Illustration Commentary: Taipei 101
From Structural Facts
Hello and welcome to the Illustration Commentary of Taipei 101! A few short illustration statistics will probably get you up to a little more understanding. Notice: This table may be updated prior to the current version of the illustration.
Current Version/Generation 2.0 Drawing Duration 2 months + Drawing Scale 10:1 (10 pixels : 1 meter) Start Date Tuesday, 06 December, 2005 Completion Date Wednesday, 22 February, 2006 Upload-to-website Date Sunday, 26 February, 2006 Software creation Microsoft Paint/Corel PhotoPaint (Rendering) No. of re-draws 3 Total file size (of finished drawing) (.Bmp) 25.4mb Drawn in separate .Bmp files? Yes Total No. of separate .Bmp files 24 files
Author: Stefan Tan - Illustrator and Webmaster of SkyScrapers.org
The 33 World Buildings Poster, SkyScraperPage.com. Can you spot Taipei 101 and the Sears Tower?It is pretty easy to understand that this illustration was one of SkyScrapers.org's first and *finest illustration, with the inclusion of Sears Tower. It was originally drawn for SkyscraperPage.com's 33 World Buildings Poster. For those who purchased the poster, (Thanks Dylan!) you can see the first generation 1.0 illustration of Taipei 101, together with Sears Tower. The illustration was originally drawn at a small scale of 4:1. It was SkyscraperPage's (SSP.com) standard high-resolution scale for poster use at that time.
But what's even amazing was that this illustration has got to do with the birth and launch of SkyScrapers.org...
Let's do a quick history talk about this SkyScrapers.org... Why? Well the reason is simple, without for this illustration of Taipei 101, there wouldn't be this website dedicated to illustrations of WTBs (World's Tallest Buildings) isn't it? So in this case, this illustration actually "brought over" a mighty legacy! At that point of time in late 2004 - 05, the site was called "Skyscraper Central.com", a pretty long and dubious name. It was later changed to this present day one. By the way, speaking of "Skyscraper Central.com", the ol' link still exists and presume working, but it redirects to SkyScrapers.org.
I basically had an idea to sell my drawings online, and show whatever I have done, and how it came about. I noticed many skyscraper websites managed to get their place-holds spot on google. At that time in 2004, it was the time of season to draw skyscrapers and to top it all, I had a hyper-active mind to learn anything that I desire; what a coincidence becuase I wanted to know and do-it-yourself about HTML, CSS and PHP and everything about website making! I was a graphic dude back then, so my first site had all of those graphic decors and stuff like that, which in plagued all over my webpage.
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Generation 1.0 of Taipei 101
The various parts of Taipei 101 was drawn, before skewing on Corel PhotoPaint Generation 1.0 of Taipei 101 after skewing and before renderingBrief history of website aside, illustration production is now inside - This was my first time drawing an illustration at such a large scale. At that time, the only thing I can draw was drawing at 1:1 scale! Then Dylan (Webmaster of SSP.com) persuaded me to draw an illustration of Taipei 101 in 4:1 scale. I tried, and the results were "excellent". Why I said that was actually a newbie's pont of view; but if I were to draw that kind of standard now, it will be a complete disaster.
The first version of the drawing was this; it started out as a simple flat plane. The phrase "draw what you see" is kept lingering on my mind. Once I finished drawing out the base, I skewed it to the left to form an angled view. Well I was kind of a lazy-ass bum at that time too, so instead of drawing the sides again I decided to do what's best - Duplicate the flat plane sets and skew by half the size of the front. To top it off, I controlled the adjustment of brightness of the sides to manipulate a 3D effect.
I have very little photos of Taipei 101 at that time. Due to that, I admitted drawing it with estimation and guessing! So if you compare two very different versions with the Generation 2.0, you'll see how much it has changed. To be exact, Generation 1.0 was created in somewhere in December 2004. Additionally, Taipei 101 just completed construction and at that time there wasn't any book or reference that covers every head to toe detail. It has been since 2004 since I last draw the first Generation of Taipei 101.
Other trivia of Taipei 101 Generation 1.0
There are other various smaller facts while drawing Generation 1.0 of Taipei 101, which I am not going to explain them in detail as follows:
- I'll say in every commentary and again; absolutely nobody assisted me to draw Taipei 101. Even till today in my drawings. I don't see how useful the idea of helping others when each is to his/her own style of drawing can actually conflict.
- The time taken to draw Generation 1.0 took less than 6 weeks.
- While rendering, the additions of clouds and reflections were overly exaggerated judging in my today's standards. The time difference between now and then was nothing but adding clouds and reflections on glass paneled/curtain wall buildings. As for today's standards now, drawings are more concentrated on accuracy.
- There were various other persons involved in drawing their own version of Taipei 101 for the poster. The competition was stiff, somehow mine was chosen to represent.
- Not long after Generation 1.0 of release, I wanted to do something about the various mistakes in the drawing. This was one of the reasons why Generation 2.0 of Taipei 101 was created.
Problems with Generation 1.0 of Taipei 101
There were 2 problems I faced before Generation 2.0 was released.
Surely, if you are a businessman and has the deepest passion for his company to boom and sell, you'll definitely come up with a product that is catered to today's demands. In 2005 the demands for drawings with high resolution was increasing rapidly, mainly from merchandising firms and mainstream magazines who are willing to use the drawings. There was a huge problem. (Wasn't huge actually, more of like my exaggerated thought) The scale of 4:1 is rather small to be printed out as an individual high-res drawing to be used in the magazines. These firms expected something that is over 5000 pixels high and other humongous drawings when the highest I can give was a pixel count of, what, 2032? That is gonna be small for a 300dpi high quality print! And again mind me for my cocksure attitude, but in my today's standards, I consider Generation 1.0 a total disaster if someone is intending to use it as a print.
Additionally, while I kept staring at my odd-looking Generation 1.0 of Taipei 101 whether to sell and publish to mainstream magazines or not, my vision of my first achievement got worst - I hated it when I stared at it even more. How can I create an illustration that doesn't decrease in visual appeal while staring at it for a long time? How can I make the audience last when I can't even make its visual impact last?
This is where I decided for myself, to create a new Generation 2.0 illustration of Taipei 101.
Generation 2.0 of Taipei 101
When I first said: "Aright Stefan, you're going to create a new Generation 2.0 Taipei 101 to solve all these problems you're facing!" The left and right sides of my mind gave 2 opposing answers to that. This is a problem if you're brainiac who likes to think too much of the imminent future! Anyway, as follows:
The left side of my mind was a little skeptic of the idea: School work. In early 2005, I was a first year student in ITE (Institute of Technical Education) and it was my first time getting a hands on approach to Architecture. Projects and work load was pouring in. No time to draw. While the right side of my mind was a little more of a problem solver: Since I was at the synchronized finishing time to illustrate Sears Tower and Petronas Towers, but you have no time for Taipei 101, so do it at the end of the year! So if you guys who are reading this, I would suggest looking at the Grey statistics table above and take a good look at the start and completion dates above!
Comparison of Generation 1.0 (Left) and 2.0 (Right). The various heights of Taipei 101 was reactified and corrected in Generation 2.0 illustration.With all that kind of weird thought, I decided to pick the wise tooth - Do slowly and finish it at the end of the year. Somehow, the right side of my mind was correct. As many said, the right mind was creative, I had sufficient time! (Stupid left mind, I don't know why you always choose to be an analyzer and criticizer of all things I do!)
Enough of the psychological session, let's get back to the illustration. (Geez why do I always have the tendency to find ways to rhyme sentences?!) To be honest, I started drawing Taipei 101 somewhere in June 2005. I remembered the only thing I drew in MS Paint was its curtain wall facade, duplicated the panels and I chose the right colour that best represents Taipei 101... And I think that was all I did in June.
The school holidays happened in December, and I was finally back on my feet again to drawing!
The drawing method was somehow the same as it is. I drew the exact symmetrical shape of the base, this time in a scale of 10:1 and the other parts of Taipei 101 before skewing. I would say this is one of the few illustrations to date that does itself by skewing to form the actual shape of the building. Many people have asked, why this method? Just remember I am not using any 3D software like Viz or Max, just ordinary MS Paint and Corel Photopaint to do the job. Also, it's hard to draw a base that is accurately slanted at an angle to form a 3 dimensional form for the base in MS Paint. Mistakes and inaccuracies bounds to happen if done this way, so drawing in a a symmetrical pattern and tilting/skewing in Photopaint will do the trick without the loss of any accuracy or missing window frame count.
Overall, I would say the greatest and obvious significant change from Generation 1.0 to 2.0 was the view of the base, as you noticed it on the comparison image on the left. The reason is simple, I wanted to show the architectural features which the podium has and show it out to the viewers well enough and not just hidden. Also, it isn't necessary to show 2 of the same small and Grey looking symmetrical entrances where one view is already enough, which is also an added bonus to show more of the connecting podium as explained above. This in turn, does have better visual appeal and proportions than Generation 1.0 alone.
A total of 24 bitmap files were created to draw the Generation 2.0 Taipei 101. Alight, let's just say, I am now starting to draw the spire of Taipei 101, and I must draw it in a separate bitmap file without having to show its base unnecessarily. This method helps to dissipate file size and file loading times on MS Paint. Each of the files contain many different parts of Taipei 101. However more importantly, there should be a file that has the entire drawing of Taipei 101, called the "Official File", which must show the combined bitmap drawings to form an full drawing of Taipei 101. Let's bring back the spire example; once I have finished drawing the spire of Taipei 101, I now copy the entire Spire drawing onto the Official bitmap file and position the spire. However with combined drawings in a single file, the loading time of the Official file can take up about 20 - 50 mb of space on your hard drive. And that's just 5080 pixels in height. However with today's high resolution standards, file sizes can go up to 145mb!
Here are some more facts that you can find it interesting to note:
- More architectural details have been re-created and mistakes have been rectified in Generation 2.0; examples include observation deck heights have been corrected and white vertical and horizontal window frame visibility has been enhanced.
- The building's colour tone of turquoise-green has been changed to have decreased saturation, as a common colour in most of Taipei 101 photos.
- The only part in the illustration that isn't entirely correct was the arched roof of the podium. This was due to a lack of photographs pertaining to its arched roof, so a precise sense of proportion and estimation was being employed while drawing.
Still, there is a strong tendency to improve the drawings as the resolution quality standards get along with time... In 2007, a standard dimensional height of a "high-resolution" drawing should be at least 8000 pixels high, has been set. Taipei 101 has a pixel count of 5080 only, which unfortunately does not cater to the high resolution criteria in SkyScrapers.org.
Plans for Generation 3.0 illustration of Taipei 101
I personally felt still, much has to be changed for the illustration of Taipei 101! The answer may seem quite shocking to many (As many people have put it, they liked the present one, Generation 2.0 in this case) but yes, plans have been confirmed to draw Generation 3.0 of Taipei 101. Starting from the very first Generation 3.0 CITIC Plaza, and as of January 2007 in our Illustrator's Glossary, every high-resolution illustration has to be drawn at a minimum of 8000 pixels in height. The current illustration for Taipei 101 is only at 5080 pixels high. This is quite average for high-res prints but still isn't acceptable for real-time high resolution poster prints.
Also, no illustration is deemed to be perfect. As I mentioned above there is a slight miscalculation of the podium's arched roof, this will be corrected in Generation 3.0, since there are more common photos of Taipei 101 now a days.
Currently, the drawing for Generation 3.0 hasn't started as yet, but it will most probably commence in late 2007. It will be drawn at an estimate of 40:1 scale, one of the highest resolution scales for Generation 3.0 drawings. Its total pixel height is estimated to be about 20, 320 pixels high, the same pixel range of Central Plaza, Hong Kong.
Author: Stefan Tan - Illustrator and Webmaster of SkyScrapers.org This article may update without prior notice.
