Introduction: In the Visual Narrative unit, we were challenged with multiple projects from each of our classes; English, Digital Media, and Animation. For English, we individually developed our own characters and stories and put into words through the form of a short story. In my Animation class, we were assigned to collaborate with classmates in order to create a short animation film, and also learn to create mood scenes and characters for a walk cycle. Lastly, for Digital Media, we focused on the utilization of the Adobe Illustrator by creating designs for physical products.

This unit not only challenged me to work effectively and efficiently as an artist, but also helped me recognize my characteristics and flaws as I developed my own stories and characters. As I was writing my short stories and listing ideas on my animation storyboard, the process encouraged me to expand my interest and also inquire myself upon how I wanted to communicate to the audience.

Story: To develop our own short stories, we first prepared and organized our ideas through character questionnaire and plot maps. The assignment was to write a short story about a single character using detailed descriptions and imagery to communicate to the readers. When I was listing down ideas for the character, I wanted to write about a fictional character with contrasting traits from myself. For the production of the audio version of the short story, I used Protools to edit and put together sound effects and the recording of the story. Recording my story and creating an audio story was an interesting experience for me, for I got to read aloud and also use auditory expressions instead of just on paper.

Audio Short Story
This picture shows the different SFX and music that I used to add more expression to the audio story.

Short Story-

Ambit

As soon as the hand of the old analog clock pointed south, Gus woke up. Lifting his crooked back up from the twin sized bed, he spotted a stain of sweat on the clean white bed sheet. It was mid-August in the city of New York, and the air remained humid despite day or night. He set his feet onto the wooden apartment floor, and with a step, his legs creaked with the floor. Gus was a middle aged man in his 40s, but his devotion to keep his appearance clean made him look at least 10 years younger. The only thing that suggested that he was of his age, was his abnormally crooked back from sitting in his office all day. He had been married once, though his wife and he never agreed upon having a child. Their marriage was peaceful for a while, considering Gus’s moderate personality. What caused the divorce, was the lack of tolerance Gus’s wife had with Gus’s rigidness. Ever since his wife left him, he was living a pretty ordered, spacious life. He missed her, but the days went by and he got by. This was mainly due to his job as a cartographer keeping him busy, and despite the back pain, he loved his job. It was his proud forte and attribution to the world. It was a way to remind himself that he had a purpose, and also a way to make sure he lived with stability. He never had a strong preference on almost anything, which made people see him as an open guy at first. However, when they realized that Gus would trade anything for drawing maps in his stuffy office, they saw him as a perfectionist, and took a distance from him. 
	Gus went through his usual morning routine of combing his short, spiky hair down with abnormal amounts of gel, and carefully selecting his tie from the neatly packed closet. His office was located in a large building near Wall street. It took him exactly 15 minutes by walk to get there, and he never took cabs or the subways because he wanted to save money and also stay fit. He strolled through the familiar streets, crowded and busy with tourists at this time of the year. He did not like crowded areas, but this was the closest and the only route that led to his office. As soon as he turned around the corners of the street, an unfamiliar man with a trash bag-like attire approached him. The ends of his baggy shirt and pants were ripped, and his wrinkled skin glazed in the sunlight. The man seemed to be in his 40s as well, except he looked much older than Gus. 
	“ Sir, what’s your name? Where are you going? Can you introduce me to a good sushi place nearby? Oh, sorry, my name is Lance. I just moved into the apartment across the street. Would you kindly show me around the city?” Lance abruptly spoke, but Gus was only able to catch some of the statements for he spoke extremely fast. 
	“ Uh, I’m sorry, I am in a hurry. Please ask someone else.” Gus tried to confront Lance to let him go, but Lance kept speaking,  
	“ Oh did I intrude your routine? I’m sorry, I will ask someone else. Do you have any friends that can kindly show me around the city? I don’t have any money with me right now. Can you just quickly tell me the closest Sushi place? Maybe lend me a few dollars?” 
	Gus gave up, and told Lance briefly the closest Sushi place. He gave Lance a five dollar bill and ran off. He sprinted with all he got, but still arrived at his office 15 minutes late. This was the first time in nearly 20 years of his life that he was late to his work, and he was not only frustrated, but disappointed with himself. He thought of ways to avoid Lance, but with the fact that Lance lived in the street on his way to work, there were no other way.
	The following day, Lance again managed to find Gus trying to hide away from him  and caught him. Gus, who was late to his work for the second time in his life, was overly stressed, and could not take it anymore. Instead of trying to hide his face as he past Lance, he decided to confront him for the second time. It had been a long time since he last had a casual conversation with anybody, and he grew more nervous as he walked to his office. As soon as he saw Lance sitting on the asphalt ground, Gus approached him, then spoke, 
	Gus, “ Hello Lance. I think we have to talk. Would you walk with me to the Sushi place down the street?” 
	Lance responded happily, “ Sure! But what exactly do you want to talk about?” 
Gus explained to Lance about his work, the fact that he had to get to his office at exactly 7:30, and how he was late to his work twice in a row. Lance, who seemed like a careless person that did not pay attention to others as much, surprisingly was attentive to Gus as he listened. Lance’s inviting, kind eyes made Gus speak almost impulsively. Gus ended up confessing to Lance about his wife, his goal in cartography, and how he did not speak to anyone for a long time. Lance agreed to not disturb him on weekdays, but also suggested that they should meet up during the weekends. 
	By the time they finished their conversations and left the sushi place, Gus realized that it was already past noon. However, he did not feel at all frustrated about his work nor Lance, but rather felt satisfied. As he turned around to see Lance walk the opposite way from his office, for the first time in his life, felt that something was worth a mistake as stupid as being late to his work. 

Author’s Study Short Story-

Passing

 It started, so abruptly in the steaming vicious heat of mid-June. Shinjuku, indeed was the busiest street located in the heart of Tokyo. During June, right when the streets were drenched from the hot  rain, he stood alone, lost in the wave of colorful umbrellas that shook water droplets onto his new purple shirt as it passed him. This was much later when he came to consensus with himself that he will never come out to the busy streets during this time of the season, or take the lousy, cold subway. 
	This was Sou, who had encouraged himself for the first time in 18 years of his life to hang out with a group of friends this late at night. He, who always behaved to his fullest and never went out into the streets after sun-down, was scared. Scared, in his dictionary, defined as any provocative, suggestive, and uncertain actions. Although he spent most of his childhood in the crowded city, he was never good at blending into the intensity of the crowds. Unlike the majority of his college friends who hung out often, Sou preferred a solitary peace. He also took care of himself well, and was well known for his clean appearance and hygiene. His friends would often describe him as a careful person, and also mildly germaphobic. The day before it all happened, Sou was lying on the bed in his small and lifeless dorm. It was around noon on a Saturday, when he received a call from his closest friend, Umi. 
	“ Hey, do you wanna hang out tomorrow? It’s just me and a few other people from the usual group. It’s at that Karaoke place in Shinjuku, you know where it is. Just give me a text if you decide to come, okay?” Umi abruptly hung up. 
	This was how they communicated most of the time, where Umi was a hasty person and never would let Sou reply to his statements. This was not on purpose, and Umi was actually a caring guy who would always invite Sou in every occasion. Their friendship worked out because they were quite the opposite from each other, and Sou always had the patience for someone like Umi. Later that day, Sou picked out his brand new shirt and went to bed early, wondering whether he should bring an umbrella for Umi just in case. 
	The next day, the streets were immersed in the heavy gush of rain. The whole scenery outside of the dorm’s window was dull gray, but Sou rather felt relieved. Ever since he was little, he never failed to follow his schedule that he planned out the day before. Sou knew himself well, and he was always afraid of the possibility that something might go wrong. So, just like any other day, Sou was fully prepared for a heavy rain after watching the weather forecast. A few hours past noon, Sou snatched two plastic umbrellas from the porch and headed to the train station nearby. As soon as he got to the front gate of the train station, he was able to recognize Umi, standing out of the gray crowd. He always stood out, not only because of his unique appearance but his abnormal height. This was efficient to Sou, in which he was always sure of where Umi was. It was almost impossible for Sou to get lost in the crowd when Umi was near him. 
	After arriving at the Karaoke place located in the main street of Shinjuku, Sou, as always, sat next to Umi while about 5 other people sang their hearts out. By the time everyone took at least 3 turns to sing, it was already 11 at night. Umi, who noticed Sou’s dense eyelids almost shut, called out to his friends. 
	“ Oh god, it’s already 11. Let’s go, guys. The last train arrives at 11:20” 
	As everyone headed toward the entrance to the train station, Sou looked around the strangely quiet street. Unexpectedly, the air had become cooler and he liked it. Sou, for the first time, felt comfortable in the dark streets, with his friends casually walking beside him. 
When they finally arrived at the train station, the announcement for the 11:20 train came on. 
 “ 11:20  JR train to Roppongi, at station 2B. That’s our train!” Umi exclaimed as he and his friends rushed down the staircases that seemed to lead to station 2B.
Right when Sou rushed to follow Umi, his shoelaces untangled. He instantly bent down to tie them into a knot, and Sou was not slow at it, but rather fast. As he looked up and saw that no one was around him, he sprinted down the staircases. Rusty, steaming air blew across Sou’s face as he boarded the 2B station train about to take off. He searched inside the dim train expecting to see a group of his friends loudly chatting, but he did not spot anyone familiar. Cold sweat trickled down his pale skin as he reached into his pocket for a phone. Sou, overwhelmed by the numerous unexpected events, thought that this was another one of Umi’s tricks. Or at least that was what Sou hoped for. The first attempt of dial failed to reach. Sou fumbled with his phone as he dialed the second time. The phone remained silent. He kept trying, the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time, until the train reached its destination. 

Illustration

Geometric Light Cover: For this assignment, we used Adobe Illustrator to create designs for a physical light cover.

Final Design
Process on Adobe Illustrator
Final product

Artist Statement:

Geometric Light Cover- Brink

In our Digital Media class, we were assigned to create a Geometric Light Cover design on Adobe Illustrator. I decided to focus on simplicity and experiment more with ambiguous shapes instead of going in detail, especially because I am still learning to utilize Adobe Illustrator currently. The title of my project is Brink, not only because one of my cover’s concepts is the ocean, but because I concentrated on the edges of the shapes more and this project also introduced and helped me explore new boundaries and areas. For the colors, I chose black and green, and the first light cover was more experimental than the other one, where I tried to figure out what the final shape would look like as I was editing Illustrator. For cover in black, I wanted to make all of the sides to have different corners so that it will look unbalanced and anonymous. I thought that the shadows created by the light would be more visually interesting if I put together simple shapes un-orderly, so I decided to also include as much holes and openings as possible. For the green cover, I wanted to make the final object more recognizable, so I decided to make the edges look like fins and fish tails when put together. The green cover was more straight-forward and overall enjoyed the process of making it, since I tend to be attached to the ocean and ichthyology when it comes to art projects. The biggest challenge was the fact that I have the habit of including small details on any art projects, so it was hard for me to simplify everything to a certain extent but also try to think about what the final object would look like with the light inside when put together. Although I still have more to learn regarding technical skills and utilizing Illustrator and other Adobe apps, I valued the learning process and getting to explore things I have never tried, and I am overall satisfied with the final product.

Illustration T-Shirt Design: For this project, I created designs to iron on a hoodie using Adobe Illustrator.

Final designs
Process on Adobe Illustrator
Final product- Front
Final product- Back
Final product- Sleeves

Artist Statement:

For this project, we were assigned to design our own illustrations using Adobe Illustrator, and complete a final physical object. We were given the choice to pick  machines to produce different objects, and I chose to create my own hoodie design. The title of my final design is Iris, and the flower Iris carries different meanings in the Japanese flower language. Iris is referred to as the flower of passion, patience, and also the flower of ‘conveying’. These meanings highlighted my experience as a freestyle student and an animation student, especially in terms of growth as an artist. In my design, I wanted to convey my process as an artist to be patient with myself and sometimes let myself drift in order to really define my interest and my style of art. Also, I tried to depict my drifting emotion and direction as an artist through swirling lines and simple shapes that almost seems like streams of water, since my art tends to concentrate on ocean and fish. 

From this project, I held most value on the new experiences and struggles using Adobe Illustrator. Since I am not very experienced in creating art designs using Illustrator, it was hard for me to figure out how to utilize the tools to make my art look better. I struggled the most on drawing clean lines, for it was completely different from how Photoshop’s pen tool worked. Furthermore, what affected me the most in this project was when I got to see and observe my final physical product. I do not get the chance to create my own shirt designs often, so it was a great opportunity for me to learn how to put things together and really think about how the final product will turn out to be, and when I thought about my final design to be on a hoodie, it was an eccentric and a new experience that I would like to work on again in the future.

Animation

Mood Scene Animation: We were assigned to individually create two or more fictional characters, one with a physical puppet and one digitally using Adobe Photoshop. Then, we fused the walk cycles of the characters with the background image from the mood scene model that our group had created in semester 1. This project challenged me the most due to the fact that I was not familiar with the use of After Effects, and also the editing of the walk cycles.

Final product video

Mood Scene Set pictures: My group with Jennifer S and Nicky K agreed upon the dark and laboratory-like concept for the background, where we used cardboard and clay to create objects and also cut out the window in order to add appealing tones and shapes of the light.

Mood scene set with purple lighting
Mood scene set with blue lighting

Character Bio: This is my character that I developed in the beginning of the first semester, where I was inspired by the idea of fishes since in the mood scene, we made a fish head out of clay.

Character Biography for the mood scene animation

Visual Narrative Animation: For this assignment, my group and I were challenged to tell a story through a short animation. Our first idea was to illustrate a story about a grandpa bonding with his cat as he deals with the longing sadness for the loss of his wife. We wanted to create a clear shift of tone from the solitude of the Grandpa to rediscovering happiness and nostalgia.

Narrative Animation Storyboard- This is our first planning for the key scenes from our short animation.

The final product- To Dance Again