chopped off. Therefore, I made a little gap in case it gets chopped off again and I had to spend some time at the printing shop re-editing it again. However, when it was printed, the gap was still there and I was surprised but I did not have a choice. Sometimes, I don't really understand how printing works. It's always unexpected.

Greeting Cards

This assignment was also given by the other lecturer, the one who gave us the 'Buddy Icon' assignment, Mr Asrizal. A greeting card was to be designed and produced by us and the theme for it was based on our own country, Malaysia. We were also required to make a mind map about our chosen themes and sub-topics for each of them. 3 themes would be chosen by our lecturer and we will be making the greeting cards according to the themes chosen.

Food, tourist attraction, festivals and famous people in Malaysia was the main themes that I have proposed to the lecturer. He chose Pan Mee from the theme of food, Mid-Autumn Festival from the theme of festivals and Mount Kinabalu from the theme of tourist attraction.

Progress were made after the lecturer has chosen the themes for each and everyone of us. Here are some sketches that I have made:

The sketches for Mid-Autumn Festival.

The sketches for Mount Kinabalu.

The sketches for Pan Mee.

I drew a moon cake myself based on the one below:

The picture above is the one that I drew and was test-printed onto normal paper.

After sketches, came all the digital work. This is what my greeting cards looked like:

This is the front cover for the Mount Kinabalu greeting card.

 The insides of the Mount Kinabalu greeting card. On the right side will be a slip-in slot where I can insert a brochure that I made.

The brochure for Mount Kinabalu greeting card.

The front cover of the Pan Mee greeting card, which is a bowl of delicious dried Pan Mee.

The back cover of the Pan Mee greeting card, which is the bottom part of the bowl.

The insides for the Pan Mee greeting card, which consists of a quote saying, 'To Live Well Is To Eat Well'.

 The front cover was later decorated with a 3-D looking ingredients of Pan Mee.

Side view of the 3-D ingredients.

Unfortunately, I have lost all of my original files for the greeting cards somehow. I have tried a few ways of getting them retrieved back by using softwares like iSkysoft and EaseUS Recovery Data but both could not retrieve any of my data regarding my greeting cards design. I was really devastated and frustrated and hope that the DVDs that we handed in to the lecturer would be given back to us after the evaluation because the copy in my DVD would be the only one that is left.

The photos that I have here were the only ones that I had due to the fact that all these were taken with my phone and it was in my camera roll and not in my laptop. On the bright side, at least I still had some photos to show my progress. 

Surrealism

Our lecturer gave us our next assignment the week after we handed in our photo touch up assignment. After that, we were required to show him either some sketches or ideas to the lecturer. My idea was to have a female coming out from an opened book in a very fantasy-like area. It may sound simple when I put it that way. I shall elaborate more on how I got my surrealism assignment together to form my final piece.

First off, I looked up on photos of female models and I found one that suits my idea:

I wanted to choose the second one, using the one where her back is facing the audience. I was thinking that it would make viewer feel that the female was a mysterious one. But I still decided to go with the first picture and the fact that it was in black and white did not stop me. Well, the photo touch up assignment came in handy!

This is how the picture looks like after I coloured it.

After that, I searched for an opened book and chose one only and immediately edited it onto my art board. The picture above is the one that I have chosen.

I also looked up on long-haired wigs due to my chosen female model having her hair tied up. I decided to have the female's hair in red in hopes that she would have the effect of a very fiery and radiant person.

I have also chosen a forest that looks a little bit creepy but has a tinge of fantasy feel to it because of its colour and the shadows of the trees that were fading away in the background.

After editing for what felt like hours due to the fact that I was still not that great with photo editing using Photoshop, I have finally produced my surrealism artwork. This is what my final piece looks like:

I made the hair look like its flying around as distorted her body on purpose to show that she was appearing from the book. I also made the forest a little darker than the actual photo and added some swirly, sparkly effects for the sake of making it seem more fantasy-like yet magical.

Photo Touch Up

For this assignment, we were told to search up on vintage-looking family portraits or our own old family photos that are in black and white so that we could retouch it and make it coloured and new. I took some time in searching for a vintage family portrait. In the end, I have made up my mind and chose this photo for this assignment:

We were taught to use the 'soft light' as we were colouring it to touch it up. It was a little frustrating at first because I kept forgetting to colour them in different layers but sooner or later I got used to it and worked faster on it. This is how it turned out after I have finished touching up my chosen photo:

This photo was taken in a studio and used a fake garden-looking background. Therefore, I coloured it in a way that shows that it is fake. However, the couple as well as the white fur carpet and chair looked real after touching up.

Characteristic Word - Cake

We were told to choose a word on the spot in class and notify the lecturer about the chosen word. We were then needed to immediately start sketching out our ideas. The words chosen must be accompanied with the characteristics of the words to make the viewer know the words by looking at the designs around them as if the word doesn't even exist.

My chosen word was cake and this is my sketch:

I have sketched some chocolate dripping off the letter 'C' but I think it did not work out well. I also wanted to include the swirly piece of chocolate that chefs use to decorate the plate with. Besides that, I drew a few creams around the paper because the first few ones did not work out as well and I just continued to draw more and more.

This was how I started on my words:

I typed out the word 'CAKE' and made even kernings between each letter before I start creating the designs. Also, I chose a colour for each of the letters to make sure that the cream's colour would not clash with the first letter.

This is the final outcome for my chosen word, cake:

A broken piece of chocolate is stuck on top of the letter 'C' with strawberry and chocolate sprinkles all around the bottom half of that particular letter and some that fell off, scattering the floor with it. There is a fresh red cherry on the curved part of the letter as well. A sliced strawberry is placed on the letter 'A'. The letter 'K' was covered with chocolate syrup, dripping off it as well. Last but not least, I made the letter 'E' seem like a part of a sliced cake with a blob of cream on top of both the letters 'K' and 'K'. 

Buddy Icon

For this assignment, it was given by another lecturer, Mr. Asrizal, that was teaching the same subject but only for a day every week. The buddy icon is made up of pixel art and the template was given to us by the lecturer. We follow the size, such as the width and height, according to the template given.

Other than that were based on the partner that was assigned to us. My partner for this assignment was Gan Ka Cong. Unfortunately, a week after this assignment, he quit and left our course. However, it does not change the fact that he was my partner and a pixel art of him was to be handed in to the lecturer before the deadline.

This was the template that was given to us:

Details were up to us whether we would like the details to be obvious and very specific or just a simple one. Therefore I chose to create a pixel art with a few designs that can be seen when zoomed out. 

This is the final artwork that I have made for this pixel art assignment:

As you may have noticed, I made a few highlights for his hair. My partner was wearing a light blue t-shirt with two or three buttons down from the collar and was also covered with white spots. He wore brownish-yellow pants that was only until his knees paired with sandals. He also had an anklet on his left ankle, which I have also added into the pixel art.