House exco experiences

Okay! This is the second part of my updates. This time it is on my CCA, House exco!

(Sorry for taking so long to post up an update. You must be wondering why I'm so high today. I have been playing Rayman and Raging (?) Rabbids 2 on the Wii and it was a BLAST! I get to do LOTS of FUN games that got us laughing off our seats and till our sides burned with PAIN! With so much interaction and required movements, we get to SWEAT, LAUGH and get entertained by STUPID and UGLY rabbits that are SO NOISY and go alksfhiahfoinwakfnjhfiajfia....)

(I digress.)

Anyway, on with my posting. (I'll see you in the next post: 'LTC preparations')

First up: The dragon banner

So when I entered House Exco, something was lined up for us. Apparantly us interns had to come up with a design for the house banners and paint them for the upcoming sports day. So our group had to work on dragon.

This is a couple of sketches I came up using with, using a green marker, for my group members to decide which one would be suitable. In the end, we chose design 2 which is also my personal favourite. (Actually, The ever first design was by our group leader. I used hers for reference. This is so that our ideas can combine together. Besides, this is group work)

Then, I scanned the page into photoshop. I outlined the sketch using the magnetic lasso so that it will be easier for me to use the fill option to fill in colours and decide the colour scheme. On the right are the colour scheme I came up with.



Unfortunately, I think we had to scrap the dragon-looking 'D' and I came up with this design instead, keeping close to the original. I guess it looked a bit plain, so my group leader told me to add the flames and thicken the letters and here is the final design:

Final

Secondly would be: Griffin's publicity campaign

Actually, we were not so keen on the publicity thing but not wanting to do nothing, we decided to put up posters. I was in charge of the design. Kind of. I think. Or maybe. I voluteered. Ah. Whatever. Anyway, I was the one designing. My Griffin team member wanted me do up silhouettes (So as to hide our identities... ooo... scandalous... errmmm... moving on..) So I faced my good old photoshop and started using the lasso tool to form the shape of the characters. Speaking of which, Good character designers say that a good character design is one with a unique silhouette that, with one glance, you can tell that it is them.

Anyway, I was almost at loss because with our silhouettes standing together, we will look like a big black blob of mess. God helped me on the way. The opacity tool was what I needed. That way, I can put the silhouettes together and still differentiate the forms.

Here was the layout. I am quite happy with this. I like how subtle the design is. Even though the actions are almost exaggerated, our voting numbers are nicely typed across our characters.

Here is the final design, after a few tweaking and addition of a few things such as the words 'Griffin' and pop balloons to mention out identities.

Third project: Name tag design

Then came our house exco camp. Apparantly our group was called 'Doremon'. Since most of our group members were girls (Well, until Andre came), I decided to work on the character Doremi. Like a girl version to Doremon. Anyway, here is my sketch I did on photoshop. I used the circle tool for this as to gain that simple and clean effect (Not sketchy). I wanted to make similar tags for my group mates. To quickly draw everything out and get them printed in time, I knew that I had to come up with a more simple design. So I came up with an idea. I could just feature Doremi's head without a mouth so that it provides a space for the user to write his/her name. To add a little individuality, I changed the expression for the doremi on each tag.

Sketches of Doremi

Final design

Fourth time round: House Exco T Shirt design

I had to admit. I was quite, well, honoured that our house exco captain had asked me help design the house exco t-shirt. After all the hype about the class t-shirt, this is another way I could redeem myself, no? I wanted to work on ideas such as the 'I love New York' variation or the different mythical creatures at the back at the t-shirt pointing and staring to whoever was looking at the t-shirt and with a caption below: 'What are you staring, bub? This is a house-exco-er' or something along that line.

Unfortunately, my designs came out, well, disappointing. My characters looked too detailed. i was not able to get the cartoony feel. Due to time constraints and my BAD habit to procrastinate, this is what I came out with. Disappointing? Yes. Utterly Shameful? I know. My chance to redeem myself was gone away with the wind. Ah well, at least I was able to finish the design, by the grace of GOD of course and that another design had been chosen. Our T-shirts were out like... a few days ago... and I LIKE it. =D

The front designs

The back designs

Here's a closer look at the logo I designed. If you had noticed, the different mythical creatures are turning their heads at different directions. Also, the details on them are also different. Thanks to God for helping with the patterns when I was on the verge of getting stressed out over this t-shirt design.

Fifth one: Griffin notice board

Guess who is in charge of designing the Griffin notice board? Ah... it is getting late so let me cut to the chase. As you would know, we have an house exco board and we have to decorate it. Apparently I observed 3 stages from this fifth project I had to under go. I will explain on the way.

1. The initial design



I was to compose a design for one of the seniors in charge of this aspect. So this what I came up with. I played with silhouettes again and used copic marker to colour this in

2. The small design



Apparantly, our house exco wanted our notice boards to relate to each other so we were to have a standard design. The only thing different would be a mascot of the different houses. Mine was Griffin. I pictured a griffin in a bathrobe and sitting on an armchair. He holds a pipe in one hand and the other, a dumbbell. So there is strength in BRAINS and BRAWNS. I was not too happy with this as the griffin did not look too clear.

3. The standard (according to your own style) design

Another house excoer of ours drew up her own plan. So we chose to follow her design but varied based on the house we are in. So belonging to Griffin, I tried to draw something similar and this is what I came up with

Final design

Initial sketch

So what had I learned from these experiences? DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. FULLSTOP. Make most of what time you have and work with what is most important. Most importantly, have faith and pray for guidance.