Know Malay Idioms

My concept is on human characteristics presented by Malay Idioms. There are five characteristics shown here using Adobe Photoshop.

Malay Idiom in Bahasa Malaysia is "simpulan bahasa". "Simpul is to tie a knot. You tie two or more words in Bahasa Malaysia into a knot to bring them together, making it a simpulan. Simpulan is also gist. This group of two words of entirely different meanings represents a gist of an idea." (http://www.bahasa-malaysia-simple-fun.com/idiom.html).

Sometimes to say about one characteristic, it is easier to express it by using idioms. Noticing the idioms are more on “negative” statements, I did some interviews with some older people to find out the significance of using the idioms. It is obvious that the Malays will not say something “negative” directly to a person, as in Islam, it is a “doa” or prayer to that person. Instead of saying the word “degil”, it is might better to use the idiom such as “telinga kuali”. This is like a “polite way” to comment. Same goes if we were to mention about “mencuri”, it is “easier” to say “panjang tangan”.
For example, to tell a child not to be a thief, one may say, "Jangan panjang tangan" or do not be a "long hand" person.

Actually, I did a few pictures to deliver the message of these idioms, but with the help of some friends, I produced better final outputs (I hope). Since this project is my first exploration of using Photoshop. I did use many of the basic tools of drawing. All the trials and errors were done here. To write in step-by –step may not easy for me. So I decided just to write down the tools that I used to get the final output.

The First theme: "Telinga Kuali"

The effects of drop shadow, and pattern overlay are used for the background. The selection tool, erasers, magic wand, magnetic tool, and text are used to combine the boy, mum, shirt and wok to put together. The boy with green shirt appears short in the canvas, due to that another boy with longer shirt is selected so that it will fit the canvas properly. Again the selection tool is used to attach the green and purple shirt is combined.

The Second theme: "Ringan Tulang"

In this theme, extra to what that I did before; I use a stamp clone to copy the bones, so that two bones appear on the scale. Using the stamp clone make it easy to have the same objects without using copy and paste. The use of transform tool, scale, to make the bones and feathers fit the scale. However, the final output is not using all the tools. The output look cleaner and sharper as I learned that before selecting an image, choosing or knowing the size of the image, whether it is small or large will contribute to the smoothness of a photo.

The Third Theme: "Mulut Murai"

Here, I used the layer mask, where I used the adjustment level to make the person appear black in color. This is to emphasize the mouth of the man, which already transform to magpie's "mouth".

The Fourth Theme: " Muka Tembok"

In this theme, I used new transform tools, warp and perspective. The right ear is of the same of the left ear. The use of perspective is very helpful in making the right ear appear exactly the same of the left ear with different corner. Warp of transform tool, is used in making the nose fit with the "face". It is very much useful as the nose is divided into few rows and columns, where it can be dragged to whatever way that is needed. However again, that is not really my final output. My final output involved the using of Bevel and emboss, where the face looks like really in the wall.

The Fifth Theme: " Panjang Tangan"

It is quite hard to do this, as I need to make the hand longer. I used the pen tool which is new to me, and then I used the scale to rotate it. Again, I used the technique of masking using the brush tool. I blended both hand to make it longer. The adjustment level also was used to complete the picture.

I’m glad that, after doing this assignment, I learned how to use the photoshop (which I never touch before). However, I need to practice more to get a better output. “Practice makes perfect”