Miki's Fashion House

Week 4: The things we do in photoshop

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Never thought there would be a day which I would be doing fashion illustrations and such on photoshop. They always look greak on Drawing(oekaki) boards and deviantart. I'm not very good with this as this is my first time doing it so here goes....

I had problems making the skirt fit on the model properly.. I should probably research on how to do that...

And then we have...

As the model was on an angle, I tried to give the dress a 3D and in motion look but kind of failed..

Intermission: Animania Festival March 28th,2009

Saturday, March 21, 2009

There is a secret about Miki that not many people know of. I am a nerd. Well, not a nerd as in book smarts or anything, but an Anime nerd. Sounds dorky??

It may, however, that is where I get a lot of my inspiration from. I took drawing lessons for 5 years, I self taught myself how to sew and construct/alter patterns at the age of 14 because of it.

When I was 15, I started to attend this Japanese Pop Culture Festival called Animania. What started out as a geek convention for me has now become part of my life. I not only have fun participating in its events, but also being able to meet new people and gain inspiration from them.

Possibly one of the biggest attractions known to be at Animania is Cosplay. Cosplay stands for costume play which pretty much in english terms, it means dressing up. While at a Animania, cosplay is generally reserved for Anime, game and Manga characters, over the years it has developed to Japanese subcultures and street fashion such as Fruits, Lolita, Visual Kei and Gyaru/Ganguro(below).

Most cosplayers are extremely nice to chat with and will allow you to take photos of them. You can even interview them for research purposes!! A fascinating thing about them is that 90% of them make their own costumes and outfits and all their sewing and prop making experiences are self taught.

Of course cosplay is not the only thing to look for inspiration at Animania. There are quite a few artist stands there whose drawings really amaze and inspire me and also the Yukata workshop is a great learning experience! (Unfortunately pre-reg. is require for Yukata workshop which is already closed but will be available again for the September event).

A new feature at Animania is also the display of Asian Ball Joint Dolls(above). They are actually one of the biggest trends of Asia and are absolutely beautiful to look at. There is also a mini origami class for those interested as well as some fun activities and games to play and my absolute favourite...karaoke!!

If you have nothing better to do on a Saturday, please bring a camera and come down to the citigate (which is right behind building 6, btw) and might as well dress up and try to find things that inspire you.

For more information check out http://www.animania.net.au/2009/sydney-march/venue-info-and-times

Week 3: Scanning

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Here is the Homework for Week 3 on scanning. Scanning is actually a pretty easy process once you have set up your scanner (both hardware and software). The scanner I am using at home is an EPSON Perfection 1260 and as I usually end up importing my scanned images into photoshop, my scanning process involves opening up photoshop, going to file>Import> TWAIN 5 (where my scanner is located) and then the scanner will start. There are 2 types of scanning modes, one is an Auto mode and the other is the manual mode. It is recommended to scan in Manual mode because that way, you are able to change the dpi, preview images and crop them, etc.

The scanning process from here onwards is pretty easy. Place an image or object you want to scan into the scanner and then in photoshop, select the Mode you want to scan in (RGB, Black and White, etc) and what dpi(dots per inch) you want them to be scanned in.

Some scanners may have a descreen button (in which case my one does not) which will help get rid of the occassional moire patterns that appear on your scanned image. While this has never happened to me, here is an example of scanned image with descreening on and off.

This image above is when descreen is turned off.

This image is when descreen is turned on.

Notice the difference in Quality??

Another item which changes the quality of a scanned image is dpi. Different levels of dpi are used for different things for example, scanning at 300dpi generally is for printing for glamourous projects such as glossy magazines, books and brochures while scanning at 100-150dpi is good for printing on normal inkjet printers. If you are scanning an image for the internet, then generally 72dpi is sufficient most of the time, however, through personal experience, I recommend that when scanning objects to post onto the world wide web, the smaller your object the higher your dpi should be (it is not really recommended to go over 300dpi).

Scanned at 72 dpi

Scanned at 150dpi

scanned at 300dpi

The images above were all resized to the same size but just so when the dpi changes, the size of an image will also change because the quality has changed. Can you see the difference??

Last but not least, scanning is not necessarily only for images/photographs. You can scan things in black and white such as line drawings and as well as things such as buttons, fabrics and zippers.

Fabric scanned in RGB mode at 72dpi

This one was scanned in Black and White. Again it is at 72dpi because the purpose of scanning this was to put it up on my blog.

So now that we know how to scan, let's go crazy!!

Week 2: Architectonic: Tachuu Naitou

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

We all know of Tokyo Tower as one of the main attractions of Japan's captial city. The reason I have chosen this building for my architectonic project, not only lies within my longing to visit it one day, but also because of it's beautiful structure and presence dominating Tokyo, especially at night.

Being surrounded in a city of neon lights, the Tokyo Tower still manages to stand out at night with its lighting. While it may look like a plain and boring communications and observation deck during the day time, the night lights make it blend in, yet stand out at the same time with the night life of Tokyo, Japan. It is no longer a boring Eiffel Tower look-a-like anymore, but an attractive tower which draws in everyone's attention.

Of course Tokyo Tower does not build itself, the architect behind it - Tachuu Naito (1886 - 1970), known for designing the tallest buildings in Japan was inspired by the Eiffel Tower of France and hence designed this building. Naitou may or may not have taken into concern of the target audience as it was originally designed as a communications tower, however, there are small features which had been included (most likely later on) which made it appealing to tourists of all ages. One of the most well known is the tower's glass floors (pictured above).

One feature of Tokyo Tower that has been redesigned is the lighting structure. In 1987, lighting designer Motoko Ishii redesigned the tower's lights prior to it's 30th Anniversary. The lights that we see today are the result of Motoko's works (pictured above). The lighting of Tokyo Tower changes colour depending on season (white - orange) and also for special events such as the blue lighting it displayed for World Diabetes Day in 2007 (above).

Image credits to wikipedia and dannychoo.com

Week 2: Mika Ninagawa

Thursday, March 5, 2009

When I think about Digital Communication through graphics, I think of things such as photoshop - digitally enhancing images, CGI and Illustrator - digital drawing. Let's not talk about digital drawing for this post. Photoshop can be used for many things such as colouring to create computer graphics as well as digitally enhancing and retouching photographs and creating special effects. A lot of people are mistaken that as long as they have photoshop, they can make a photograph look good. While this is true to some extent, through experience, I have learnt that it also depends on the raw materials - what the photograph looked like before it was edited, it's quality, focus, etc. A good raw photo will produce fantastic end results in photoshop and a bad one will produce ok results.

Which brings me to the topic I want to discuss. As a fashion designer, everything is meant to bring inspiration for us, digital media inclusive. One photographer which I wanted to blog about
is one of Japan's most popular photographers: Mika Ninagawa.

What is inspiring about her work is her bold use of colour. While we can create collections with just plain black and white, colour is an extremely important part of our lives, and colour in Ninagawa's works stand out. Another inspiring thing about her work as a result of the strong colours is that is creates an almost fantasical environment. So many possiblities in design collections can become possible with such inspiring themes, such as the flowers in the first image can be used as a fabric print with the same colours, or jewellwery can be created. The softness of the flowers makes you want to use soft silks of strong and bold colours.

Many of Ninagawa's works also appear in magazines and advertisements (ie. movie posters, billboards, etc) and her use of strong and bold colour really attracts the attention of her audience. For example, if someone was to create a concept board selling the a collection inspired by Ninagawa's goldfish series (pictured above), the use of these colours do not only stand out but they would also look fantastic when printed. This is something a designer really has to take into account when working with digital media - the purpose of it, is it for printing, web or both? Hopefully Ninagawa's works have inspired you to not only think about digital media processes, but also have inspired designers to work hard and come up with new ideas. Mika Ninagawa is not only part of my inspiration, but her works also motivate me to continuously improve myself and one day, be able to reach and surpass the level she is at.

Photographs courtesy to: star-fruit cafe, maxhodges, 2waku and of course - Mika Ninagawa Official website!!