#6. Designing A Place A Day - Day 5 Crossroads

The end of the term can be crazy. When I mean crazy I mean exhausting. 

And because I have been baaaaaing (?) and ughhhing (?) due to exhaustion all weekend, 

I am a little bit behind in posting my daily projects. I will try to catch up as much as possible. :) 

But I did work on my story everyday. (http://blog.naver.com/haejinsung) Even for a little bit of time.

Below left is my brainstorming note on Thursday. 

I was excited that I finished my winter classes and an exam, so I talked with my brother about my story till... well, till the sun came up in the morning. Which was... highly beneficial for my story but equally damaging for my biorhythm. :P

Anyway, project #6 day 5's design was crossroads.

(Photo:http://april5.tistory.com/7)

I am fascinated by the relationship between a specific space and people. That's why I've been designing places within my story. Crossroads can be all the more interesting because it is where people intersect. 

All kinds of people who have nothing to do with other have to meet in some way or another.

And the reason that those people are in crossroads tells us something about their lives. Even when they are just passing by, they are here because they need to or have to do something here, right?

Then of course, the word "crossroad" can be used to describe our big moments in life. :P

So I have tumbled, Googled and searched Google map to see a picture of what a crossroads looks like (in Korea, for that is where this story is staged) and to look for inspirations.

The crossroads in my story is very significant, both as a physical space and as a metaphor. 

It is where the first pivotal event takes place and... due to that accident the souls of my eight characters are switched. 

They were all there in that specific moment for a reason. That is why it is important to construct the space around the crossroads, the places that my characters were or intended to go. And in some cases those places have special meaning to them.

Some of the spaces around the crossroads that I designed so far include:

Flower shop ("Pansy Flower Shop")

http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/04/6-designing-place-day-day-1-flower-shop.html

Convenience store

http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/04/6-designing-place-day-day-2-convenience.html

And a mysterious bookstore ("A House Made of Books")

http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/04/6-designing-place-day-day-4-mysterious.html

Day 6's project (that I will write shortly after this) adds another space, the real estate agency.
Designing these places are so captivating, I hope I won't get too carried a way! X)


http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/

#6. Designing A Place A Day - Day 4 A Mysterious Bookstore

In Day 4, I designed a bookstore.

Since I am dealing with a fantasy drama (http://blog.naver.com/haejin.sung), I wanted a place that emits a mysterious aura. 

I was brainstorming what kind of place would be nice, then my big brother told me about a bookstore that he went once with my Mom when he was young. It was a weird used bookstore, he said, full of books piled up anywhere randomly.

That was it. I needed a weird bookstore that is full of old books and also records, tapes, videos(?), and other miscellaneous stuffs.

I found out about this amazing bookstore in Venice: Acqua Alta Libreria.

(Photos from http://tinatarnoff.typepad.com/thought_patterns/bookstores/)

It has books piled up in a bathtub and boat, and they are piled up in such a hazardously beautiful way!

I will definitely want to go to this place once I land in Venice one day fufufu.

So the below is a preliminary sketch of my bookstore ("A House Made of Books"="책으로 만든 집").
It is a store in the corner of a town that not many gets to discover.
I wanted a bookstore with a very complex structure--2nd floor, 1.5 floor, 3rd floor, ladders, spiral stairs, corners after corners, couches made of books, and columns and shelves stuck with all kinds of vintage (and/or trashy) objects. It would be like a maze and a whole world in itself. Like a magic. That smells of old books.

So I made characters who own the place and animals who live here (two cats, named Schopenhauer and Bacon :P, seven goldfishes, and three birds).

It was immensely delightful and (thus?) rather effortless to design such a place. It would be my Acqua Alta Libreria in a Korean town.

#6. Designing A Place A Day - Day 3 A Corridor Wall

Hmm. So I am a few days behind posting. It's been so crazy with my end-of-the-term exam. :P

Though I didn't have time to post, I did manage to do the project itself everyday. :)

Here is Wednesday's project. 

The place I imaged this day is the corridor wall of the lodgings that some of my characters for story #85 reside.

I do not know the exact counterpart for the Korean word "하숙집". The Korean-English dictionary I have says that it is lodgings. In my story, the place is mainly occupied by high school students whose homes are far away from the school they attend.

I made a preliminary design of the place in Mar 16. (Seems like it's such a long time ago.. =.=)

Now, I have a little different idea of what this place looks like in my head. But anyway, it still has a corridor.

And I wanted that space to have a special function, because it is the place that the characters who live here, in particular Ji-Eun and Soo-Oh, bump into each other. And those bumps should be interesting.

And I thought, well, walls could play some role in there. Or they could just make that space more interesting.

Characters who reside here:

Soo-Oh 장수오

Details here: http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/03/5-doodle-day-day-12-drawing-character.html 

Ji-Eun 탁지은

http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/03/5-doodle-day-day-1-girl-in-blue-soo-oh.html)

Jae-Yong 임재용 (the boy on the right)

http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/03/5-doodle-day-imaging-characters-ii.html

 And Won-Seok 선우원석, the guy that Ji-Eun has a crush on. He lives in the same unit as Soo-Oh.

http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/03/5-doodle-day-day-13-another-character.html

So. The wall. As far as I know, corridor walls in lodgings or any apartment seldom have any decorations. They are simply walls.

But Ji-Eun is an artist. Her specialty is miniature art, but she does small installation arts around the town and makes props for school festivals and postcards and other things as well.

(the photo in the bottom left of the page shows manholes in the streets, painted by artists. I thought it was ingenious and delightful. And it struck me as something that Ji-Eun would do--installing small artworks in places that people usually do not care or ignore and make them look)

I wondered if she could also paint walls. ...Why not?

Let's make the building manager or owner allow her to paint the walls of the place in return for reducing the  fee she pays every month. ;)

After some tumbling, googling, and flickering, I settled on illusionistic wall painting.
The below are some examples of illusionistic art.

What intrigues me about illusionistic wall (and street) paintings is that it gives us dream-like experience of seeing or being in another space. I wanted Ji-Eun (and her accomplice (?) artist) to paint in the walls of the corridors a view into another world. If you had been seeing white plaster wall for years, then one day find yourself standing in front of a different world, I am sure you will stop and look into it.

Well, of course, the content of the illusionistic painting would also be important.
For now I am considering a few options. One is that an artist could paint something that she had seen somewhere without remembering or knowing what it is. Another thing is that, you should never piss an artist. She could include you in her art and mock you for eternity. ;P

#6. Designing A Place A Day - Day 2 A Convenience Store

And today's place is: a convenience store!

It's been a while since I've been to one. :(

Well, but CVS is a necessary part of moder.. well, at least urban life in Korea! 

A town without it is absolutely unimaginable!

So I googled again and read stuffs about it--what it does, what it sells, who comes when, and also about the difficulties of working there and having to deal with the caprice and ill-manners of customers, especially at night time. X( 

I made the below character improvisationally.

I needed someone working there, I didn't want it to be anybody.

I had someone in mind for the manager. He is a rather passive man who can be.. well, messed around by upset or naughty customers. Then what I needed next was of course the opposite of him.

Someone that cannot be messed around.

So here she is, the temporary worker, Nari Gong (23). Her character in one word: A PUNK.

Nari is a name for a flower (below).

Not.. really fit (?) for a punk she looks like. But she likes her name. She dyed her hair in this bright orange color. X)

So, she is huge, I mean, tall and well built-up. She is not unkind, but she looks pretty scary to other people....
She looks straight into your eyes when she says in her low and coarse voice, "hullo..." "thank you..." and "good bye...". And, in part because of her height and her heels (she wears above-knee leather boots), she looks down at you with her glaring eyes! Imagine you are an underage trying to get a cigarette. She would not let that happen. No chance at all.

But of course, she is more than what you see. She enjoys reading when she is not busy with her work. Her favorites are travel books with, err... self-introspective aspects in them. :)
And she is very observant, though she doesn't look so, and have a pretty good memory.
So she is not simply an interesting extra character in my story.
A convenience store is where people from vastly different backgrounds intersect. And there she is, observing the network of people revolving around it.
Thus she is one of those holding.. hmm, if you may call it, hidden keys that can unlock the secrets in my characters and plot.

One complaint I have about this week's project is that it is unintentionally time-consuming. :/
Any project would, though.
I need to balance my study, story, and health...

#6. Designing A Place A Day - Day 1 A Flower Shop

For this week's project, I chose to design a place a day for my new story project. (http://blog.naver.com/haejinsung)

I chose it because I thought it would not be so time-consuming. How naive of me.

It took about one hour to collect information and inspirational images concerning that place

and more than thirty minutes filling in the place and fitting it into my story.

:P (when shall I study...) 

But other than that, it was a tremendously enjoyable exercise. 

If you are a writer or aspire to be a writer like me, please try. You won't regret it. :)

The first place that I designed was a flower shop.

A few of my characters like flowers and use flowers for various reasons--art, hobby, decoration, as a present for one's wife or to flatter and flirt with girls, etc.

It is a place that many, if not almost all, of my characters pass by, enter, and interact with each other. Therefore it is a place that we can peep into their lifestyle, history, and secrets.

So, again, I tumbled and googled for information and images about flower shops.

What would I do without Google, Tumblr, and Springpad? :/

(above says: "A gathering place for:" Some characters are regular, some occasional visitors, some just window shoppers. And these characters, as the story advances, come and go and interact differently)

I made notes and began constructing the space a bit further.
Actually, I gathered information yesterday and scribbled down my notes and doodles today, so I think I forgot some of my ideas about it.... I hope I'll remember them. :P

Here is my florist. I imagined her to be a bright, smiling middle-aged woman with a chubby and matronly constitution. Her name is Baek-Hap Nam (Baek-Hap in Korean is Lily). She loves flowers and loves wearing clothes with floral patterns. *_*

And I also drew a cat in the shop. He is one big ugly lazy fatty kitty (actually, not a kitty; he is kinda old). His thick, white whiskers and eyebrows fall down like an the beard of.. well, an ill-tempered wizard. :P
His name, by the way, is PANSY. (~~the flower, ye know~~) What a cute name it would be, the florist lady thought when she picked him up on the street several years ago. What an unsuitable name for me, the cat may have thought then.
Perhaps that is why he doesn't respond when the lady calls him "Pansy~". He just ignores her and turns his head away and cuddles up his tail.

He responds, though, when called "BONAPARTE." (~~the dictator, or whatever he was, Napoleon, ye know~~) Ji-Eun calls him that way.
Ji-Eun is a regular in this shop because she makes miniature art with flowers. She (her image can be seen here: http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/03/5-doodle-day-day-12-drawing-character.html) is the only one who can handle this bad kitty. :)

By the way, I think this is probably the first time that I tried to draw a.. cat... (I mean, not cat emoticons)

#5. A Doodle A Day - Day 14 Comparison Pair I

Hullo, so it's been a while that I doodled with so little effort or concentration.

Well, it's just a doodle, so why not? XP

This is a comparison between Ji-Eun and Soo-Oh, two of my protagonists for my new story project (http://blog.naver.com/haejinsung). 

This is what they are like in school.

Ji-Eun is emanating a dark~ gloomy~ aura around her that her peers like to tease.

Soo-Oh is like a shining prince (can't believe I said that word..) that attract not only girls but also boys.

Outside school, they are pretty different in their private lives. Ji-Eun dresses up the way she wants and scavenge (?) the street for things she would like to use for her miniature art. Detailed photos, working progress and explanations can be seen in this post >> http://projectmacy365.blogspot.ca/2012/03/5-doodle-day-day-12-drawing-character.html 

Soo-Oh, on the other hand (I haven't drawn that yet) is not a very shining prince outside school. I say a prodigal son is more likely.....

Kinda like this, (though settings are different, the above painting is a Dutch Baroque painting by Honthorst) a debauched young man. But Soo-Oh should NOT be a stereotypical prodigal son. It would be boring. ;)