Week 10

FINAL Project

I was out concussed, so I could not work on the project during week 10. However, I worked throughout the weekend to try and make my previous design more simple and approachable, ensuring that I could complete the luminary panels by the due date. I picked out the famous buildings from the cities I traveled to, each of which held a special memory. I created four unique designs, each reflecting different architectural styles and elements I admired during my travels. Although it’s not as complex as the previous design, I created contrast with black and white to try and recreate the three-dimensional aspect of the buildings, giving each panel depth and character. I am glad I was able to get it done by the deadline. The final outcome turned out pretty good.

Thur, Feb 20 CW – image of work completed in class

Concussed.

Thur, Feb 20 HW – image of completed homework

Concussed

Tue, Feb 18 CW – image of work completed in class

Concussed

Tue, Feb 18 HW – image of completed homework

Concussed

Week 9

Fri, Feb 14 CW – Image of work completed in class

I changed the whole design so that i connects throughout the pannels, the black space are the negatvie through cuts, and I created some vecter etching on just the first pannel to try and do a test print.

Fri, Feb 14 HW – Image of completed homework

I fixed all of the parts that failed me in the first test print. Some parts of my flower were too thin, and some of the vecter etching did not cut through so I fixed and added some more vecter etching. This should be my final print for my first panel.

Wed, Feb 12 CW – Image of work completed in class

I tried my first test print for the luminay panel and it did not go as planned. many vecter through cuts did not go all the way through, and some tree brances were too thin and fell off.

Wed, Feb 12 HW – Image of completed homework

I finished all the vector etching on my flowers, detailing each petal and leaf to bring out their beauty, and I’m now ready for a test print to see how the designs translate onto the wood.

Mon, Feb 10 CW – Image of work completed in class

I fixed the character problem by creating a circle inside of a circle. By doing so, I can separate the Chinese character / kanji from the background, which allows me to clearly cut out the area surrounding the black part shown on the images for the Feb 7th classwork. This method not only enhances the visibility of the character itself but also ensures that details are preserved during the cutting process. Additionally, I incorporated an etching layer to the flowers. The intention behind this is to conduct a test print featuring vector-etched layers, enabling me to carefully evaluate what sections of the flowers I want to preserve or remove so that the light can shine through them. I will prioritize completing all of the vector etching layers for the flower as part of my homework and plan to start my first test print first thing tomorrow morning.

Mon, Feb 10 HW – Image of completed homework

I started creating my second and third pannel. I am sticking to the same pattern where I put the state/ country flower on the top, and creating a iconic building on the bottom. I want to put in more designs but I also need lots of negative space to cut out where the light can shine through, so I will stick to one building one flower and the name of the city, and add more if needed in the future. The nyc / ny state flower is the rose, which was created / generated by AI. Also the flower on the right is Mayflower; (state flower for massachussets).

Week 8

Fri, Feb 7 CW – image of work completed in clas

I ran into a problem with the characters representing Tokyo. At first, I created a vector through cuts around the character, hoping to achieve a neat design, but I quickly realized that I wanted to try and create a clearer separation between the character itself and the surrounding design. To address this, I created a circle and the characters within it, which I thought would enhance the overall aesthetic. However if I attempt to cut out the black part of the character, the central box within the character structure will also detach. This problem wioll occur that I am working on designs for all four cities, and I want to maintain a unified visual theme throughout the four panels. While it may have worked for one character, I am concerned that the connection between the box and the other elements, which I plan not to cut out, may not yield the same results as I progress with the design in the future.

Fri, Feb 7 HW – image of completed homework

i finished my first panel, cutting out the vecter through cuts around the flower, tower and the cherry blossom. I want to test out the cherry blossom and see if i want it as a vecter etch or a vecter through cut where the light can come through because i feel like i am cutting out the places that is empty space, so the light would be shining through the background instead of the details on the panel

Wed, Feb 5 CW – image of work completed in class

I created the vector etching layer for one of the flowers, specifically the delicate cherry blossom. In the process, I also took the opportunity to change the color gradients within the flower to create a more striking contrast, enhancing its visual appeal and depth. By adjusting the shades, I aimed to give the blossom a more three-dimensional appearance.

Wed, Feb 5 HW – image of completed homework

So after I changed the size of the flower, it unexpectedly went across the Tokyo Tower, which made me redo the entire vector through cuts to properly adjust to the new sizing. The left two pictures illustrate how the vector through cuts of the flower intersected with the tower, resulting in a sharp cut-off effect on the structure. This visual representation demonstrates the challenges I faced during the resizing process. Consequently, I retraced over the flowers, carefully avoiding the tower; the two right pictures depict how I successfully maneuvered the vector around the iconic tower, ensuring that the integrity of both the flower and the Tower was maintained. This adjustment allowed for a blending the floral design seamlessly with the skyline.

Week 7

Wed, Jan 29 CW – Image of work completed in class

I tried out the vecter through cuts I created for todays homework and found out that the flower is way to small to show any significant detail and the leaves branching out from the tree looks like it is going to fall off. This realization made me understand the importance of scaling in design. So I created the design to be bigger as the luminary project design is long in height, allowing me to expand the overall composition while ensuring that I still have space left to design more elements in the lower part of the panel. With a larger flower, I can explore various color palettes that will enhance the visual impact. I plan on recreating this size all throughout the four pannels, envisioning a cohesive look that ties each piece together visually. As for the vecter through cuts, I see some areas that are a bitt too skinny and too detailed, which could hinder the cutting process. Therefore, I will be going back and fixing those, simplifying or thickening lines where necessary to ensure durability and clarity in the final product. Also, since the flower is bigger now, we can create more color contrast and even consider incorporating vecter etching techniques to showcase the flower even more, adding depth and texture that will elevate the overall design. This approach will not only make the flowers appear more vibrant but also enhance the storytelling aspect of my work.

Wed, Jan 29 HW – Image of completed homework

I created the vector through cuts of the cherry blossom, carefully tracing each flower to ensure accuracy and depth in the design. The amount of detail the AI goes to create these images is painful; it took me more than 30 minutes just to outline the tree and its flowers, since I had to refinine each curve and line to achieve the desired effect. I am thinking of whether or not I should continue utilizing AI for generating these images and designs. This is primarily because, after the vector throughcuts, we still need to create vector etching, which requires a clear understanding of the etching process. It’s crucial to sort out which areas should be etched to avoid accidentally burning out the tree, as that could ruin the representation of nature I am aiming for. I am excited to say that this design is ready for a test print. I look forward to seeing what it’s going to look like in its final form.

Mon, Jan 27 CW – Image of work completed in class

I still couldn’t decide on what theme and design to go with for the luminary project, so I decided to test some designs out to get a better understanding of what it will ultimately look like in a real-world context. After several designs, I was very pleased with the result of my test print, as it allowed me to visualize my conceptual ideas. I created vector cutouts throughout the Tokyo Tower, which served as both an inspiration and a focal point for the project as it represents tokyo; where I was born. I wanted to test it out to see if the gap between the middle part of the tower was sufficient enough that it wouldn’t burn and create one big hole, which it didn’t, so that was a significant relief. This design is done to scale, so it will not be any bigger or smaller than intended, ensuring consistency throughout the process. I think what I will do is create these vector cutouts first to test the design and the shape, analyzing how light interacts with the cuts, and then adjust the etching and vector etching to create a contrast within the panel. This should help create a more dynamic visual experience and hopefully make it look more realistic, with a great amount of detail that brings the piece to life.

Mon, Jan 27 HW – Image of completed homework

I am creating my second panel = NYC. Within the panel, I have the statue of liberty that represents the city and I want to put a flower for each city. Rose= nyc. cherry blossom = tokyo / japan. Epigaea repens = boston and Vanda Miss Joaquim for singapore. I also created the design of the building we lived in of nyc. I think the problem with ai is its good to generate an exsiting common image but something simple as a building that has no unique features, it becomes harder.

Week 6

Thur, Jan 23 CW – image of work completed in class

I was not in class this day.

Thur, Jan 23 HW – image of completed homework

I looked at other people’s luminary design on their blog page and it inspired me to try other designs as well like abstract art, progression of an animal, but I still don’t understand the expectation for this project; where or not we should fully use AI to create a really detailed design or we should keep it simple with shapes and the previous design we had in Ms.Kalna’s class.

Tue, Jan 21 CW – image of work completed in class

I brought back the reference design I created during the fall term with Ms.Kalna and tried to first ask AI to recreate the whole thing, which turned out to be a disaster so I separated them part by part so I brought a image of a cherry blossom from the internet and asked AI to recreate that as well as the temple and the Tokyo tower. I don’t really understand the expectation of this project as AI can generate these to perfection so am I supposed to trace over them with vec etch or leave them as it is.

Tue, Jan 21 HW – image of completed homework

I went back to the original design of my luminary project and tried to recreate using the knowledge I know now, but being able to use AI to generate images, I think would be easier and way more detailed than I can be. So I asked AI to generate an image of tokyo tower and the city of tokyo skyline, I got this. I think I will continue to work on my own design or come up with a new conceputal idea or a physical design that connects the 4 pannels.

Week 5

Fri, Jan 17 CW – image of work completed in class

I have completed the final panel of the larry box project. I strated the class by printing out a turtle neck with the vec etch of larry and it came out very bland with not color contrasts and some vec etch was missing from larry. So I fixed them and ungrouped the AI generated image and also created my own etching shapes to create more contrast, as well as more vec etch to separate the different parts within the turtleneck desgin and it came out great! So I sanded all four panels and I am done with the project

Fri, Jan 17 HW – image of completed homework

I finished up creating the vecter etching on larry’s eyes, and created a new layer called etch dog where I outlined all the physical features of larry and made it either white or black to show contrast.

Wed, Jan 15 CW – image of work completed in class

I didn’t have enough time to do an test print so I created the vecter etching of the dog to put on if the etching doesn’t work for the turtleneck. After I finish with the eyes, I want to create my own etching layer to engrave different powers in different parts of the face and not just the lines and vecter etching.

Wed, Jan 15 HW – image of completed homework

Instead of using the larry as the fourth pannel, i decided to create my own turtleneck design with the larry as a logo. Since the turtleneck is created by Ai, and hard to make small adjustments, instead of etching the larry onto the turtleneck, I am planning on using vecter etching to etch the larry on with no colors. I will try just the etching as a test print to see what it will look like, but most likely I will use vecter etching. I also created the vecter cut throughs for this pannel. (right picture shows the vecter etch and through where the right shows the etching).

Mon, Jan 13 CW – image of work completed in class

I test printed the design I created for the homework. I saw a huge improvement on the color contrast for the puffer jacket. We went from being too dark, to too light, and found got to the design inbetween the first and the second.

I also printed out a new version of the hoodie as the previous one has a line of the square from the outline of the vector through cut that caused to make a vector etch over the hoodie and the arms.

The polo shirt was the first test print and so I tested out multiple gradients and color contrast to see how it was going to look different, but ultimately will use the first test print of the polo shirt.

Mon, Jan 13 HW – image of completed homework

This was the design of the puffer jacket during the most recent test print where we could not see a significant color contrast to highlight its 3D design, so I created a more black and white contrast. I also fixed some of the vector etching lines and created the vector etch for the flag and the lines on the top right side of the jacket, as well as fixing the shape of the vector etching on both side of the arms

Week 4

Thur, Jan 9 CW – image of work completed in class

I test printed the new designs for the puffer jacket as well as the polo shirt. I see that the new color contrast on the polo shirt did not come out as I wanted to, not showing a 3D look. So I will use the first test print I did for the polo shirt. As for the puffer jacket, I created color contrasts not as significant as black and white (more like dark gray and light gray) to try and show the 3 D look the hoodie and the polo shirt has, but it came out looking the same in most of the areas so I will create a significant difference to try and highlight the 3D look better. Finally, I fixed the flag logo to show contrast as blue and red came out almost the same in black and white. I will add a vector etching around the flag to seprate itself from the puffer jacket.

Thur, Jan 9 HW – image of completed homework

I found out that blue and red looks really similar when shown on black and white, and there was a black fill beneath the flag, resulting in laser over the design of the flag. So I created my own Griswold flag by drawing over the flag and give contrast between the flag and the deign of the puffer jacket as well as vector etching to separate them two. So I erased the fill I had behind the flag, and created my own flag to make a color contrast and created vector etch to highlight it better. Will do a test print in class

Tue, Jan 7 CW – image of work completed in class

I did couple test prints to check my design and found couple flaws. Good side was that the middle design of the hoodie came out beautiuflly, contrasting colors to give a 3-D design and the vector etching to highlight the golf ball logo better. As for the mistakes, I mistook speed and power when doing the test print for vector etching, cutting out all of the design on the long wood board. Since I was satisfied with the result of the hoodie, I test printed a puffer jacket and saw couple flaws. I see that the vector etching was not too bad showing the separation between each pocket with the feathers. However, I also have a Griswold flag on the top right which did not print out. So I want to fix what happened to cause that.

Tue, Jan 7 HW – image of completed homework

Here below is the Vector through cut layer, vecter etching layer, and the etching layer in order. I fixed the gradient difference for the polo shirt, and finalized the designs for the other two clothing. But, the other two design does not have much contrast within the design, especially the last one (puffer jacket). I am going to test print all 3 to see if the amount of details on the hoodie design can hold up when printing, and if I can see a 3D texture like print for the puffer jacket, and will adjust accordingly.

Week 3

Tue, Dec 17 CW – image of work completed in class

I test printed the LVILLE DAD polo shirt with the details I fixed from the previous test print. However, I saw that by changing the lawrenceville logo to black and white, it destroyed the details inside the logo, and we see that the white part of the logo is just standing out. We see improvement on the gradient difference between the logo and the shirt and to try and make it look more 3D. I fixed the problems I ran into during the second test print as well.

Tue, Dec 17 HW – image of completed homework

I went through the same steps as the LVILLE DAD polo shirt. I created the negative shapes that is going to be cut out, and created more vector etching shapes to create more depth and difference to make sure it stands out. I also changed the color gradient between the Lawrenceville Logo and the surrounding area to create contrast. I have a Griswold flag on my puffer jacket design, so I might need to do the same and create a color gradient difference to make it stand out more. Now, I am ready for my test prints for all three panels.

Week 2

Fri, Dec 13 CW – Image of work completed in class

Previously, I created two more layers for the AI generated image and the negative space I outlined to be cut off as a vector through cut. I moved the AI generated image to the etching layer and moved the AI generated image to the etching layer and made it grayscale to change the power of the laser. I also created vector etching layer and a negative layer for the shapes I wanteed to cut out.

After the test print, we found out that we want more color contrast between the lawrenceville logo and the color of the shirt. So, I will make the color around the lawrenceville logo more dark, and make the lawrenceville logo more white, trying to create the color difference so I can stand out more

Fri, Dec 13 HW – Image of completed homework

I tried out more AI generate images and found out there are more setting like amount of detail the AI will create. I changed this to low hoping that it would create something more simple so that there wouldn’t be overlapping lines but it still came out very complicated with many shapes overlapping, so I moved all the three images that was created by AI to the panels and drew the vector cut outs for the AI images and created three new layers for the AI image and its vector cuts. I also created the outline for the each of the design

Wed, Dec 11 CW – Image of work completed in class

I found out that by making the request more simple and not as detailed, it will be easier for the AI to understand what it is that you want the AI to create. For example, I typed in “create a 2D design of the hoodie. On the 2D design of the hoodie, there should be the dog from the reference picture (a golden retreivier puppy) and a beanie (type of hat) where the dog is wearing it on its head. All of this design should be printed on the 2D design of the hoodie”. However, the AI generated … Also, AI is not good with creating word logos. For example, I told AI to create a golf polo shirt saying Lawrenceville DAD. However, majority of the designs were saying complete nonsense to a point it wasn’t even English.

Wed, Dec 11 HW – Image of completed homework

I tried to ask AI to create more complex designs combining multiple reference pictures but it did not work, so I will use photoshop to combine these pictures and trace over them to create the negative space, eching layers, and the cut out pieces.

Mon, Dec 9 CW – Image of work completed in class

We used AI to generate images using the larry as a reference picture. I tried to make it create more advanced picture on the last panel but it turns out messed up so need to stick to simple and around one sentence of direction.

Mon, Dec 9 HW – Image of completed homework

Updated Photoshop and Illustrator and I have the Larrie exercise dowloaded and opened on the new updated Illustrator

Week 1

Thur, Dec 5 CW – image of completed homework

I recreated my design where I shaped the details instead of the cutout. I also changed some of the designs like the cherry blossom and the temple

I fixed the crooked edges and cleaned up the line length to 4pt, and I wanted to create the cherry blossom flowers with shapes instead of pen tool so I can make it consistent throughout the panel.

Tue, Dec 3 CW – image of work completed in class

This is the first panel we worked on last term with Ms.Kalna. There’s 5 layer; First is the luminary outline (just the box and size of the panel). Second is the reference pictures. Third is the Chinese characters of Japan. Fourth is the space I want to cut out, and the Fifth layer are the details I want to add to the design (without cutting them out).

My luminary panels are connected through the places I lived in my life. So, I was born in Tokyo, then to Boston, NYC, and Singapore.