Chess Piece class assignment- The fall of a king

Chess Piece Class Assignment-The Fall of a King

We were given an assignment where we had to choose a chess piece, make a few thumbnail sketches,  settle on an idea, then draw it out making a composition that was; thoughtful, complex, effective, using line, pattern and/or rhythm. 

I am pretty proud of this drawing, and I believe that I achieved all these aspects fairly well.

It was a bit difficult at first though, my first good copy got ruined, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do it in time, or be able to make the whole drawing at all without it getting ruined again. But after a whole lot of work, it turned out good!

When it comes to realism, I'd say that was done fairly good. Despite the fact that the regular kings bottom is a bit slanted and off...though other than that, I am proud of it and I'm glad how real they both look.


The patterns in this picture are the checkerboard floor, the clouds, the cape, and the chain coming down from the top of the picture and going down to the ruined king in the back, as well as that ones ruined cape and falling crown. It took much thought to actually settle on these to make actual movement, pattern and/or rhythm. I mean, I had the original idea of the picture itself  for the longest time, but I never thought about adding these things to make what I needed to put possible. The way the cape flows, and the stripes going down it, gives the feeling that this cape is blowing in the wind, as is the torn, ragged cape on the ruined king. The way I drew the ruined kings crown makes it look like its falling off, as he gets whisked away by the chain and ball coiling around him. The stripes on the actual kings cape is a slight repeating pattern, as is the checkerboard and the chains on the chain ball, since it repeats over and over to either give a sense of movement, or is there for just patterning purposes.

Throughout the entire picture, I'm sure that I used a pretty wide range of value on everything, though the value that was used almost the most, was the darker values, from the grays to the blacks, though I made sure we had brighter values in there too, so I played around with the lighter values on the king, since he's supposed to be the one in 'power', and he's in the light, though soon to fall as well. so I made it look like he was in the light in the 'kingdom' he's ruling over, since he still hasn't fallen and is still strong and powerful. as well on the floor,  the white squares on the checkerboard also have a lighter value, again mostly toward the light as well, but they still have light value.

Like I said, I have had this idea in my mind for the longest time. To be honest, when I first had the idea and drew it for the first time (I have the original draft at home),  it looked much different. The kings were side by side in the middle, the ruined king had actual wounds on him. He was burnt, sliced, etc, and it looked nothing like it does now.  After we got this assignment, it wasn't on my mind at the time, so I jotted down so many ideas...and when it finally came to me, I had to change it as much as I could so it would meet the expectations of the assignment. So instead of having the kings in the middle, I moved them further from one another, ending up with the regular king on the left, and the ruined one in the back on the right.

It was a slight challenge to make the regular king (the chess piece) the focal point. At first it was the ruined king as the focal point, and that wasn't supposed to happen. so I had to tweak and tweak and tweak so it wasn't. I made the background darker and darker with my 2B and 6B pencil (mostly the 6B) until the ruined king blended enough. Then I worked on the regular king, erasing and using my HB pencil to make some shading lighter on it and bringing more light to him, to make him the focal point. And in the end, it turned out to be as such.

So all in all, I believe I achieved these aspects pretty well, and I'm  proud of how my work turned out :)

Logo Assignment

Where did I begin?

I believe i'm a wolf, or at least like one. I am sometimes a pretty independent person, though I am good when it comes to being in groups, and I actually prefer it that way (because, well...if I'm not with a group, I'll get WAY lost). I care the most, and almost only for the people I'm close to, since they've been with me longer and I wouldn't want to lose them. And if you mess with them, or make them upset, you'll have to deal with me. Though if something goes wrong for myself, I'll turn to them for support. I believe these qualities that I have in common with wolves are fairly good for a CyberARTS related career, since in mostly all jobs you need to work in groups sometimes, that and I need to know how to stick up for myself, and others, just in case something happens!

Elements and Principles 

For my logo, I believe that the majority of the lines used were very thin and smooth, while some others were thick and large. The typography I used goes on a slight arc across the yellow circle, and is just on top of the orange circle. The Font used was Myriad pro in bold, making the lines for the text seem dense and confident. Adding these all together, it makes a fairly simple logo thats easy to remember. I chose the circles to symbolize the moon, the lighter one most notably, the orange one was added to include more color in the logo. And since I am a bit laid back and like to simplify things, I think making a logo like this both fits my personality, and is somewhat eye catching. If there was any movement in the image, it would have to be the typography. it (in my opinion) catches the eye first, since its the darkest color among the others, and that then leads you down the bright yellow circle to the wolf, and then up to the orange circle. 

Getting Technical

Despite me saying that I wanted to make the logo simple, it was a pain in the butt to make, since I haven't really learnt how to use illustrator that well yet, I know the tools and some functions, but things go well for a few minutes, and then I screw up and all hell breaks loose. Though after working out those problems, I managed to get it done! the tools I used were the pen tool, the selection tool, the direct selection tool, type on a path tool, and a LOT of the eraser and scissor tool! I didn't really learn much more about these tools, since the presentations made in class helped a bunch. Though, I did learn to be more patient with the pen tool, since I was going far too fast and screwing up everything. Within my whole picture, I used five layers in total, one having the original picture, then the wolf, the yellow circle, the orange circle, and the typography. And from what I remember, no effects were used. I did try the gradient and different layer effects at one point, but it never came up in the finished product.

My Thoughts and Opinion

In all honesty, I am pretty happy with how my logo turned out. If I had more time, I'd experiment a LOT more with the different effects and whatnot with illustrator, but I was quickly running out of time, so I needed to hurry up and finish, so I could also get the written portion in. And what I learned about designing a logo was it takes much more thought, work and effort than I originally thought, since a bunch of ideas pop in your head, and its either "Its too complex", "Its too simple", "Its too colorful", "Its not colorful enough", "the colors don't pop". And then sometimes when you settle on an actual idea, it doesn't come out how you had hoped, you get frustrated and everything goes wrong, and then you have to change things up multiple times, it takes forever, and then finally...success! after so much blood, sweat and tears (not literally) its done! and you're finally happy :D Though I'm not entirely sure on what we should do next, though I do want to learn more about illustrator, and I mean MUCH more, not just the tools, but how it literally works, because these programs confuse me...a LOT! :D

and that is my logo~ 

Honore Daumier:Third class carriage- Grid enlargement

In class, we were all given small cards with portions of Honore Daumier's painting of The third class carriage. We then had to use charcoal and enlarge it on bigger pieces of paper. in the end we put it all up, and it all came together as a grid to make the painting!

I mean, comparing to the original image, we got it pretty spot on! Right? Right? :D It was really fun all together when we actually saw the original image and the finished product!