Tuesday 26 June 2012
prrrrogress: screen captures!
Sunday 24 June 2012
progress ii
First one I looked up was the real story.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland)
Chapter 1 – Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice is feeling bored while sitting on the riverbank with her sister, when she notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit through, but through it she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle on a table labelled "DRINK ME", the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key which she has left on the table. A cake with "EAT ME" on it causes her to grow to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling.
Chapter 2 – The Pool of Tears: Alice is unhappy and cries as her tears flood the hallway. After shrinking down again due to a fan she had picked up, Alice swims through her own tears and meets a Mouse, who is swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him in elementary French (thinking he may be a French mouse) but her opening gambit "Ou est ma chatte?" offends the mouse.
Chapter 3 – The Caucus Race and a Long Tale: The sea of tears becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have been swept away by the rising waters. Alice and the other animals convene on the bank and the question among them is how to get dry again. The mouse gives them a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her (moderately ferocious) cat.
Chapter 4 – The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan. Mistaking her for his maidservant, Mary Ann, he orders Alice to go into the house and retrieve them, but once she gets inside she starts growing. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, Bill the Lizard, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. Outside, Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into little cakes. Alice eats them, and they reduce her again in size.
Chapter 5 – Advice from a Caterpillar: Alice comes upon a mushroom and sitting on it is a blue Caterpillar smoking a hookah. The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the caterpillar tells Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her usual height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height.
Chapter 6 – Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby (but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently. Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the baby turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.
Chapter 7 – A Mad Tea-Party: Alice becomes a guest at a "mad" tea party along with the March Hare, the Hatter, and a very tired Dormouse who falls asleep frequently, only to be violently woken up moments later by the March Hare and the Hatter. The characters give Alice many riddles and stories, including the famous 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'. The Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to.
Chapter 8 – The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves the tea party and enters the garden where she comes upon three living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red because the Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters the garden. Alice then meets the King and Queen. The Queen, a figure difficult to please, introduces her trademark phrase "Off with his head!" which she utters at the slightest dissatisfaction with a subject. Alice is invited (or some might say ordered) to play a game of croquet with the Queen and the rest of her subjects but the game quickly descends into chaos. Live flamingos are used as mallets and hedgehogs as balls and Alice once again meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then orders the Cat to be beheaded, only to have her executioner complain that this is impossible since the head is all that can be seen of him. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, the Queen is prompted to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter.
Chapter 9 – The Mock Turtle's Story: The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and she introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which The Gryphon interrupts so they can play a game.
Chapter 10 – Lobster Quadrille: The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster". The Mock Turtle sings them "Beautiful Soup" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial.
Chapter 11 – Who Stole the Tarts?: Alice attends a trial whereby the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The jury is composed of various animals, including Bill the Lizard, the White Rabbit is the court's trumpeter, and the judge is the King of Hearts. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger. The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the air. Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse's accusation ridiculous because everyone grows and she can't help it. Meanwhile, witnesses at the trial include the Hatter, who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning, and the Duchess's cook.
Chapter 12 – Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 ("All persons more than a mile high to leave the court"), but Alice disputes their judgement and refuses to leave. She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar "Off with her head!" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of cards; just as they start to swarm over her. Alice's sister wakes her up for tea, brushing what turns out to be some leaves and not a shower of playing cards from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.
Then I read the story and sort of juxtaposed it with Disney's version of Alice -- Alice In Wonderland on Youtube... Yes, it was on Youtube. The whole movie. Hehehehehe hehehehe. Anyway, when I was a kid I only remembered the Unbirthday Party with the Mad Hatter and March Hare, and the flowers. Oh and the cat, of course, so when I rewatched this I was like oooooooooooooooh-ey! So I decided to use this as reference/inspiration.
![](http://xahlee.org/p/alice/i/am2/Alice_madness_returns_cover.jpg)
I also recall a video game I played with my brother called Alice: Madness Returns. It's pretty cool. I didn't play the first one though, my brother did. It has pretty ugly graphics... or CGIs or whatever you call it. This one's definitely better. Way better. It's pretty dark so I liked it. I mean... it's pretty dark and I liked it.
I didn't do any research on who started the whole costume thing and why she has an apron thing. But I did watch the oldskool classic silent Alice though, she was going to steal muffins or quiche or something in the kitchen while her sister was baking? Or her maid? I don't know.
This one's an earlier version, in 1903, which I think was pretty awesome cos I think this is the very first Alice In Wonderland ever made. I think..
The lamest one I've seen is this animated one, I mean I think I recall watching it though when I was younger and I probably maybe liked it. Maybe. No guarantees. But I rewatched a little and I was just there thinking like ohhhh my god I can't even concentrate! Her dress is so ugly. And her voice is so annoying... It's just... horrible.
I got fed up with watching all these Alices and I downloaded Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland to rewatch it and I still loved it. And then I got distracted and went to watch Big Fish, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, as well as Edward Scissorhands. I needed some Tim Burton-spiration (or maybe I just wanted an excuse to get distracted). Oh and apparently I also watched Cat In The Hat. A little Dr. Seuss-spiration.
Are you THE Alice?
So then when I was starting to draw my characters, I started with the Cheshire Cat which I drew while I was listening to Nirvana songs. Which explains why my cat looks like this
If you see no resemblance, then... nevermind. Hahahahah.
So here's my different versions of Alice(s).
My color sketches? I forgot what these are called.
They're really bad so, I'm really sorry.
Labels: illustration, visual narrative
pro-grr-ess
So at first, when the brief was given to us, I immediately thought of doing Bawang Merah and Bawang Putih, which is a Malay tale. But then I didn't really know how to do it. I didn't know whether I was to change the storyline or just stick with it and just illustrate the story. I really like the story but it didn't give me much imagination. Probably because I didn't wanna change the malay old ways. Whatever that means. But I did watch the real movie. The oldschool black and white one.
Then I found (probably) the first cartoon version.
Then I found this really cool animated one.
The last one really inspired me but I thought if I did it according to that one, I would've just followed the scenes and wouldn't be trying anything new except for how I illustrate it. But it wouldn't have given me any space to use my imagination trying to figure out how the scenes would connect and all that stuff. Which I thought would've been really fun... but boy, was I wrong about this one. I mean, it was fun, don't get me wrong. How it was up to me to choose what happens and where and how they would look like. But it's sooooooooo hard!
Labels: illustration, visual narrative
Sunday 3 June 2012
return to sender: progress
So I had a really hard time trying to decide what to choose as my four seasons but I stuck to one.... which is the kite season. I really wanted to do a Wau Kite since it's like, according to my lecturer, was supposed to be only Malaysian seasons... But he didn't seem to like the idea haha so I kept kdghsdifsdfudsifdkjdsfn and sdgiudsghifkdje because I didn't know how to do it. Anyway here are my postcards and my GIFs.
Let me start with the most horrible one.
{prepare your eyes, because they will bleed from all the ugliness. }
Labels: digitaldesign