Mind-maping about Myself

Assignment requirement, that is to create a mind-map about yourself. I use 5 categories to introduce myself that are IDENTITY, APPEARANCE, PERSONALITY, BEHAVIOUR, AND INTEREST.

When I was doing this mind-map, I started to think of my own weaknesses. As for my good point? Well... I can't really point out any... keep clean yes~ what else hmmm... ... passion in doing my illustration and drawing i guess~ XD

Reflection on Lesson 4 - Divergent and Convergent

REFLECT ATTACK!!

Erhemm... so basically in order to produce a creative idea, we need to gone through the process of DIVERGENT THINKING and CONVERGENT THINKING.

For my example, to create an original character design, let say a SORCERER; a sorcerer means a magic user. To create a unique/creative character, you need to consider what can be combine with the sorcerer? EVERYTHING CAN BE MAGICAL! But are you gonna use everything in your character design? Of course not! First of all, think of what comes to your mind that you wanna use for your design, it can be anything like books, ink, swords, bazooka, chicken, duck, bread... etc etc... Afterwards, CHOOSE which elements that makes your character; it can be sorcerer using bazooka to cast magic, or chicken is a sorcerer apprentice, or bread is the magic source for sorcerer etc etc. That is the process of DIVERGENT THINKING.

BUT how do the audience once look at your design, they'll know IT'S A SORCERER? You need to do research and studies of a sorcerer, search for references and images that represents the image of sorcerer, impressions that make the audience recognize about the sorcerer. Like: sorcerer wears a wizard hat, robe, have wand in his/her hand, potions, etc etc... That is when CONVERGENT THINKING comes to, in order to create a recognizable and acceptable result.

Lesson 4 - Divergent & Convergent

Creativity is a process started by DIVERGENT THINKING and followed by CONVERGENT THINKING.

What is DIVERGENT THINKING?

To think of something new or special, you need to think a lot, during that thinking process, you started to think not only your target subject, but also something that are related or maybe combined together, to have something new. You'll be using VERTICAL THINKING as well as LATERAL THINKING. You'll have lots of different ideas and combinations, but what you or your client want is something that is precise and remarkable, that's when you need to go through CONVERGENT THINKING.

What is CONVERGENT THINKING?

After you have hell lots of ideas, include crazy combinations that don't make any sense, but what is the final result of ONE product? Are you going to use all ideas you've been thinking of? NO! That way, you need to go through CONVERGENT THINKING, which you need to start use only useful or make sense ideas and combinations in order to create final product.

The DIFFERENCE between these two thinkings is:

DIVERGENT THINKING - In order to create something, you need to gone through a lot of thinking, using different or even alienate ideas BUT you'll end up having ideas that don't make any sense or use to us. CREATIVE BUT NOT LOGICAL.

CONVERGENT THINKING - Since you have lots of ideas right now, you need to combine and eliminate certain ideas in order to have a perfect, efficient, and logical final product. LOGICAL AND USEFUL.

Avatar - Tan Jia Hao

This subject requires us to draw our friend's avatar for the profile picture of this blog assignment, and so i've drawn Tan Jia Hao.



I use digital painting to complete this work, it's very simple. By referring his photo, and i use my style (manga style) to do this work.

Reflection on Lesson 3 - Novelty, Creativity, Innovation, and Invention

Reflect reflect~~

So creative comes in with NOVELTY, INNOVATIVE, and INVENTION. We have to (again) work very hard to achieve that. How do our work become creative, it's all depend on your working process: barinstorming, studies & research, research & development, experiment, modification, problem solving etc etc...

"Be the first to achieve something unusual" heh? Hmm... it requires a lot of thinking and experiment though. As I've mentioned in previous blog, "Miracle happens, but shit happens also".

Edison once said :" Success = 99% of hard work and 1% of luck"... It means prepare for the success by being hardworking all the time, and grab the chance to be success. But perhaps some people face the problem "Being hardworking all the time, but STILL can't success"... is it because they miss the chance OR they DON'T HAVE A CHANCE to meet? Life is indeed about problem solving...

Lesson 3 - Novelty, Creativity, Innovation, and Invention

"Being the first to do something in an unusual way" = "Creative" (quoted from Howard Gardner, psychologist of Harvard University.)

The "Different" makes everyone to be special. For example, a famous artist Jackson Pollock, his different method of painting (Action Painting) makes him popular and people called him CREATIVE! Because he's the first to do something very unusual; He earns the NOVELTY.

Does every creation earns novelty? Not really though... If the creation is original and has certain value (accepted by majority perhaps?), it will be considered as CREATIVE & NOVEL.

How do we develop creativity? Generate new ideas or combine a few old concepts in a different way, is the key.

But how do we let our creativity to be accepted by people? Here come's the INNOVATION. Innovation is needed in order to make our ideas into practical reality.

To be able to create NOVEL ideas, we need to have basic intelligence; but to further analyze those NOVEL ideas, we need HIGHER INTELLIGENCE, that is WISDOM. Create your work INTELLIGENTLY is good, but if it is unacceptable by everyone, it is useless; Create your work INTELLIGENTLY plus WISDOM is better, you have to think of the creation, the process, and the consequences, that's make your work earn NOVELTY.

INNOVATION is to modified current objects into more practical form so that it's better and easier. The innovation process won't come into an end as "There is no the best, but only the better".

Reflection on Lesson 2 - Defining Creativity

Here goes the reflection session~

So basically "Creativity" is an ability and attitude. The way you do things, the way you solve problems etc, goes around creativity, it depends on HOW you do it!

Besides, you have to work very very very hard in order to be creative (just like Thomas Edison and Beethoven etc.). How skillfully or (you want it) creatively you solve a problem, it's all come from your experiences; the more experiences you've gone through, the more nurtured the result be.

As you can see, a very hardworking student can score in their academics, it's because they put in a lot of time and effort into their academics. How much effort you put into your work, results in how great or lame your work will be.

NOW THERE'S A COMMON PROBLEM HERE: What if I have put in a hell lot of blood, sweat, and tears into my work, BUT it still turns out like SHIT? Hmm... Maybe because your method is wrong/ unacceptable? Maybe your idea still lack of something important? Your attitude? Your audience? etc etc... Well~ sometimes miracle happens, but shit happens also. Be careful of what you're doing. Be it a failure, never mind, it's a process, it's your experiences, find an alternative way!

Lesson 2 - Defining Creativity

What is creativity? To put in simple, new ideas or a new way to do things.But how do we be CREATIVE?

Only talented people are creative?
It maybe true, but actually it's all about sweat, blood, and tears of the person. Yes, it's the hard work and effort that person put into. It may be looked simple for those "talented" person to do task, but actually they have practiced for a long time to achieve that level.

Being creative is hard?
It maybe true, same thing here, it is depend on how much effort you've put into to work on your creative development. What HARD referred here is HOW LONG YOU CAN MAINTAIN TO WORK ON YOUR EFFORT.

Problems are in our life to make it more difficult?
Nope, it is problem who develops the creativity. As the lecturer said, LIFE IS ABOUT PROBLEM SOLVING. Whenever there's problem, we need to think of a way to solve, be it any way, to solve it creatively. If there's no problem, we human won't THINK. Human thinks because of facing problems.

I am not creative?
There's no such thing as people who has no creativity. As it mentioned before, it's all about hard work and effort; just like our body, if we exercise regularly, eventually our body will become fit and healthy; same goes to creativity and brain works, if we practice it regularly, the result will eventually unexpectedly. YOU CAN TRY IT YOURSELF!

Innovation is the domain of geniuses?
It may look what it seems~ but if you ask them HOW DO THEY GET THESE EXPERIENCES? Of course they'll tell you they've gone through hell lots of hardship and problem in order to achieve that level. FACE THE PROBLEM, LEARN IT, AND SOLVE IT!

I have to have a brand new ideas in order for me to be considered as creative?
Unfortunately... NO! THERE ARE NO NEW IDEAS! New ideas come from a combination of old concepts, and presented in a brand new package (JUST LIKE PACKAGE DESIGN! XD).

Brainstorming is hard work?
It maybe true also... but there are a lot of brainstorming techniques. If one doesn't work, try another one; if failed, AGAIN another one; failed again? AGAIN another one; what? still failed? AGAIN! AGAIN! and AGAIN! (You might find this scene really familiar: lots of bosses like to play golf in their office even it's working time, IT'S A KIND OF BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE! Some people tend to discover new ideas when they're doing something.)

Only artists need to be creative?
Unfortunately... NOO! again... Life is about problem solving. To solve a problem, you need to think of a solution, be it creative or not, the solution might result in creative way.

Using structured creative techniques will hinder my ability to be creative?
Unfortunately(what again?) NOOO! Everyone has their own preferred way of improving creativity. If method "A" doesn't work for you, try "B" then! THINK OF A WAY!

No One Can Escape Time

This is my very first time to use tablet to paint this artwork. It's a fan art of a popular RPG console game, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, which developed by ATLUS.

I took a quote from this game, "No one can escape time. It delivers us all to the same end... You can't plug your ears and cover your eyes...". I strongly agree with this quote as life is short, why don't we celebrate our life? The point is that i've found many people don't feel that THEY'RE LIVING, whatever problem they face, they just ignore or tend to "save it for later", or "I still got next time" etc ...

Life is short...

Though it's hard, please DO TRY OUR VERY BEST to solve it instead of running away from them.

Life is short...

Our dream maybe foolish, but if you really really REALLY RREEEEEAAAAALLLLYY wanna do it, just do it. There's no "save point" like in game for us to try again from dead or failure, there's no time return to past to let you try again, all you have is NOW, THE PRESENT. Time will only move forward until the very end you die.

Life is short...

You may found your life is boring and meaningless, but what for you think that way? You still need to live anyway. CELEBRATE WHILE WE CAN! YES, WE CAN! (a famous quote from United States of America president, Barack Obama.

Life is short...

You can't go back to past, you can't leapt through the future, but you still can control NOW.

Life is short...

Though this subject may be boring, but you've chosen to enter MMU, you've chosen to take the course Creative Multimedia, why don't you just accept it and complete this assignment nicely? =) Boring? Find an alternative or creative way to solve it!

Reflection on Lesson 1 - Introduction of Thinking & Creativity

Right~ the reflection session~ well, basically we need to prepare ourselves to THINK A LOT. It is important to THINK because we are currently doing Art & Design, how do we create and deliver our artwork professionally and creatively, it's certainly need a lot of thinking process.

Besides we THINK creatively, it is also important for the audience to accept our artwork as well. But how do we know majority of them will accept? THAT'S THE ISSUE! THAT'S THE PROBLEM! We need to do A HELL LOT OF STUDIES & RESEARCH, so that we know our artwork not only creative and professional, but also can be accepted by the audience as well.

Now here's currently the main issue : How to complete this blog assignment creatively?

Ermm.... lecturers mentioned about "share some quotes/statement, creative artwork/images, anything that has to do with this subject". Well... I'll try my best to gather these information needed for this subject =)

Lesson 1 - Introduction to Thinking & Creativity

The very first class of Creative Studies, of course lecturers will brief introduction about the subject, and what we are going to do throughout this semester (assignments...).

The objective for us to learn different types of thinking method and problem solving, in other words, IDENTIFY THE ISSUE, DO SOME RESEARCH AND STUDIES, and finally SOLVE THE ISSUE CREATIVELY.

It is to help developing our communication skills, to deliver our artwork etc professionally and creatively, with the understanding of cultural and social aspect of design.

Introduction of Myself

Greetings to Creative Studies! My name is Cham Yang Yaw, currently a Multimedia University Cyberjaya campus student, studying Film & Animation.

This blog is built for the blog assignment of the subject Creative Studies, to learn about developing creativity and creative thinking as well. Though you may know lots of students (Malaysian?) do not like theory classes or lectures, but we need to gone through this thinking process in order to support our practical aspects.

It's not easy to grasp the lecture, and it's not hard also (if you're really do some studies and thinking). So... along my blog assignment, hope i do well in this Creative Studies and learn as well =)

Alright, no more talking, "Less is more; More is less", a quote from previous subject "Media Appreciation" lecturer, Mr. Tengku Sabri.


* this is my old pencil sketch, titled "Childhood Dream - No matter how foolish or childish your dreams are, rush to it". As you can see, there's a Kamen Rider (a japanese super hero, here's a wiki attack for you to know what's Kamen Rider).

Oh! By the way! To view more of my artwork, please visit my Deviant Art page, I'm gladly accept any comments & critiques =)