About Me

Hey there. The name is Buhlebenkosi Ngwenya. I’m from Evander, Mpumalanga. I’m a Swati and my religion is Christianity. There are some things that I’m good at, but there is one that I’m excellent in. Well, it’s not Mathematics or Physics, but it is art.

I have started drawing from a very young age – most probably at the age of 5, the year before I went to primary school. I have been drawing each year, each month and maybe each week. During my primary school years, I did a portrait of some of my classrooms, one portrait drawing of my mother and took part in the Sasol Highveld Ridge Eisteddfod competition in 2009 and 2011.

At high school, my drawing skills improved more. I haven’t participated in any art competition in my high school years. I mostly participated in rugby. The team and I did not win a lot of games, but we still enjoyed playing the sport.

In 2016, I was selected to be a Senior RCL for 2016/2017. The Senior RCL group decided to have a golf T-shirt and I designed it. The design of the golf T-shirt came out well in my matric year (2017). I also designed the Matric jacket, but it was supposed to look similar to a baseball jacket. Instead, it looked way different from a baseball jacket.

I would like to take the opportunity to improve my animation and illustration skills, and also improving the animation in South Africa. I will start small, but my animation skills won’t stop growing.

Grunge Art

In brief 1, I was assigned to create an illustration portrait by using one of the art movements (Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Rococo, Pop, Psychedelic, Post-Modernism and Grunge) combining it with a photograph. I chose the Grunge Art.

I first added paint splats on an A4 sheet, then scan it and fix it up on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. After retouching the photograph of Gareth Davids, I illustrated the image of him on Illustrator. Then, from the retouched image, I only took the skins of Gareth and add it on Illustrator. In the end, the illustration came out well. It is so far my best illustration in 2020.

Pienaar the Painter

In brief 2, students were assigned to create characters that will be used in an instrumental manual for the first year. Students need to create two characters: themselves as a student and a lecturer of their choice.

I created myself as a student character and I chose Pienaar van Niekerk as a lecturer for this brief. For each character, I need to design 9 emotion faces and 4 different actions of the character. Then, I need to place both characters in a class environment. The colours used has to be based on the Pearson brand.

The artwork you see is of Mr Pienaar van Niekerk painting his artwork.

Mzansi's New Crisps

Brief 3 is all about Gold Pack packaging. Students had a choice from selecting either Technology for Dummies, Eco-Crisps, Gogo’s Gift to You and Personal Pandemic Pack. I selected Eco-Crisps and made a new crisp brand called S’Nege. The main purpose of this brief is to create a package that is eco-friendly and its appearance is different from other crisps in store.

The package of S’Nege is in a form of a coffee cup, designed with varieties of South African tradition patterns. The patterns represent S’Nege’s flavours. The black cup (Shiyanyama and BBQ sauce) has random patterns, the green cup (Fruit Chutney) has Tshivenda patterns, the orange cup (Chakalaka) has iNdebele patterns and lastly, the red cup (Spicy Tomato and Onion) has Sestho patterns.

Once the S’Nege crisps are done, the cup can be either for any cold beverage. The cup can also be recyclable.

Warrior of Hope

This was the fifth and last brief for third years. Students are assigned to choose one of three briefs – which were IoT, Pop Up club and Crowdfunding for animation. I have selected Crowdfunding.

For this brief, I need to crowdfund a comic titled Ireti: Bidemi from the Comic Republic. They have four issued comics on their website, but they don’t have any animations yet. My goal is to create a campaign and raise enough funds to start the project, get enough people who will willingly work in the project. The action-adventure series will be based on the comics. The name of the series will be Ireti: Warrior of Hope.

At the end of the brief, I created posters, billboards, merchandises (hoodies, T-shirts), advertisements and a short animation action shot. The image on display is one of the billboards of Ireti series.

 

DJ beatZ

This illustration was for brief 2 in my second year. Students were briefed to create a character. The character had to be a musician – can be either a band or a solo artist. 

I decided to create a house DJ character, name DJ beatZ. The final shot illustration of the DJ performing on stage. (image on the right)