Intro:
I am designing a handicraft x hair braiding fantasy world. It is going to be colorful, childish, drawn in digital pencil and water color. Each element of this world should be related to nature handcraft and hair braiding, to fulfill this some research is needed.
Esi and I are trying to create a 2.5 environment, something like a digital paper layer art/ game Paper Mario. I need to make sure each elements are drawn in full including those are going to be covered by the front view and divide them into layers.
Images of paper layer art and game Paper Mario
I am going to document the process of my research and design plus explaining the meaning behind each designs
Draft
Layer 1- Quilling Lake
The lake of our fantasy was inspired by paper handcraft- quilling. Quilling requires us to roll, shape and glue narrow paper pieces to form different shapes, The shapes of this handcraft inspired me to design a quilling lake.
Images of quilling
About the design, I drew the quillings into open shapes, some stick together, some big quillings collides with small quillings and some are single small quillings. Also, they were drawn in different shades of blue ,these are to imitate the movement/ color of water.
Layer 2- front ground
Laces– I have laves surround the edges of the ground, it was to look more creative and emphasize our handcraft & childish theme
Grass with rounded edges – I drew the grasses in an old school style (which how people imagine a cartoon art grass will be), by adding circles on the edges it creates a paper crown shape, a children accessory. They show the combination between hair accessories, childish style and nature
Images of cartoon grass and round edged paper crown
Wood pillars – Those wood pillars designed as storage organizer for headbands and hair ties, the design combines hair accessories and nature
Glass beaded lily – A flower made with glass beads. I have done research and experiment of glass beaded in semester 1, it was for the nature x handcraft theme and I am satisfy of how it turns out so I included it on the fantasy world
Image of glass beaded lily and my experiment art from semester 1
Googly eyes pebbles – googly eye is a common element on kid crafts, giving playful and childish vibe. Having them on pebbles makes them and the fantasy world more lively
Paper mache mushroom –
Paper mache is a sustainable handcraft, we tear paper (usually used newspaper), soak the pieces/ strips into water and glue, then putting them together to form light weighted sculptures
Images of paper mache
Back to my work. The mushroom I was drawing is an Amanita muscaria. Introducing it from the top, normal Amanita muscaria have rounded warts on their caps, but I changed them into hearts, triangles and stars to make it more crafty. For the stipe, I was trying to imitate the structure of news paper, but I want them to look more childish wrote alphabets on them.
Layer 3-Centre/ core part of the world
This the most important and also my favorite part of the environment, because it is concerted as the largest piece of layer of the whole drawing so I needed to make sure it is the most eye- catching and creative layer, and should define the theme visually.
Pencil craft tree – Thank you so much for Esi providing this idea for me. When Esi and I were discussing about the theme changing in semester 1, she said she still wanted our world to have handicraft element and provided me some kid crafts idea. I thought the pencil figure looks really cute so I took this idea
About the design, I have a yellow color sheet wrapped around a pink giant pencil to make it more colorful. To make to more crafty and playful I have two tapes and googly eyes on the paper.
Hair braided + pom pom tree – The shape of trees remind me of pom poms having different color of pom poms as the leaves of the tree.
Images of tree and pom poms
For the tree bark, I did some experiments and research about how I add weaving into it, and I found the weaving design of Miu miu’s leather goods looks like French braids, so I changed so details of weaving, making the design of the tree a mixture of handcraft, hair braiding and nature, which strongly represented our theme.
Images of research, experiments I did during semester 1 and French braid photo
Glass beaded flowers – I have done glass beaded lily in layer 2, I am extending the concept of glass beaded flowers and drew a daisy, lavender and tulip
Paper squishy squirrel- Paper squishy is a sustainable craft/ toy for children, which is made with used paper. We first draw a template on a piece of paper, then cover up with tape, fold the paper in half and add stuffings.
This paper squishy cate is made with note paper.The color blue, and strips were to imitate notes paper that children will use in education.
Images of a paper squishy and note paper
Images of cartoon squirrel I took reference from
Ghanaian printed hair comb – This hair comb represents a giant rock in nature. As our protagonist Karimah and character Makenah are both Ghanaian, this inspired me to design a Ghanaian prop. I searched up Ghanaian art and “Kente pattern” got my interest. Those simple shape repetitive patterns looks eye-catching (kids like Karimah would definitely love it too) and it is the best element to be included in layer 3.
Images of Kente pattern I took inspiration from
Images of hair combs I took inspiration from
Layer 4- Quilling lake 2
