Savina

Diploma Celebration 04.02.2011/ Abschlussaustellung des Fachbereichs Design, Münster

Since I mentioned the diploma celebration in my last post I would like to introduce to you the official page. (sorry, only in Deustch)

The motto is “Das gefällt mir gerne” (“I really like this”). We (the first semester) are supposed to do the event management 🙂 The plan works out great so far! I hope we can carry out our concept to its fullest ò_ó

If possible I’ll make some photos for Loyal2Art 😉

Here’s a teaser:

Teaser

The Icosahedron (Ikosaeder) is the main motif...

in Design Foundation  by Savina 0 comments

Drawing Class Homework: Time

The semester is almost over but I still have some past topics to post 🙂

After the last homework à la corporate design we were given the task to draw the long ride on the Trans-Siberian Railroad (if you don’t really know what I’m talking about check out the older posts). We were not allowed to use any typical time measurement aids like watches or calendars in our drawings so I decided to go for a big establishing shot and a long middle strip throughout both pages acting as sundial (“sun-watch”). By the way, we were given only to pages to work with, no more!

Comic pages with transsibirian railroad trip

Since my computer couldn't do the work I had to shade everything manually! My wrist really hurt XD

Here are some close-ups:

Harald reading

No one's talking. Every background sound can be heard loud and clear. Harald is reading a book on martial arts and eating a chocko-bar...

Sleeping and daydreaming. You can see part of the middle strip in the upper part.

It’s not mandatory to work with comics/manga like I do the most of the time, but 90% of the course are also choosing this type of art because it’s really well suited for almost every assignment and it’s a lot of fun 😀 Besides, our professor is a comic artist too, so he doesn’t mind at all! I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to assume that there are only comic artist at my university. There are three more drawing classes with different focuses (product design, anatomy, traditional art). Unfortunately the anatomy course has been cancelled for next semester. Instead another illustration course will be made available.

in Illustration  by Savina 0 comments

Character Design for Beeline (Homework)

In drawing class we got one corporate design assignment: Design modern versions of St. Nicholas, Ded Moros (Santa) and Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) for the Russian company Beeline. Needless to say “modern” is a very vague description and can be interpreted in various ways. Oh, and the corporate color yellow is a mandatory. Green and red on the hand are to be avoided as much as possible.

I didn’t have a lot of time so I just colored the figures with crayons 🙂

St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas

Santa

Ded Moros (Santa Claus) Note: One fellow student told me he looks like a professional killer. He's not a hit man XD He's bringing presents and he doesn't want to wake up the kids...

Snegurochka

Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden)

I included the bee pattern in every character. After doing some research on the company’s page I figured that’s a must-do.

in Illustration  by Savina 0 comments

The Cube Project

During the whole semester we had to simultaneously design 4 different cubes. This was my first opportunity to really build something you can actually touch 😀 Of course the professors had a few specifications for the project:

  • use only one material for each cube (like paper/fabric/wood/metal/plastic etc.)
  • use only the materials provided in the workshop
  • measurements 10×10 cm (about 4,0″x4,0″)
  • every cube must consist of more than one single part
  • the main connection between the different parts mustn’t be made by generally used means (like glue, tape etc.) BUT during the creation process of single parts all means can be utilized

Obviously this assignment is meant to give us the opportunity to work practically with different types of material. Idea – scribbles – illustration – draft – manufacture.

So here is one of my drafts (the plastic category cube):

plastic draft

Detailed drafts really help during the producing process!

And here are my babies 😀

material:styrodur (plastic category)

material: very hard, pressed paper (paper category)

cube 3

materials: foam and thin fabric (fabric category) The clue is that the little squares are either stitched to the top piece or the bottom piece of the big cube. While one square hangs the other one "disappears" and when you flip the cube they switch. I hope you get my idea...

cube 4

material: thin metal layers and thick copper wire (metal category)

It’s not crucial for the cubes to look good – the main aim was to experiment (the overall topic during the first two semesters, I guess). It was a lot of work but it was also a really exciting and fun experience 😉

The results will be accounted in my Foundation Course grade!

in Design Foundation  by Savina 0 comments

Go Typomon!

Time for fun typography homework!

This time we were supposed to create 15 different monsters/animals by using typographical characters only. There were different approaches to deal with this task:

  • minimalism: the less characters used to depict an existing animal everyone still recognizes the better
  • create one huge, extremely complicated creature
  • concentrate on one font
  • and my choice: ANARCHY!

Well, I did have a plan (so it’s a systematical anarchy ;)). I picked an interesting font and just started trying out and analyzing the font’s characteristics.

Here is my fine assortment of Typomons!

This exercise is supposed to make you see more than just boring letters and teach you to make a more illustrative use of typography. And it’s supposed to make fun I guess 😀

in Typograhy  by Savina 0 comments

Most frequent drawing Assignment

Every 2-4 weeks we have to create new characters for drawing classes. Sometimes we are given preset information on the appearance or the character traits (like being afraid of cats or being shy etc.). And other times we only get names, nationalities or very vague descriptions like “make him/her look modern”. The more creative freedom one is given the more complicated the initial concept can get, but on the other hand you can give your characters your unique design (it’s best not to get too carried away, this is design and not art!).

Well, let’s return to our story. After the accident in Odessa (Harald survived ;)) a new disaster takes place: Someone steals all our luggage and on top of that the police officer we turn to doesn’t speak English well enough to record the exact stolen objects. After drawing (!) every single stolen item (this was part of the homework) everyone leaves the police station disappointed…

(Western reading direction) As already said, some of the main characters leave the police station. Harald (panel 4) feels bad about not being able to overtake the bandits because he's sitting in a wheel chair (he used to do a lot of martial art). While speaking a young man called Ludomir suddenly appears out of nowhere overhearing our conversation. He is a Ukraine student and he HATES criminals, hence he decides to help us and inspires Harald to take his destiny in his own hands and stop feeling sorry for himself.

Ludomir takes everyone to Olga, another Ukraine student with psychic powers, who can help find the luggage. She performs an exhausting ritual with her magical orb and gives Ludomir the "card of answers". He reads it and it turns out the stolen bags are at the police station. Everyone assumes the police officer is a criminal himself. Ludomir is full of rage and comes rushing into the policeman's office accusing him. And indeed, the he has the bags, but it turns out they were just retrieved. The accusations were uncalled-for.

Well, this is the main story so far 🙂

Oh right, designing the characters of Ludomir and Olga was part of the homework, which was mainly to show how the stolen luggage was found. These are my Ludomir and Olga:

Given information: The names, both are Ukraine and university students. The rest was up to me.

in Illustration  by Savina 0 comments

Learn from our Four Legged Friends

One of my drawing class’s homework is to study the tiger’s anatomy.  When you learn to draw one four legged animal it’s really much easier to handle other similar animals! Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Actually you’ll have to invest a lot of effort into it, because it’s not enough to know only the anatomy, but the daunting part is to know how the animal moves and behaves. Believe me, there’s no use to drawing a tiger in the same standard position over and over again, what brings it to life is its pose or movement. Unfortunately for some this is nothing you can learn through googled images. Here are a few things I can recommend:

  • The best and often easiest (and cheapest) way to learn a lot about animals is to observe living ones. If we’re talking about exotic examples like tigers the only place to go is obviously the zoo 🙂 There are some important things you should do when doing observations: Make sketches on site, take photos, and take footage. Sometimes it’s really difficult to sketch the animal (it’s moving fast, it’s very timid) so I highly recommend photos AND filming. Needless to say, the better the quality, the better the results. Try not to use a cell phone camera (like I did), you can hardly work with the created material. Films are especially good for movement studies.
  • Watch some documentaries and read research work. Your background knowledge can always use new information and your drawings are going to profit from it a lot.
  • If possible you could also use a 3D model. Either it’s a model in a video game or you can get access to a professional program like Poser or DAZ Studio. You should pay attention to the model’s anatomy though. They could be either altered (videogame) or of poor quality (some programs seem to use the same basic anatomy and simply give you different textures to apply). This choice can be really tricky so you shouldn’t solely rely on it. The real thing is always the best!

Well, my zoo excursion was really interesting and it paid out. I’ve made some sketches and a lot of filming (though the quality is poor it’s enough for movement studies)

That’s all for this week’s tip 😉

in Tips and More  by Savina 0 comments