Module Two
Flatness vs. Projection
Yahoo!
Reflection
Mario has been in the most of my life, accompanying me as a video game that grew as I grew. This module, flatness vs. projection, challenged me to look at the familiar scenes of the Super Mario world, not as levels in a video game, but rather elevations providing incomplete instructions for creating a three-dimensional, axonometric composition.
​
As first introduced in module one, axonometric projections are a form of drawing that maintains its consistency everywhere on the page, in all dimensions. Differing from the traditional perspective drawing, the axonometric form utilizes vanishing point(s) situated beyond infinity, or rather it exercises no vanishing point, essentially meaning works situated in this medium can go on forever, be endless, limitless. In this module, given the task of connecting a pair of 2D elevations in a 3D point of view, the space in-between is left up to the imagination. However, the axonometric medium also has other implications, such as the need for accuracy in angles and dimensions, and a consistency that needs to be maintained from the interpretation of the 2D elevations to the 3D projection, where each of the six building blocks chosen must correspond directly to each other.
Before/After Colouring and Shading
Elevation 1
Elevation 2
Elevations
Two elevations were given for us to choose our six building blocks from, and to project these blocks onto our axonometric as a basis for constructing our Mario worlds.
​
While in the past students have been given two elevations from the same Mario level, our class was given the opportunity to experiment with elevations from two different levels, giving us a larger variety of blocks and styles to choose from. I feel that this also gave my world a lot of life through the different colours and styles.
Building Blocks
While choosing the building blocks for my Mario World, I had my colour palette in mind and chose blocks that I felt would complement each other well in terms of texture as well as colour. One of the main areas I sought to explore was the idea of translucency, as I was captivated by the appearance of the blue coin in the elevation, and how it interacted with objects behind it. I was eager to try to represent these unique properties in my composition, which lead me to choose the blue coin and water as part of my building blocks.
While developing the water and blue coin building blocks, there was a lot of room for experimentation with the translucent attributes. Different combinations of transparency on different coloured layers was a constant trial and error process of producing the perfect translucency of the overall objects.
​
I had a rather unconventional approach to this module, as I developed my building blocks in Illustrator very early in the process, when I still only had a few lines on paper. Although it was initially just an impulsive and impatient choice to render the blocks digitally first, I feel it has really helped me to visualize the final axonometric early on, and has given my world a direction to work towards as I built and drew on paper.
Building Blocks made in Illustrator
Tracing Paper Layers
Progressing Drawings
Hand Drawings
Setting up the hand drawings, I measured the dimensions of a single block on the printed elevations, and made a grid on Illustrator which I later printed out. This was to make the process easier by not having to line up the T-square and set squares for every single line, and helped to give my drawing some consistency throughout.
​
I intially had quite a hard time differentiating between areas of my drawing, in particular what blocks belonged where in terms of their height within the world. This is why I decided to use a second piece of tracing paper to allow myself the freedom of a messy draft, just to gather my thoughts, and to draft up a quick plan of what I wanted my final world to look like, without having to worry about the accuracy of the axonometric.
Colours and Shadows
The addition of colour and shading was my favourite part of the module, as it really helped to bring the hand drawing to life, and added the sense of depth that the hand drawing lacked. Through colouring and shading, the different elements became increasing easy to differentiate, where the variation of light and dark colours helped to add depth to the composition changing the once flat and confusing hand-drawn linework into a lively 3-dimensional composition.
​
I think my approach to colouring the axonometric world was perhaps a bit different to what was expected and what others went for. As I modelled the building blocks in detail early on in the process, when it came to colouring in the drawing, instead of outlining the lines I had drawn on paper, I chose to build using the basic blocks I had already made, and modified them according to each parts specific dimensions and requirements.
Adding shadows to the axonometric also played a large part in the believability of the world. Utilizing the drop shadow function and clipping masks in Illustrator, I was able to create many believable shadows and restrict them to relevant blocks. The shadows helped to convey a sense of depth, and elevated each element from a mere collection of colours into solid blocks with bearings and a place in the vast Mario World axonometric.
Colour and Shading Progress
Final Submission
Mario World 18-12 (Final Submission)