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!