GAP: Viva Voce: Written Description of Coursework
Title:
Alien World
Media:
Poster colour on paper, then editing using Photoshop
Dimension:
A4, 20 pages (including cover)
Description of work:
At the beginning of the year, everyone in the class was required to choose a newspaper article, upon which each respective person’s coursework is suppose be based.
This coursework is based on an article reporting that a stowaway being caught in Changi airport.
The main theme was similar to that of the artist’s coursework last year—Confused Identity.
Although the theme for this coursework has deviated quite a lot from what the newspaper article was about (in the end product, a book with illustrations, the main character was a stowaway who was comatose while trying to get onto a plane, and woke 300 years later with as an an experiment product with almost no memories of his past, and full of confusion with the situation that he is in at that time, while the newspaper article merely reported that a stowaway had been caught in Changi airport; the only relevance would be that in both the end product of this coursework and the newspaper article, a stowaway is the “protagonist”) it still has relevance to other issues in life, in the area of science and technology. There had been a Chinese article that reported on people who chose to “freeze” their brains after death so that they may be revived in the future when technology allows it; this coursework gives a speculation on what may be unexpected by those people. There is no defined ending to the story, leaving it to the reader’s imagination to see how he would cope in the alien surroundings.
The style of this coursework was more towards a “realistic” approach (something between cartoon and realism), in contrary to the artist’s coursework last year (a 7-page Gundam Manga). This style was chosen because the artist wanted to explore and expose herself to more styles of drawings (especially in the area of people) instead of just being contented with Manga, which is an area she is relatively most comfortable in.
Reflections:
First and foremost, I must admit that I have not done a good job in my attempt to portray the characters realistically, for one can still see heavy traces of comic drawing style in the illustrations.
Personally, I feel that had there been more time, more exploration on the designs of the characters and more refined details on the drawings would be possible, thereby making them more realistic. Also, there may be more exploration on the background. (e.g. buildings for background of last page).
This story is rather simple and short compared to that of others in the class. With more time, I feel that a more interesting and widely-comprehensible storyline can be created.
One limitation of resources would be the lack availability of 3D materials and again, the lack of time to think about ways to explore these materials. There is a possibility that with more time and more software for 3D available, I may actually be able to combine both elements (3D and 2D) and make my coursework even more interesting.
