Design Ideas

introduction to designing

This is the designing stage where I put my ideas on paper to see what I like best. This is to help find out my preferences for my final design so that I have a design that I want to make. In this stage, I decided that I'll make variations of two designs that I already have in mind. These two designs are fairly simple because I do not wanna overcomplicate things and make the lamp too hard to make. The designing stage will start with blue line sketching, fine lining (both paper and digital) and copic marker rendering (both paper and digital).

blue line sketching

This is a poster of the blue line sketching stage explaing how I did it.

fine lining

copic marker rendering with AI

In this stage, I am going to be rendering with Copic marker. I chose Copic markers over color pencils because I think it created more depth and looked better. But before I do, I will ask AI to render for me to see which one looks better and how it differs. To do this, I used Gemini and gave it pictures of examples and my design. The process of getting the image is shown under.

AI Reference pictures

These are the pictures that I asked AI to base off the rendering on. These photos are important so that Gemini creates a design that I want it to look like.

This is an example of Copic marker rendering that I think is a good example as it has many layers that increases depth.

This is my fine lined design that AI will use. This is crucial because to compare me and AI, we need to render on the same design.

This is an example I put in my research poster. I'm giving AI this picture because it shows what the color of the lamp is and where the accent colors are.

This is also an example I put in my research poster and I'm giving AI this picture for the same reason as said in the left.

This is my first prompt and that is the image that AI has given me.

Here, I have asked it to change it a little because it had some shadows and had some coloring.

However, I didn't like the coloring so I asked it to do it again. Next, it didn't use my design so I asked it to do that.

These are the two images that AI generated to the two prompts on the left because it wouldn't show.

AI rendering results

This is the AI rendering that I was satisfied with. The shading was accurate and so were the designs. However, the accent color on the base was quite off as it is supposed to be black. But, I think this is the best I can get to and it is pretty good. In my opinion, when I do the rendering stage, the thing I'll do differently to AI is that I'll use a gray so it adds more depth in the accent colors and I can add shadows.

copic marker rendering

Now that I've asked AI to create an idea of the already rendered design, I will now start doing it myself. However, before I start, I tested the markers. This is so that I can choose the perfect color and make sure that I know how to use the marker since this is the first time using it for me. To do this, I'm using a test paper which is a small piece of copic marker paper.

homework

Copic Marker Rendering Process

This is a poster showing how I went through the copic marker stage. This poster includes problems I faced, their solutions and the overall process of me rendering the designs.

This is how I rendered my design. You can see how the layers create more depth in the design.

The different values of the color is very clear here. The edges have more layers of marker, creating that shadow.

This is the test paper I used. Here, I tested colors but also tested how to render the designs so I have an idea before going in.

Despite the testing, there were mistakes. For example, here, the rendering is very streaky. Although I did test it, I should've tested it more because the streakiness looks very bad.

side by side color comparison

100 - black

This color is 100. The color is just pure black, making the design look solid or 2D like. This removes dimensionality that we want to create a more polished and better design. Because of this, the desing just looks flat and adding another layer does not do anything.

CG6 - cool gray

This color is CG6. The color is much better than 100 because it is lighter meaning that the 3D effect can be made using the layering of the color. However, I felt that the color had a green/brown hue to it and was on the warmer side. Therefore, it didn't look good with C2.

C2 - cool gray

This color is C5 and the final color I settled on. The color has a similar value to CG6 so I can create dimension and more depth in the design. Moreover, this color was much more harmonious with C2. As you can see from the photo, this photo gives the cool tone vibe I was going for compared to the one on the left (CG6).

Since I found myself running out of time, I figured it will be faster for me to color the same part of different designs all at the same time (third GIF). This reduces the waiting time for the copic marker to dry and it feels more fast paced and efficient, which is good.

feedback on copic marker rendering

These are my annotations on the finished copic marker rendering designs. As you can see, I have added positive and negative feedbacks in a quick manner. While annotating, I found many repeated annotations and I have mentioned them below as I found it important.

no shadow

The first mistake is not adding a little shadow in that place with the arrow there. Although it wouldn't have a lot, I think that it needs at least a little bit of shadows on it. This was noted on every single design, which is a problem.

inaccurate shadows

Here, the shadow on the top bit was too much and unnatural while the bottom bit needed a little more. It was inaccurate and made the designs look a little off. This was noted in a lot of designs too.

more shadows

Here, there isn't enough shadow. There is just one tiny little bit but there should be a light part around it to make it look more realistic and better. This was noted in a few of the designs but not too much.

annotations

These are annotations focused more on the design side! Below are quick annotations that I have made (please ignore the messy handwriting, the annotations were very quick)