Another set of characters inspired by vintage victorian lamps and ivory goblets (I tend to draw with my book slightly slanted to the left so please bear with the tilted drawings) .
Just realised one of the characters resembles Lilymon.. watched Digimon recently so that’s probably why
The bird was my attempt on making non human so I tried copying some mythical birds.. not the best result but better than expected Forgot to save the image and couldn’t find the exact pink lamp that inspired me so the comparison is a bit off
As for these ivory goblets, I found them hilarious. I’m quoting Soth (2020) here, “a species of ivory oddities so exuberantly impractical, so elaborately absurd, that they appear, even in person, like spontaneous deformities of reality.” When I first saw them, a scene with a group of conceited, comical knights with strong individual characters trying to outdo each other immediately came in mind. But these are rough sketches and I’m thinking of refining it to look more like knights.
Anyway, I was having soooo much fun while drawing them. Probably the most fun I’ve been this quarantine.
It’s been three years since I’ve been properly drawing. I always draw rough sketches with people with no faces and faces without bodies.
Now I’m trying to draw properly again, as I want to learn more about 3D and animation later. I would love to see my drawings turn into an immersive experience. I found some images that piqued my interest:
Making characters out of an object or animal is really clever. We may or may not realise that we got influenced by our environment, the nature around us and inspirations can come from so many resources. I believe that fashion doesn’t have to be inspired by fashion–I enjoy looking at things outside of fashion to get inspired. And it’s been a desire of mine to create character designs as well.
This one is inspired by a grieving set designed for life on Mars. I added clock on the character as time is one of the symbol of death and the thin pillars looked like spider legs for me.
This second drawing is inspired by vintage victorian lamp. I made the top part of the lamp as its headdress and the body as a fan/stick. The shape of the dress reflected the bottom of the lamp, and the butterfly on top moved to the dress. This is the first time I’m using and combining a lot of colours so I’m really happy with the result! I’ll continue this practice!
For Niomi’s project, the brief is two all-white garments: one suit, and one dress. I searched for it within LCF and CSM designers and found some choices for Niomi to decide. I sourced some jewellery designers from LCF and RCA as well, to complete the look and finally gathered up the complete look:
Dress: CSM designer @lulong2000 | Jewellery (earring and top glasses: RCA graduate @jnfr.w | Bottom glasses: LCF graduate @puyu_liang
I couldn’t find the right shoes however so I got them from Topshop. I went to CSM and all the designer’s places to collect the pieces.
I’m so happy that the garments and jewellery I sourced turned out really well! We went and try different jewellery on different scenes to make them look a bit different and for me to get as many footages. I showed the result to the designers as well and they’re very happy about it.
For the second day, because it’s been raining nonstop and Niomi placed her hands on the floor and held slime as well I decided not to wear any of the jewellery and we didn’t use the skirt part of the garments as well. Fortunately, Niomi brought white pants that we could use.
The one thing that I regret is both the jewellery designers and the second day’s garments had no problem if their pieces got wet/dirty. I didn’t ask them thoroughly (and not asking again on the shoot day) and I think it was a loss for them as I couldn’t show more of their pieces on the footages. I immediately took note of this–the next time I’m borrowing pieces I’ll ask and keep contact with the designers on the day as well.
All in all, it’s a really fun project. I feel very honoured to be chosen as the stylist and gained valuable experiences. The team is very professional and creative as well! This is the first time I’m doing official work in the UK so I’ll remember this for a long time!
For our object story, Yve and I borrowed clothes from CSM graduate Jojo, but we ended up not using it. To make it up for the designer, I tried to create an idea for a shoot. The clothes remind me a lot to childhood and fairy tales–especially fairies.
Courtesy of Jojo Ruiji Zhou
I got the idea to link the clothes with a fairy tale story. I remember Thumbelina, a story about a girl who was born from a flower, went on an adventure and wedded the fairy prince. But for the clothes, I wanted to twist the story so it won’t appear to be dreamy and sweet. The mood I aimed at was eerie and dark. Fortunately, I found surrealism paintings by Michael Cheval and Michael Hutter that I thought would help develop the story further.
We were thinking of having 4 models for the day. One as Thumbelina and the rest as fairies. Yve, the photographer Yichen (from MA Photography), and I had a meeting to decide the place and props that we needed. We decided to shoot at Crystal Palace Park, as it has gardens and maze that befitted with the concept.
Along the way, it was hard to get a model because the concept is too ‘weird’. Most agencies are more willing to give their models if we offer them a more commercial, simpler concept that emphasizes the model’s face so we ended up with none from agencies. Long story short, we only got two models on the shooting day.
Fitting situation
Hall inside Yve’s flat where we do the fitting
Saxophone and cello that I hired for the shoot in front of my room
For the object story project, I teamed up with Jack and Yve. Initially, I attracted to Jack’s story about his box–how it could be perceived as something different if seen from another perspective. I immediately thought of Issey Miyake’s origami pieces and Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadisches Ballett.
Issey Miyake’s origami bags and dresses
For the project, I am thinking of making something based on the psychology of shape and colour. But Jack and I came to the conclusion that it would be quite difficult to execute. He also wanted to highlight the philosophy behind the box, and not the box itself. Yve then came into the group and added her own object story: illusion, a dream and reality, a concept of betrayal. With a mix of abstract ideas, we tried to search for common ground.
The starting point came from me. I realized when our class present their object, the object itself became something of identity and broke my prejudices about them. Later my flatmates did a room tour and some of their room looked completely different than I anticipated.
One of my flatmates, Ellen, in her room. She’s a BA Costume for Performance student who loves photographing her friends and she can fly a plane!
One of my flatmates, Sophie, in her room. From the outside, she seems like a bubbly, talkative, fierce girl. Her room shows otherwise, it’s very neat and she has a lot of knitting and sewing stuff, as she does her BA in Embroidery.
This intrigued a question on my mind: if one stripped bare, would we be able to identify them? How important is an object to identity? I found a photographer from China, Huang Qingjun, who has been photographing Chinese families with their household possessions in front of their house. It’s interesting to see how objects can differentiate one with another and even tell others about their social status and financial condition.
Huang Qingjun’s “Family Stuff”
Based on my idea, we explored some possibilities for the outcome:
I have different ideas from targeting international students to tell stories of their object that has sentimental value and/or help them cope with cultural shock. This idea could be used as a campaign for student accommodation. Another idea is to have multiple illustrations/photographs of someone from different perspectives.
Another inspiration, a campaign “Living is Winning” by La Cimade.
We combined Yve’s idea, we were thinking of adding mirror to represent the sense of illusion and betrayal from Yve’s story. The subject would stand in front of a mirror, and the camera would move slowly from one standpoint to another. And when the camera moved completely, the subject’s objects will be seen and reveal the subject’s hidden self. But doing this requires a big mirror, studio, and proper camera so we eventually ditched the idea.
After a lot of considerations, we chose to present a video about prejudice. How you perceived someone’s outer self or their “ephemeral self”, and how you perceived them when you see their objects in their most private space: bedroom. Reaching this final concept was quite a challenge for the three of us since we all had a lot of ideas, but we were confused about putting it out there. The three of us speak different languages and English is not our mother tongue. Even on the shooting day, we had a brief discussion on how the video would turn out. So we decided to get a lot of footages and compromised when we edit the video afterwards.
Plan for the shoot
The shoot for our object story took place at The Costume Store, an accommodation own by UAL. Jack recorded the video, while Yve and I directed the talent and set the room. The muses, Sophie and Timami, helped us with the styling and makeup. We took a lot of footages, including the detail of the objects.
A behind the scene snap!
The shoot went smoothly, and we went straight to editing the day after. Jack contributed his ideas of how the output would be, while Yve and I edited the video separately, but with similar editing. We got inspired by one of the films showed by Vicky in the class (I can’t remember the title, I’ve been searching for it on Youtube but I can’t find it) about a man who brings out women from behind his umbrella. The technical way of cutting the clip, put another clip, and back to the first clip to create an element of surprise. We put moody/ ambience sound to better enhance the scene. I found a site called epidemicsound.com that has a lot of cool sound effects to use for free.
The last thing we do is colouring the video. We agreed on colouring the videos in a different colour to emphasize each persona. We also added the credits as it is important to mention all the people involved in the creation.
