Week 10
This is my final product. Throughout the weekend, I went to GCAD to finish my work. Mr. Brodie first printed the panels after failing once, then I put on the paper Sunday night, and finally I cut and glued the panels together. The result can be seen above. The top picture are the failed ones.
Thur, Feb 20 CW – image of work completed in class
For today, all of the laser cutting spots were taken, so I had to try and find problems in my panels. One problem I found was that I didn’t have the negative on one side of my 3rd panel. Then I fixed the color of the 1st and 2nd panel, making the outlines pop more by removing the white color on certain layers. I also added certain outlines to parts of the background for the 2nd panel.
Thur, Feb 20 HW – image of completed homework
Today I changed my design, making parts that were thin into thicker pieces by increasing the stroke weight. I also then had to retrace the negative space on my second panel.
Tue, Feb 18 CW – image of work completed in class
Today I saw my laser cut designs and I changed and improved my design accordingly. I added more contrast and color to the 2 panels, fixed my negative space on the 3rd panel, and I got some ideas and help from Mr. Brodie, including making the 2nd panel all negative or all solid, and having the thinner lines become thicker.
Tue, Feb 18 HW – image of completed homework
For homework, I finished my last panel’s negative space and vector etching.
Week 9
Fri, Feb 14 CW – Image of work completed in class
Today I focused on laser cutting, since I can only do that in class. I finished cutting out one panel, which is the picture on the right. Then, I started my second panel’s etching and vector etching, which will finish later, then Mr. Brodie will finish the vector through cuts for me. I will work on my last panel for homework.
Fri, Feb 14 HW – Image of completed homework
Today, I did a lot of the negative space on my first panel. I just need the negative space below the main circle shape to be done.
Wed, Feb 12 CW – Image of work completed in class
Today, I finished the negative space and vector etching of both the 2nd and 3rd panel. I then changed a bit of the color, adding more black and white, hopefully adding more contrast. I then changed my first panel, retaining the middle design, but adding geometric shapes on the sides.
Wed, Feb 12 HW – Image of completed homework
Today, I finished the negative space on my 2nd panel. I also added another design on my 3rd panel, meaning I had to change the negative space in that panel as well.
Mon, Feb 10 CW – Image of work completed in class
Today, I started with finishing up the negative space and vector etching of the last panel. I then started redesigning the second panel, and I realized I would have to change my first panel as well. However, I do like the design in the middle, so I will try and develop from that middle design. I then did a test print on the last 2 panels.
Mon, Feb 10 HW – Image of completed homework
Today for homework, I finished the negative space and the etching for the last (3rd) panel. I also had to connect my design to the side so that the negative space doesn’t cut everything out.
Week 8
Fri, Feb 7 CW – image of work completed in class
Today, I first decided that I should have a better theme for my panels, so I would like to delete the second panel and restart. I then changed the top part of my first panel to better fit the theme. Lastly, I started on my last panel, making it grey scale (adding white) and I did a bit of the negative space as well.
Fri, Feb 7 HW – image of completed homework
For homework I finished the negative space and vector etching for my design.
Wed, Feb 5 CW – image of work completed in class
Today in class, I finalized my 3rd panel design, which is quite similar to my first panel, as I wanted to symmetry in my panels. I wanted to use more negative space as my 2nd panel didn’t have too much negative space. Class was ended short because of half day classes.
Wed, Feb 5 HW – image of complted homework
Today for homework, I first changed the scale into a better grey scale, so that the contrast shows up more when I print. Then, I removed the lines in the middle of the tower and filled it in so that the colors are the same and the lines don’t layer over each other during vector etching.
Week 7
Wed, Jan 29 CW – Image of work completed in class
Today I test printed two of my panels, both look like they are in good shape. I talked with Mr. Brodie about the panel with the tower, and I now have a goal of changing some of the details to have more contrast and have lines not to be so close to each other.
Wed, Jan 29 HW – Image of completed homework
Today for homework, I finished the other half of negative space for my 2nd panel, and the process can be seen by comparing two pictures below and above.
Mon, Jan 27 CW – Image of work completed in class
Today, I first created a Chinese tower as my second panel, then I started on the negative space, first between the bottom and long parts in the bottom of the panel, and I got to around halfway for the top parts of the negative space.
Mon, Jan 27 HW – Image of completed homework
Today for homework, I finished my first panel of Chinese new year elements, having now 3 shapes that fill the entire panel. I also finished all of the negative space and all of the vector etching, with blue highlighted being negative space, green highlighted being vector etch.
Week 6
Thur, Jan 23 CW – image of work completed in class
Today, I started class with my luminary panel as the laser cutter still had a line. I took around 30-45 mins and finished the insides layer of the negative spaces for my first panel design. Then I laser cut, but did not do the bottom layer of the box, which I had to get help from another person. However, the laser cut machine then broke down and my progress had stopped.
Thur, Jan 23 HW – image of completed homework
Today for homework I first finished up connecting the red things to the yellow walls. Then I filled in the negative space in the middle of the red things on the side and the area in between it and the yellow part for the ones that are in the top bottom left right.
Tue, Jan 21 CW – image of work completed in class
Today I did not have time to finish my laser cut as there was a long line. Instead I worked on my luminary panel. The picture on the right was the first idea I had, then I developed it into the Chinese design. I then connected many parts of the design to each other to make sure it doesn’t just fall off when I print it.
Tue, Jan 21 HW – image of completed homework
Before today, I had finished just finished all of my designs, so I spent my time today trying to find errors or areas I can improve on in general, mainly on my etching layer. A main problem I found was on the etching layer of the Lville logo, where certain lines were overlapping without me realizing. Some of the parts that I fixed are highlighted in the picture above.
Week 5
Fri, Jan 17 CW – image of work completed in class
Today, I worked on the last panel of my design. As I said before, it will be a picture of a Lawrenceville logo. I had to find an image, then make it into a vector. As you can see in the second image, I then traced the negative space and my vector etching. Unfortunately, the line for the laser cutter was too long and I did not test print my designs.
Fri, Jan 17 HW – image of completed homework
Today for homework, I completed my third panel’s vector etching layer using the same technique as before. After going to consult today, I have decided to create a 4th panel for my design, which will be the Lawrenceville logo. I will be doing this next class.
Wed, Jan 15 CW – image of work completed in class
Today in class I started by finishing my vector etching layer for my second panel design, and fixed a few overlapping lines I had for my first panel design. Then, I talked to Mr. Brodie about my panels, and I made sure that my panels were detected as vectors on the printer. Next time, I will be finishing my third panel and printing.
Wed, Jan 15 HW – image of completed homework
Today, I started on my vector etching layer for my first panel. I used the technique of copying the object I wanted to put on the vector etch layer, and then added a 0.0001 stroke weight. I ended up doing that for most of my design, which will make it stand out more. I will either try and print this design or work on more panels in class.
Mon, Jan 13 CW – image of work completed in class
Today in class I decided to print up my 3 panels together. I fixed a few problems I thought there was, including making certain parts more bolder and fixing the colors. I ended up printing it, but stopped because there was no vector etching, which is what I will be working on in the future.
Mon, Jan 13 HW – image of completed homework
Today I tried to improve on my last design of my third panel. After printing it, I felt that there could be more contrast in my design to make it stand out more. So, I recolored my design’s grey colors into a lighter color. This process was harder than it seems, as I had to ungroup many complex shapes to get the correct parts of the design to change color. Fortunately, I did achieve success in the end.
Week 4
Thur, Jan 9 CW – image of work completed in class
This class I was locked in on laser cutting. I tried a total of 3 times, failing the first 2 (left) and succeeding in the last attempt (right). For the first one, I did not hide certain layers so it cut through without me wanting it to. For the second one, the machine shut down and it stopped working. Finally, it worked for the last one and I was able to get a good panel.
Thur, Jan 9 HW – image of completed homework
For homework, I and fixed the negative space on my layer. It was hard to navigate and think of a solution to the previous problem at first, because of the circle shape, but I figured out at the end that I needed to leave an extra edge on the side that wasn’t cut to make sure the circle was connected to the rest of the frame. I then made sure the through cut stroke was set to 0.001.
Tue, Jan 7 CW – image of work completed in class
Today in class I completed my design layer by adding the negative space and then printed my design. However, I did not realize that the circle’s negative space cut through the entire design, which resulted in my design becoming a cookie.
Tue, Jan 7 HW – image of completed homework
Today I created my last design for my panel using AI. I decided to use a circular shape as my base, making sure it touched both sides of the panel for better support. I also used the lawrenceville logo for inspiration. Lastly, I used the recolor function to make the design have color in the gray scale in order for the colors to stand out in while being laser cut.
Week 3
Tue, Dec 17 CW – image of work completed in class
Today I started and finished creating my second panel using AI generative fill. I used the lawrenceville logo as a reference image. Then, I changed the colors to a black, white and grey color. Lastly, I traced the negative space so it can be cut next class.
Tue, Dec 17 HW – image of completed homework
I changed the colors of the entire design, to make the design have more contrast when I laser cut it. There was a way to do is easily, which was to use the recolor option, but that didn’t work for me in class, so I took some time and did it by myself.
Week 2
Fri, Dec 13 CW – Image of work completed in class
Today in class I finally got to use the laser cutting machine to cut out my design. I spent a while doing that, but before that I was finishing up my design’s negative space tracing. After using the laser cutter, I realized that the color contrast on my design is not very strong, so the design was not clear when being cut. I will change my design into something with more contrast.
Fri, Dec 13 HW – Image of completed homework
Today for homework, I continued to work on the background of my main panel design that I was happy with. I tried the strategy of using small shapes, which did not work out well for a long time. Firstly, I had the issue of picking the shape. I started with a square shape, but due to the design of the star (hard to make square symmetrical), every time I positioned it, the square design would look weird. So, after a few minutes of trying, I changed to a circle shape to fill the gaps. Secondly, it was very hard to generate a good design. Because the start in the middle is quite a simple shape, I wanted to repeat that theme of simplicity, while also having texture through colors. However, that was extremely hard to achieve. I tried having both ancient greek style designs (because it is similar to the Lville design) and simple designs when telling the AI to generate. However, this did not work and probably made the AI confused, as all it generated was random stuff including an Indian women, a big pillar and a 4 leaf clover. These designs originated from different things, which was not what I was looking for. Therefore, after a while I reverted back to a simple command. My final command was literally “a simple shape”. However, it still didn’t work as I expected because it was still extremely complex, so I ended up deleting a lot of things but keeping the core design. I then copied the designs and rotated it.
Wed, Dec 11 CW – Image of work completed in class
This class, I had a good start of generating a new design for a panel on the pencil box. Using previous knowledge, I made the design reference the Lawrenceville logo on the top right of the image. However, as I saw the results, I wasn’t particularly happy with the design in between the spikes of the stars. This made me try and resolve this issue, starting with creating a circle shape and tell the AI to fill in the gaps. However, this didn’t work, and I tried to use smaller shapes to generate, then place them myself, but I did not get designs I wanted. Overall, I feel like I’m headed in a good direction, also finding inspiration on the Lawrenceville merch website.
Wed, Dec 11 HW – Image of completed homework
For the first image, I explored using a reference image online, then automatically tracing it, then ungrouping it to separate parts of the image. This makes it easier for me in the future to use different parts of a reference image at a time, creating more possibilities. For the second image, I explored the progression of details that I could add to an AI generated Image. My ultimate goal was to try to create an image similar to Larry on the right. First, I wrote a bulldog as a base image. Then, I made the bulldog look to the right. After that, I told the AI to add a hat and collar to the dog. I realized I had lacked a few details, including that the hat was a cap, and that Larry was grey on the image. This was presented well on the last image, but I still could’ve added details like the color and size of the hat and collar. However, I also told the AI on the last image to make the bulldog face right, but look towards the middle. However, I don’t think the AI understood that, showing the limitations of details that could be added to a design.
Mon, Dec 9 CW – Image of work completed in class
This class we explored using AI to generate images to reference which will simplify and make our design process easier. We have also put a halt to the luminary design project.
Mon, Dec 9 HW – Image of completed homework
Week 1
Thur, Dec 5 CW – image of completed homework
Today I had a very long discussion with Mr. Brodie about my direction to fix my design, and I think I now have a clear direction. I added etching and vector layers and changed parts of my design inlcuding removing the black box shape behind my entire design.
Tue, Dec 3 CW – image of work completed in class
Tuesday December 3rd CW Image of completed panel
This design is made for my sister. The character on top of the panel means sister in Mandarin Chinese, and I incorporated elements of her life into the panel. The main element of my design is swimming. The two lines in the background represent a swimming pool, and they are the lines in the swimming pool. The shark in the middle of the design is a Tigershark, which was the mascot of our old school’s swim team that we were apart of for a long time. The design uses a lot of negative space, as I wanted the design to have a lot of line shine through. The blue and white part is supposed to be the part for etching, it is supposed to be in black and white and I have a picture for that, but I just can’t find it at the moment.
