The END!

Finally, this blog is at an end. I have learnt a lot through reading this book, as it has really given me an in depth understanding on the comic world and all the conventions behind it. The world of comics is not seen as very serious or important in society, and the people they attract are continuously being stereotyped into being nerds or geeks. The people who are not so much into them don’t understand just how much more they are, that it is literally a whole new way of seeing things. Not many people realize that comics are in our everyday lives, from the day we are born, but I have. Everything you see on television, all originated from early conventions of cave paintings and hieroglyphs. These in turn link to comics, which links to stop motion, which links to early animations. Everything we do in general result to some forms of communication.

Through reading this book, I’ve learnt and come to realized that everyone out there has something to say to the world, and everything created has some connections to communication between one person and another. You see, art is a strange thing. It plays with the mind, making people think. Many people don’t understand a painting with a few swirls and lines on a canvas, but it is still considered art. The way I see it, the artist of the painting is trying to communicate across to his/her audience his feelings or what mood he is in, his emotions and thoughts, rather than something literal that makes sense to the eye. Art is something you have to sit back and think about, it is the next step to expression and impressionism. Not many people understand this, and so it doesn’t make any sense to them. But as I’ve learnt previously, and what I’ve picked up after reading this book is that you have to be open minded to accept and understand art, because it is not what is in front of you that matters, it is what is beneath the paint.

A point McCloud also mentions is how there is an invisible wall between everyone, as each and every one of us think in a different manner, and have different ideas. I have my own thoughts to this, but I’ve never thought about it that way before. It’s good to open up to the different ideas throughout the book, as this has broadened my understanding of McCloud’s philosophies. The invisible wall metaphor he uses really helped me to understand topic a lot more. It is only likely that we develop new ways of breaking this invisible wall every day. The power to understand has pushed society on to developing into one that relies on new technology and other forms…all to make it easier to communicate to each other. I’ve also learnt about many other things that revolve around comics such as closure, something I’d never really noticed, and probably something that occurs in our everyday lives. I’ve come to understand time and space in much more depth and what is required of an artist if he/she wants to succeed in the comic world. It is much more than I’d expect. What I think I like the best about this book is how McCloud has been able to win over my interests once again in comics. With this new knowledge and understandings of comics, I’m sure I’ll be reading and seeing them much more differently than how I use to.

Chapter 9- Putting it all together

In the Final chapter, McCloud summarizes the points in which he talked about in each previous chapter. Referring back to the beginning chapters brought back memories and really helped me in understanding comics in his point of view. In some chapters, I was a little confused as to whether McCloud knew what he was talking about…or perhaps I just didn’t quite understand his point, but in the final chapter it all became much clearer to me. I find it very surprising that someone such as McCloud has done this study on comics—for 15 years!!! And counting. Wouldn’t it ever get boring? I’ve always liked comics, reading web comics, and manga books…but they have always been just comics to me. I found them interesting because they seemed to express meaning and the storyline much better than perhaps having to watch a movie which has been previously based on a novel or story. This is just like reading a novel. When a new movie that is originally based on a novel, comes out (e.g. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Spiderwick chronicles), it is very rare for the movie to be made better than the novel! This is because to power of words gives us much more space for our imagination to wonder, where as watching a movie, we are seeing the whole story’s perspective in the eyes of the director. Everyone has a different approach and develops different images in their minds when reading the books, and so the director’s images may never match up to another individual’s idea.

Novels and Comics both have their advantages and disadvantages. Novels have the advantage of allowing readers to involve themselves within and really use their imagination- closure, where as comics have the advantage of describing things not only in written form but also visually, bringing them to the next level. The saying that ‘a pictures speaks a thousand words’ is very true, but to me, that only applies to a still image, not a movie. A comic only shows still images, along with some dialogue. The pictures within a comic strip speak a thousand words in its own ways. Like in chapter 6 where McCloud explains how words can balance pictures out and how pictures can balance words out. This applies with comics and how they are structured to allow readers to become so engrossed within the story. To me, comic artists have that one level higher advantage over novel writers. They can express their stories in much more depth visually with images and ideas that have formed within their heads throughout the creation of the comic. This way, readers can really involve themselves within the story line, having less chance of deviating from the original story, which is what many writers aim to achieve.

chapter 8- A word about colour.

Colour plays a huge role in the comic world. When colour was first introduced into comics, it has a massive impact on many. The comics were stylized in a way so that they would match the primary flat colours in which they held within the bold black line work. It was not until later on that artists began using a broader spectrum of colour, mixing and matching, using tones to create depth and moods within the art work. Artists then tried to apply these new tones and shades to they comic strips, but obviously, this didn’t work as the line work was still the same as the old ones, accustoming only the bold flat primary colours.

Colour has given the comic world a sense of depth and symbolism. McCloud uses the examples of super heroes such as Batman and the Hulk. Batman’s original comical colours are dark blue, yellow and grey, and the Hulks colours are lime green and dark purple. Because we’ve seen these characters and their colours so often, the colours have become a symbol to the characters. Now when we see the colours green and purple, we can make that direct connection to the Hulk. This can also be seen in many other comic character-hero or villain, such as spiderman, superman, Flash etc. Colour has been used effectively not only in comics and art, but in things such as company logos, flags, sports, signs etc. chicken treats colours are yellow and red. Flags of every country symbolize the country, and those colours in turn have become the representation of those countries. Sports and gaming also use colour to separate one team from the other- e.g. The West Coast Eagles being gold and blue, and the Fremantle Dockers being of green, red and purple. Road signs are also very important, and are in everyone’s everyday lives. The red light system- green being good to go, amber meaning prepare to stop and red meaning stop, are all recognized by everyone. Other colours such as yellow for road signs- being bright and reflective attract attention to drivers and allow them to be warned in advance. This is one way how colour has influenced our perceptions of comics and art in general. Colour also creates a sense of atmosphere and mood to the picture. Dark colours and hues can be perceived as evil, sad, misery, gloomy etc; where as bright cheerful colours can be perceived as happy, relaxing, vibrant, refreshing etc. This chapter is very much similar and is based around the same concept as chapter 5- Living in Line, where McCloud shows us how different lines can represent/mean/emphasis different meanings/moods/styles. (LOL above)

Throughout our last assignment/task in Xavier’s drawing class we were required to create 10 characters, and finalize a final fight scene of some sort where you would include your villain and a hero. Out of the 10 characters I chose 2 that looked both evil. This was so that I could purposely challenge myself in trying to find the two very different colour combinations for each character, so that I can portray one noticeable as the hero and the other noticeable as the villain. I wanted to test out that colour can really make the difference. As written in chapter 8, McCloud states that “adding colours objectifies the subject”. By adding colour, the picture automatically gains a new dimension…an object or scene that black and white lines just don’t quite have the fullest potential of achieving. As a viewer, we then become more aware of the physical form of the object rather than the flat black and white lines. Adding colour to my fight scene really made a difference, there is now a new dimension expressed through the colours used, and the colours I’d chosen represents one evil and good, hopefully contrasting against each other and being obvious.
. Throughout the process of choosing colour combinations for my characters, I had to think of all the different colours that resembled different meanings and moods. I ended up choosing blue and gold for my hero, as they are strong contrasting heroic colours that can emphasis that he is in fact the hero! For the villain I chose purple and green, both colours that represent vile, evil and sinister.

chapter 7- the six steps

As far as what McCloud says, I can agree with what he has to say about how "any artist creating any work in any medium will always follow these six steps whether they realize it or not". The six steps being
1-idea/purpose
2-form
3- idiom
4-structure
5-craft
6- surface
As an artist myself, I never thought about these six steps being relevant to my work before. It never really occurred to me that there were even steps in creating art! I thought about it and applied these steps to my regular working plans, and I can see how they would apply perfectly. I’ve realized that whenever I sit down to draw, I need a vague idea on my head...or a purpose as to why I'm drawing this something. The way I compose my pictures purely depend on all of the above--what I’m drawing, what genre and so on. Form, structure, idea…they are all rushing through my head as I create me piece. It never occurred to me however that I have been unconsciously following these 6 steps. Even just thinking about it, I can see how it applies to me greatly as I believe it may apply to any other artist. I've realized that with all the art pieces that I have completed and have been a success, I've unconsciously followed the steps, knowing exactly what I wanted as a final image. Where as, looking at my unfinished pieces...I can now see how I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to portray and how I managed to miss some critical steps along the way. In that situation, I often loose interest in what I’m drawing because perhaps I don't have an idea, or a structure.

So as McCloud uses the metaphor of the shinny apple compared to the old wrinkly one, I can see what he is trying to explain through my personal experiences. There is no point working towards a polished surface, using short cuts along the way--where you’ve missed out some essential planning stages. If you ever finish it, the final product will always be lacking something, whether it is form or shape or perspectives etc. How I see life altogether is that we shouldn't be taking shortcuts unless we've been through the long way. Taking shortcuts to begin with, strips us of our ability to learn for ourselves the hard way, and even though it maybe easier and less time consuming, it may always backfire and come back to you in the future. This is how I kind of see the difference of university and Tafe as being. In Tafe, students are taught how to use the programs, what to do in certain situations…students are spoon fed throughout the years, where as in university, it is more based around the students figuring things out themselves. A lot more independency is required, as lecturers don’t teach students as much, and expect them to figure things out themselves. Personally I see this as a good thing, as we as students are learning from our own mistakes first hand, and solving them. You learn best from your mistakes and that’s how knowledge sticks. Tafe may be a lot easier in terms of being taught everything, but the students aren’t necessarily learning from their mistakes.

What I don't agree however is what McCloud says about the whole "life revolves around survival and sex", and relating that to comics and art. The statement I agree with, but not if it is being put in context with art. I believe that everyone has a different definition to ART in general, and the metaphor McCloud uses is not the best metaphor to use in terms of art. It is true however that everyone is artistic in their own way...musically, visually, creatively etc. But how does that relate to 'sex and survival' in the first place. I personally didn’t understand fully where McCloud was going with the metaphor, but I guess it’s not right to judge peoples perceptions and ideas as everyone’s theories are different!

chapter s6x--"show and tell"

In this chapter, we are shown how and where the symbols of words originated from. McCloud refers back to his 'iconic abstraction chart', where he places picture and words together next to each other in historys pages. this shows how back in the times of cave paintings and egyptian hyrogliphics, words were pretty much made out of a picture...or symbol that looked like or reperesented the word. Back when i studied chinses, i was very interested in how the individual characters came to be. They all began with a symbol that looked like the thing itself. One of my favourite examples is this one.

木 mù stands for “a tree” in Chinese, and it is very obvious as a pictogram, a picture of a tree.
By drawing two trees, we get 林 lín, which means forest. 林 Lín is also a Chinese surname. Adding one more tree makes a 森 林 sēnlin, meaning an even bigger forest! 森 sēn also describes something dark and gloomy, like how a dense forest can be like.
Here we see the beauty of using pictographs – they are understandable universally and the tehcnique of multiplying and combining different can create many extended meanings.
As we combine a picture of a person, 人 rén, with a tree, 木mù ，we end up with 休 xīu. --meaning 'A man leaning on a tree' - he is having a rest, 休 xīu!



The history of chinese characters is very much the same as egyptian hyrogliphics or aztec carvings. And over many centuaries, these sumbols evolved and changed into what we now see as the modern characters. For example, in the chart below-- the first row of characters says 'person', or 'human'. IT started off with a simple few lines that looked like a human standing up. Over the many hundreds of years, it has developed to mans likings into its modern form at the end of the row. Just looking at this chart makes me wonder how long it would have taken man to develope these characters into what they are knowns as today...how many chinese characters are there all together? ALOT!... and...how many different languages are there in the world ? :S..... and to think about just how many different symbols and generations passed that this process would have taken intrigues me!...after all every language has its deep histories and all would have surely come from a process much like this on.







chinese characters are intersting in the way that they can be made up of many different charaters put together, like playing pictionary perhaps, where you are required to draw pictures that mean certain things when put together. the image above shows the multiple different symbols in ancient chinses characters put together to form the word 'law'. The image below shows how a cluster of words related to the word "garden", put together forms the word garden. The word "garden" would have evolved from a symbol much different from its modern form like every other word. Yet each of the characters used within this word would have their own history line of different symbols once again to develop into what they are today. I find this concept very interesting as there is so much more behind just this one language..'chinses'...yet there are hundreds of other languages using different techniques and developements! Ahhh its crazzyy...

Back to the book...Chapter six refers to the equalities of word and picture. McCloud states that words can balance pictures out and that pictures can balance words out. I agree with this statement as to me, it is impressively true to my understandings. When McCloud shows us how he can draw the whole scenes out with a caption given to him, and write captions with only an image given to him...i thaught about "guess the captions"--the game commonly seen in the game and comic section of newspapers. It is all very simular--how there are compotitions held where we are given a single image and we have to match it with a single caption which we think is suitable to balance the picture out. With an image given to us, we are then able to explore as far as we want with words to tying the meanings together. This works the same way with say-pictionary- where we are given a word and have the freedom of drawing what ever we like to depict this word.

chapter 5

When you think about it, how can lines show us emotions and feelings. how can simple lines 'unite' our 5 senses? In chapter 5. called "Living in line", McCloud explains how lines can portray any kind of feeling, emotion, or idea. A line can be soft and mellow--depicting gentleness, serenity, peacefulness...or it can be harsh, thick and bold-- depicting anger, loudness and madness. McCloud uses examples such as the famous painting "The Scream", by Edvard Munch. Munch uses long curved jaggered lines, to express the movement and flow of the painting. The screaming figure is surrounded by lines that flow around it, in the same upwards movement so show this fluent flow through the painting.

The author also refers to Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait and Wassily Kandinsky'd paintings. all three artists have very different lines styles and this effects the different moods and feelings being expressed. As and example, look at Walt Disneys animations. They all have villians and heros, and through their linework, it is easy to destinguish evil from good. I watched Aladdin recently, and found that the artists have drawn the good guys-- Aladdin, jasmine, the dad etc with smooth and rounded curved lines. This emphasises the fact that they are the good guys, expressing warmth and happiness to the viewers. But once Jafar comes on screen, all the lines used to depict him and his surroundings are sharp edged and ridged. Jafars face and clothes are drawn with hard, angular and sharp lines. This emphasises anger and evilness, and it is obvious that Jafar is the villian within the story. I can see how this technique is very effective and influences us veiwers greatly in how we perseive the characters.

Aladdin and Genie--soft smooth linework


contrasting linework between Aladdin and Jafar Jafar--linework all sharp and harsh, his face is very slick and...evil.

Through lines, artists have developed different ways of showing the unseen elements within reality. Things such as smell lines, movement lines, air movement...to anger and stess lines, lines that show emotions and feelings. In the comic strips of "Garfield", I like how the artist has found ways of showing certain invisible forms. In the comic strip below, we can see how the artist has used the symbols of water droplets to emphasis sweat beads jumping off the characters stressed faces. These sweat beads are obviously not there , as sweat doesnt just fall off you like that, but they are there, and they sybolise sweat beads, and everyone kows that. There are also small lines around the faces when the characters move their heads very quickly. This shows movement...but it is invisible and the lines wont obviously be hter in real life. I find that this is a very effective and efficient way of showing something that is quite difficult to show through a picture...through lines in general.
McCloud also talks about how in different cultures and societies, different symbols have developed and evolved for the same ideas and meanings. Looking at Japanese manga for example, the Japanese artists have developed hundreds of different symbols to depict different moods and facial expressions. Using different strokes and shapes, the artists are still however able to depict and portray the same emotions as any other styled arists would be able to depict. As an artist myself i know how important 'Lines' in general are to portraying moods and expressions in artworks. With simply a few lines, a whole story can be told through the way they are drawn...through shape, angle, tecture, movement and flow, heaviness, intricasy and so on... I think that the points that McCloud has mentioned throughout this chapter pretty much covers the effectiveness and the importance on linework.

Chapter 4-- Time Frames!

Chapter 4—“Time Frames”
Time is a very important factor of building a comic...writing a story...making a movie...what ever you want to say, it is a very important factor that generates our lives and the way we live. We as humans have acheived movement of time through a numerous amount different things. The television has allowed us to show movement within images and portray time in many different ways. But then if you think about it, how is ‘time’ portrayed in still images??? easy! As i think about it, a movie of anything on television is pretty much stop motion...where when you slow down the footage, it becomes frame by frame images.

But then...how does the author depict a story through a 'comic strip' so that readers can determine time and movement throughout each panel?
A main technique McCloud talks about is the shape, size, width of the panel. By attempting to capture a longer duration of time for a particular panel, the artist has the ability to stretch out the panel (sideways) so that it mentally takes longer to read across. The elongated shape buys time for the author, as the readers perceive it as a moment of time passing by. This technique applies to almost all comics!...and it wasnt hard to find a good example of this.

"Jonathan Mostow's the Megas" uses this technique so oftern throughout its storyboards. Almost all the pannels used are elongated horizintally, putting an emphasis on the time frames within the scenes and settings. The speach bubbles within are placed in an orderly left to right up to down manner, so that even as you ar reading it, time is passing. I think that this technique that McCloud refers to is such a commonly used one that in a way, our minds are influenced by 'closure' once again. Even though the single panel is not any more than one panel, it is obvious that we read the strip from left to right...just like how we were taught to read. But however, when given a Japanese manga strip, we are given directions to read in the opposite directions, and then our heads automatically begin reading that way. How is this much different to closure, where we can see the murder weapon and the murderer in one panel, then the dead body in the next. We've been taught somehow and somewhere previously that a murder weapon along with a murderer= a murder scene...so automatically our brains start fireing away at the blank gap in between and filling it in.

Motion was further debated upon throughout the history of comics. Artists have found many different ways to portraying movement within a still image. They started off with the object drawn many times in the movement, to ‘motion lines’—all messy and wild, finally to more refined and stylized lines. This can be seen within comics such as ‘Pop Eye’ and ‘The Hulk’.

Time is such an important element in life. While reading this chapter, I thaught of a range of TV series/ movies that perhaps use time as their main running motive. I came up with the Tv series-- Lost, where the makers perposely want to make the viewers lost in time, Heroes (the same makers of lost)-once again viewers are lost unless they are keeping track of every epsiode...24 was another tv series where time is a very important aspect within. The whole series is based around time- as the scenes are constantly jumping from different time to time. Then there is Life on Mars, most crime scene series such as CSI, NCIS, Numb3rs...and so on that all jump back and forth in time throughout the story. Some movies also jump back and forth...one that i thaught of straight away was the Saw series. Each movie is intricately storyboarded together, each scene differing from the other...only to loose track of time throughout the movie, and then finally reveil a twist at the end that answers all questions and sets timing straight again for viewers. These techniques have developed over a long period of time. And by breaking down movies...once again we get storyboarding and comic strips. Artists have been able to capture the essence of time and motion within still images, using lines, speech bubbles, words and sound effects.

chapter 3 - "Blood in the Gutter"

In chapter 3- “Blood in the Gutter”, McCloud familiarizes the readers with what is known in the comic world as ‘gutters’à the gaps between panels in comics. These gutters may seem like simple dividers so that the reader can be lead to the next panel or scene, but actually, these gutters play a much larger role than that!

“Closure” is what goes on in our heads subconsciously while reading a comic strip. The Artist cannot depict every detail, so he/she will just depict what is important to telling the story. As panels differ, our mind puts them together- like a jig saw puzzle. McCloud explains to us how our minds work, how you may only receives half a face, but you subconsciously perceive the whole face in the picture.

Our minds can take a few lines, and see them as an object, symbol o perhaps a meaning. Between two panels, nothing is explained. It is up to the reader’s imagination to guess what happens in between to lead to the next panel. This can linked to the short animation we watched in Andrews lecture—about the Toads in a suburban Melbourne backyard. We knew for one that it was suburban areas—from the audio in the background. We heard cars (perhaps a main highway nearby), a dog barking (a pet dog in someone’s backyard), and the clicking of hundreds of cicadas or crickets. Yet none of this is told to us visually. This is purely ‘closure’ playing its part in our heads, where our minds assume rather than visually being told.

Closure is taking place in our minds when we are hardly aware of it. Take for instance the a few pages from the comic "Ramayan 3392 AD Reloaded" (below)... in the first picture, we see the two rivalries standing apart from each other. In the second panel they man is killing the beast! We automatically know that they would have had to be funning towards each other in order for the man to be in reach of the beast to stab him. This is closure!

Now McCloud also talks about the art and craft of comics. He lists the 6
- 1- Moment to moment
- 2- Action to action
- 3- Subject to subject
- 4- Scene to scene
- 5- Aspect to aspect
- 6- Non-sequitur

In the Panel above (Ramayan 3392 AD Reloaded), we see a 'subject to subject' shot, where in the first half panel, we are shown the persuers, and then suddenly in the second, we see the ones being persued.Closure is also happening here, where our minds are filling in the blank bar in between the two images. We can vaguly see the camera panning around to the to persued. I think that this techneque used by comic artists is very effective in the way that it involves the readers to think and in a way interact with the storyboard itself. Readers are sucked into these intense storylines, where they almost feel a part of.

All techniques used by comic artists help tell the story in different ways and styles.
I found it interesting how McCloud went to great lengths to showing us statistics and graphs of which of the 6 were used the most frequently in the comic world. It interested me how the American and western comics all focused with using techniques 2, 3 and 4, as the majority of them were based off action and drama. Where as Japanese comics use a completely different ray of techniques! They use a bit of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5! This way, the reader is told more within the comic visually, rather than having to use the imagination as much. This also explains why western comic books are much smaller than Japanese manga.

Understanding Comics Chapter 2

Chapter two 'The Vocabulary of Comics' talks about the difference in complexity within the artwork and storyline of a comic. McCloud gives us a detailed explanation on how pictures and icons play a huge role in telling the story, and how the text also does. yet they are totally different things, where one is recieved ( the artwork) and the other is persieved (the text).

After reading this chapter I have learnt a great deal more and now have a much better understanding to the art and text of comics. It has often made me curious, why artists would chose certain art styles, and how that would impact the reader. McCloud illustrates 'the Picture PLane'--> where there is a triangle. One corner represents reality, another language and the last, abstraction. the artists who chose to portray their comics in a more realistic way are attracted by a sense of the beaty of nature. Artists who chose to draw abstractly most likely perfer the beauty of art, and the artists who chose to portray theif comics with more literacy admire the beauty of ideas.

Spirited Away-- Studio Ghibli productions

This is very interesting, as some comic artists chose to use a wide range of different styles and techniques, using different parts of the triangle. This can be related to the anime we watched in the lecture last week, where we watched a whole heap of anime and went through the conventions and artwork. one of my personal favorites are all the 'Studio Ghibli' productions. the animation is crisp-- in its visual and audio qualities. it is very interesting how Studio Ghibli produce their anime's though. not like Disney--drawing every frame seperately and differently, Studio Ghibli use a much more simplified technique. they move one thing at a time, and use pauses and the same scenes for many shots, cutting their budget, yet also allowing them to have the uniqueness they hold.

Excel Saga...>____<"

but not all animes are like the Studi Ghibli productions. There are some CRAZY animes out there. Try watching "Excel Saga"!!!!!:S.....it is beyond weird, and me... the animation of the characters vary from realism to highly exagerated chibified characters!. Just like what McCloud shows in his triangle, except having all the different styles colaborated as one in one crazy anime!

the story line is also CRAZYY....none of it makes sense...:S

this just shows how diverse the world of comics can be....

Understanding Comics the Invisible Art-- Scott McCloud

In chapter one of the book “Understanding Comics, the invisible art’ by Scott McCloud, the author basically summarizes the definition of what a comic really is. At first, people think that comics are these “bright colourful magazines filled with bad art, stupid stories and guys in tights”ß as McCloud quotes. Not until he actually did some research himself on what comics really were, did he realize that there is so much more to a comic strip.
He then takes us back in time to closely examine the old Egyptian hieroglyphics and some of the ‘William Hogarth’ sequences, where he draws the line connecting these ancient sequential images to modern day comics.

Comics are not only colourful magazines with crazy storylines. People don’t often realize that film can also be classified as comics, just A LOT slower and smoother. While watching ‘The Lion King’ in our previous lecture, Andrew talked us through the basic conventions used by the animation artists. The way all the animals are moving in the one general direction, as if going somewhere together…the music used that purposely builds suspense and body to the introduction, the compositions of the scenes and many more, all play a huge role in telling the story of this new born king. I never realized until he pointed these things out, how everything in the introduction had been carefully planned out and each frame being carefully drawn out one by one by patient artists.

This topic also reminded me of the "Hiden Mickeys", --which are present in ALL the disney films. Hidden Mickeys-- literally self explanitory-- where there is a hidden face od mickey mouse throughout the film- developed in Dysneys earlieset works...and from there have expanded and now has become something Disney incorporates into all its folms and cartoons.www.hiddenmickeys.org - is a site where you can find out where all the hidden mickeys are in every Disney film and cartoon. One that I have seen is in Aladdin, at the end when the tiger turns back into a fully grown tiger. IF you freeze frame the transformation, at one stoped motion, the tigers face is completely mickey mouses face! While freeze framing this it also came to me how mch detail and accuracy the artists put into each picture...how smooth the animation is blew my mind!!!!

This crazy level of stop motion animation is amazing! And being stop motion animation isn’t everything drawn out one by one as ‘juxtaposed pictoral images in a deliberate sequence’ as McCloud Quotes? Not doubt about that, ‘The Lion King’ along with all the other Disney cartoon films can be safely classified as intensified comic strips!

Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Manifesto's suggested strategies all have a sence of direction and logic. 3 points that interested me and that i can relate to;


Point 3: "Process is more important than outcome.When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there."

--> this point seems very true to the fact that in order to improve from a previous outcome, we shouldn't set ourselves a limit as to where we want to go. we should just have the idea clear in our minds and work on the process, allowing room for change and improvement. it may be unclear to us where our train of thaught may lead, but its worth taking the chances for imporvement rather than staying in the shadows of your saftey zone. this way we could acheive something much more, perhaps something beyond what we were originally aiming for. i also strongly believe that the 'Process' part of the developement of an idea is much more important because that is where all the learning takes place. wat you learn in that period of time will effect the outcome, so the more you allow yoursef to wander and expand, the more you may benifit.


Point 5: "Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value."

--> this point happily reflects point 3. the further you allow your imagination to wonder, the more you may have to acheive... always setting a higher goal each time will allow greater improvement and alter the outcome everytime. i think that this point has its ups and downs though. sometimes we may over work certain ideas...leading to over-complexed processes. i can relate to this in my Audio and Visual workshop on friday, wheree i had a simple idea for my logo design. but through thorough planing and getting carried away, my idea turned into this complex consept where i knew it was near impossible for me to acheive with my lack of skills for certain programes. but i can see how my ideas have developed into something much more refined compaired to my original ideas.


Point 17: "____________________.Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

--> this ones pretty self explanitory. when planning, always allow room for improvement. i found this one interesting because of its close connections with the point 3 and 5. they all interlace with each other, and although they are very simular, they touch on different sections of the same point. it is also very simple and crisp, gettin to the point straight away without you having to think hard. this makes is quite a strong suggestion.


these three points may help me in the way i approach my work in the future, as they are so simple and direct that people could easily forget them. to have them refreshed in my mind may have subconciously allowed me to think with more freedom and no borders:)

wEirD veGIes :S

id never actually realised how many werid and different vegetables i had in my backyard untill yesterday wen i was ssitting out in the yard filming my matchbox animals。

My grandparents are from china and are currently living in my other house...so over the past few years they have transformed out once nice and pretty garden into a boring vegie garden. its like we have a minature farm out the back, where we hardly have to go shopping for groceries now because of the wide range of fruits and veges we now have growingg in ou backyard:)

anyway...back to the weird vegies i spotted yesterday。。。

we have chokos in our backyard...which i find look VERY werid....:S...

the first time i saw one...i was intrigued by its werid shape, tecture and deadly looking spikes...

thye almost look alien to this planet.:S

side and bottom view of the choko:P

the cool thing about these choko plants is that they grow on a vine simular to that of a grape vine or a cucumber vine:P...i like vines:P the extreme delicate coils that look so fragile yet wrap around the fence with an iron grip makes me curious as to how this is possible. how can such a thin small vine entwine itself around objects with such strength that it could strangle the life out of another plant?? how could it even hold up these massive...chokos which hang by a thread of vine？？？

anyways yeah i was bored at the time so i decided to pick afew and make a study on them, playing around with colour and mediums. i workd with chalk pastels and tried to capture the textures and form of the choko. the contrast between the intricate vines and the large distorted fruit humours me， as it seems so out of proportion.

hrmm...tho not only were there these weird chokos...i also spotted these chillies which looked like small bells...i dont know if they are common or not but ive never seen them before until now.

from below they look awsome with flash on on the camera.

it shows a striking contrast etween the pale blue sky and the fireengine red hot chilli:)

*although im not much of a photographer:S*

they look so cute...i really like them for their werid shape and different forms:)

i wonder if they are hott:P