Original Photo

The photo that I have chosen is a scenery that features a HDB building accompanied by trees and a road as shown in Figure 1. I took this photo from my house and it was able to capture most of the features of the HDB flat which is my focus of this assignment.

Figure 1: The original photo taken for the abstraction assignment
Among the Adobe suite applications, I chose Illustrator to work on my abstraction assignment because I find the tracing tool that was taught in class very useful in my case. I wanted to first trace out the lines of the HDB structure as well as the trees which require tools that are capable of drawing straight and curvilinear lines accurately. Hence, I thought of using the tracing tool in Illustrator. 

For a start, I tried to use Photoshop's quick selection tool to remove the sky but I realized that it was redundant because I was going to trace the outline of the HDB. So, I proceeded to lock the image and then started tracing as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Start of tracing

In the midst of it, I discovered the importance of planning. Unfortunately, there were times where I connected the lines of different elements together and these actions later disallowed me to fill in the color for each element individually. This was when I discovered the scissors function that assisted me to cut off certain lines and reconnect them with other elements. Funnily, I was unable to use the eraser function to remove the lines. When I erase a portion of the lines, the remaining lines tend to become curvy and out of shape. To date, I still do not understand the logic behind this action and the conceptual model of the designer who designed this function. 

During this process, I also found the direct selection tool extremely useful in helping me to refine the edges of the lines by double-clicking on the anchor points and dragging them in or out. I also used the shortcuts like ctrl + and ctrl - very frequently to zoom in and out of the image. I also find it convenient to use the spacebar as a hand tool function to drag and adjust the image positioning for better visualization of the area that I want to focus on.


Figure 3: First round of outline completed for HDB
Figure 3 shows the first round of tracing of the HDB overall structure together with the finer details such as the corridors and the windows. It was a difficult process to outline the trees accurately as I was not familiar with the angles to which I should draw the curvilinear lines. After the tracing, I also noticed a number of jagged edges as I had too many anchor points. Hence, I tried to use the direct selection tool to smoothen out these edges as much as possible. 

Figure 4: Toggling between different layers 

 After that was completed, I decided to create a new layer to work on my outline. The layers (hide and visible) mode made it more convenient for me to compare my changes on the new layer with the original outline and photo. It helps me to ensure that the repositioning of some elements in the subsequent process is still within the frame of the photo and in the right positions that I want them to be. However, a downside is that I was unable to transfer the new shapes created on the layer with the original photo to the new layer. The error box kept on appearing and I had to find alternatives to copy and paste the shape over. To resolve this problem, I decided to create a few new layers and each layer is dedicated to a new shape that I drew on the original photo. From the new layers, I would then transfer the shapes and elements to the final layer.
Figure 5: First stage of abstraction

 In the first stage of abstraction, as seen in Figure 5, one will be able to see the detailed lines of the HDB and the line that divides the trees and the building. I have further filled the rectangles with the color black to distinguish the corridors and windows more clearly from the rest of the building. The sky has also been removed from the entire picture.  I also had a difficult time trying to trace out the trees and their branches to make them appear like trees. As I was not able to pinpoint the exact structure of the branches, I could only use estimation and my own imagination to trace out some missing parts of the branches that were covered by the leaves. Fortunately, with the use of an additional color — green, the trees finally look more like trees in my abstract version.  

Figure 6: Second stage of abstraction

As I start to conceptualize for the second stage, I decided to remove the lines that do not represent anything important and that their presence does not affect how the audience would perceive this view. Hence, the designs on the lift's segment as well as the dividing line have been removed. This helps to reduce the clutter and with the increase in white spaces, the essential features became more accentuated and prominent than before. 
Figure 7: Third stage of abstraction

 In the third stage, I focused largely on standardizing and repositioning the filled boxes which represented the corridor and windows. As they were positioned in disarray in the second stage, it was very messy and confusing. Even though it was due to the angle in which the photo was taken, some audiences might question why the windows are not aligned on a building structure. Hence, I decided to do standardization. As shown in Figure 8 below, the erasing problem came to haunt me again during this process of removing lines which led me to retrace some of the more important lines.
Figure 8: Erasing causes other lines to be curved or disoriented

 In the fourth stage of abstraction, I wanted to keep what is only necessary. Hence, I removed the building on the left, and a part of the building on the right. In this case, I was attempting to reduce the size of the building to a smaller structure that includes the most important elements that can signal its form to the audiences. Hence, I decided to keep the corridors as well as the windows on both sides of the building because that is often how the HDB works. The HDB building always has houses at both extreme ends. It is also important to include the lift segment because that is one of the key features of the older HDB flats. It is also one way to distinguish the block from being an office building. 
Figure 9: Fourth stage of abstraction

Figure 10: Final stage of abstraction

 In the final stage of abstraction (Figure 10), the tilted angle of the building is being removed and the pillars of the HDB have been included to show that it is a standalone HDB. The trees have also been reduced to only two to show that there is some form of vegetation in front of this HDB block. 
My final product before the critique: 


This is it!


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AFTER CRITIQUE SESSION
Then, we sent our products to the critique session to get some feedback. It was really mind-blowing because I managed to witness some of the best abstraction works thus far. For my own work, I am very grateful for the feedback from the class. Some of the comments include:


  • To add block number for easy identification of a HDB block
  • To include more details to the first stage of abstraction - for example, to retain the ground level, barricades and stairs if possible
  • To try to make the vegetation more iconic rather than leaving it as its organic form in the last stages
  • Also, beware of the proportion of the house to the vegetation.
  • Better to keep the overarching structure in the final stage 
  • After taking in all the comments, I decided to make the necessary changes.


Stage 1 
This became the revised version for my first stage of abstraction in which I included all the pillars, stairs, and fences under the block. I also added in the sky outline together with the block signage with the block number and street name.


Stage 2
Subsequently, I removed the sky outline in the second stage of abstraction as I did not want to focus on that in my final abstraction. I also removed the dividing line between the trees and the HDB flat to make it look more organic.

Stage 3

In my third stage of abstraction, I removed most of the lines in between the corridors and apartments' windows, as well as the exterior designs of the lift shafts to make it simpler. This is also the stage where I started to change the organic form of the trees. I wanted to make them more iconic with the use of circles to represent the leaves of the trees. 


Stage 4

In stage 4, I removed all the unnecessary lines under the block and across the corridors as I try to keep only the outline of the building and the line that denotes the lift shaft. 


Stage 5

In the final stage, the magic happens with the trees. Instead of having the branches, I decided to remove them and to fill up the remaining spaces with the green circles to symbolize vegetation in front of the HDB flat. I also kept the HDB original overall structure and outline with the same proportion to make it more recognizable. The process after critique also allowed me to learn more shortcuts like alt + A that came in very handy during the retracing process. I also managed to clarify some doubts with Kai En regarding the copy and pasting on different layers and this has helped me to become more efficient.

So, here's my FINAL abstraction piece!




Hopefully, this is a piece of abstraction that you approve of as well.
Cheers
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