Nguyen Quoc Trung -

ADVANCED ELECTRONIC IMAGING PROCESS DOCUMENT

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THINGS TO REMEMBER

St u d e nt docu me nt

NG U Y E N Q U O C TRU NG

di g i t al p a intin g

Prologue

I know, my sketches are not united in ideas. Because I like so many things! I just simply explore.

Nonetheless, during the process of sketching I gradually change the ideas and the way I sketch.

In the first stage, I exploited the idea of "the futuristic Vietnam" expressing the fictional context of my country in the future. Eventually I find it more suitable for games' concept art. And it's not what I really want.

I know that I want my concept to be used for book illustration or editorial publications. I should approach differently for my drawings to suit these mediums. Personally, they should be more abstract, delusional, has a "compact'/succinct" feeling. They should be something that graphic design can involve, for example, typography.

Maybe my works won't have clear-cut division between the environment and the character. I know for sure I don't like to stick to reality in terms of the content and the presentation.

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The concept

Currently, My idea is nostalgia put in a future context .

As Vietnamese lifestyle gets more pragmatic and less poetic over time, our old values really struggle surviving. What used to define us Vietnamese may one day live only in our hearts. It's an absurd approach as I want to express the emotional life of Vietnamese people when they think of the old values. I want to depict the feeling of difficulty, confusion, ambiguity of modern/future people as they again try to escape reality and find beauty in what has passed. I do intend to express how the Vietnamese behave differently with time.

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2 Pages of thumbnail composition sketches completed at school

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I’ve done 2 pages out of class

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(Cont.)

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This was done at Mary Jane’s The bar

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Then I started collecting Vietnam’s materials. At this stage, i still don’t have clear intention about my concept.

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Continue with the environment sketching

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Continue with the environment sketching

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After collecting materials, I transformed it into my own way of expressing the concept.

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Continue with the NEW WAY of environment sketching

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Continue with the NEW WAY of environment sketching

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2 pages of character silhouette sketches done at school.

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By the time I wanted to transform my concept to something more absurd, my character sketches involve mainly human characters.

I want to uniquely describe people by heavily deformed shapes.

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Continue with the character sketches

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Continue with the character sketches

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REFERENCES

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REFERENCES

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Produce 4 main sketches

I managed to come up with 4 sketches. However, after considering my own speed and the workload, I decided to digitalize 2 better pictures among the 4 options.

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FINDING STYLE FOR THE CHARACTER

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FINDING STYLE FOR THE CHARACTER

Explanation

As mentioned before, characters play key role and occupy central positions in my works. Therefore I ďŹ nd it extremely important to stylize the character as it decides whether my works impress people or not. Unlike my previous works, this time I want to mix a little bit of the 'feel' of realistic painting and the on-trend style of graphic design, so I created the characters having minimalist shapes with minimized movements. Personally, I want the character itself to be another canvas for me to work on.

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PHO (phở)

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PHO (pháť&#x;)

Explanation

Pho is so familiar as it appears almost in everyday of our Vietnamese lives. The Vietnamese and Pho are truly connected.

Pho is part of what deďŹ nes us Vietnamese.

We create Pho. And we love Pho.

To express the two statements above, I think of the phrase "to immerse yourself in Pho". So I try to visualize it. Besides, I also make the character become a component of pho, implying an intimate engagement and our creation to this traditional food.

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PLAYING ON THE SALT FIELD

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PLAYING ON THE SALT FIELD

Explanation

Sea surrounds Vietnam, and salt farming has had a long history here. There are so many photographers and artists presenting their works that capture poetic and epic moments of farmers working on the salt field. Though as beautiful as they are, I find drudge covering the artwork's atmosphere.

Reality does not matter much to me in this project. So I want to express something happier. Because salt farmers wear hat, I notice the similarity between the farmers and the field if we take a 90 degree high-angle view. I take advantage of this to create this sketch.

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STUDENT LOVE (CHOSEN SKETCH)

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STUDENT LOVE (CHOSEN SKETCH)

Explanation

Student love is the purest.

Of course, the Vietnam student love has its own colors too. First, it's the love story in student uniform. Second, it's the love story built by time spent at stone seats, memories of summers under the amboyant trees, small talks at sidewalk food stalls and dreams. Many student love stories in Vietnam share the same experience.

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HOMETOWN (CHOSEN SKETCH)

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HOMETOWN (CHOSEN SKETCH)

Explanation

This is a work I focus on the most even though its meaning is very simple.

If you are a Vietnamese, many times you will hear those statements that share the same meaning: "the love for our country runs in our blood, bones and esh".

Basically, all I do is visualizing this ambiguous, abstract sayings.

I use multiple Vietnamese materials such as Ao Dai, lotus (which is considered our national ower), banana leafs, and buildings inspired by Hoi An ancient town.

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Digital Process The technique In terms of digital painting, I prefer Photoshop to Illustrator because I want to create an artwork having a sense of "painterly work" which looks more traditional and natural comparing to Illustrator's vector.

My technique is quite simple. If possible, I will separate various components in the artworks into different layers. As it is time-consuming and not too much a professional way in digital painting, it allows me to absolutely control every element, in case I want to retouch the color or make some adjustments without affecting the other elements. I know that right now I can't control all things within one layer.

Regarding the process, at first I always apply solid, middle-tone color blocks to every elements. Later I add shadow and highlights. During the process of adding shadows and highlights, I usually use the 'lock transparent pixel' function.

To make the work more natural and traditional, I spend some time finding paper textures on the Internet. Brushes that create textures also work too.

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