Final Image + Rationale

My image is based on the Bermuda Triangle, explaining the mysterious disappearances as the result of a game of battleships played between gods.

The board is structured like the traditional battleships board, but with a triangle playing area. The design around the top board is based on an Ouija board, emphasizing the occult elements, and the whole box is made of wood to match. The figures at the bottom represent two corners of the Bermuda Triangle, Puerto Rico and Florida, through their appearance and flags. The lower board is sunken in, showing water and smoking ships to emphasize that this game is affecting the real world.

The two figures playing are deities of the ocean, made of water and dotted with fish. The figure behind the board is large and intimidating, with a sharp grin, claw-like nails, and hidden eyes to show untrustworthiness. I wanted to portray a sense of power and superiority and show that they have fun toying with people’s lives.

Overall, I wanted the mood to be playful, ominous, and mystic.

More progress + adjustments

I've finished up my illustration, keeping the critique in mind.

I then put the file into photoshop to tweak the colours and contrast.

Progress shots + FB critique

I put my latest progress on Facebook to get some feedback:

• Just a suggestion, perhaps more tonal contrast in the background/ foreground? :D
• i love their mouth so much???? the only thing i'd say is the close hand is kinda not obvious, maybe if it's a slightly different colour?
• very cool!!! just feel like it needs a bit of shading just where her arm crosses her chest to create depth and perspective. Maybe a gradient so that her blue skin gets darker at the bottom... think about the shadow the box might cast on her skin and maybe the other hand being a slight different colour, and maybe another hand on the right so it doesn't read that she is playing battleships by herself.

Pose references

Some photos I took to decide on/reference for my final.

Opposing figure

Ouija Decoration

Hands

I also made a quick SketchUp model for the perspective on the board.

Cartoon precedent study

I looked into some examples of work that is high quality and well executed in a cartoon style.

Song of the Sea (2014):

An Irish film following a selkie and her return to the sea. The entire film is very artistic, with unique shots and a careful eye for detail.

Pixer concept art is also very inspiring! The films themselves are beautiful, but the concept art shows a level of detail that is often last in the move to animation. Once again, a good use of framing, tone, and colour.

Battleships board designs

Since the battleships board is a focal point in the image, I want its design to add to the story/mood in some way.

Top: based on a Ouija board, to emphasize the supernatural elements.

Middle: A sea monster/nautical design, relating to treacherous oceans.

Bottom: An island image to reference Bermuda, the triangle's namesake.

For my final I decided to go with an alteration of the Ouija theme. It shares the same layout and figures, but the two women at the bottom represent Puerto Rico and Florida, two of the corners of the triangle. I thought this would be good to cement the location without solely relying on the triangle shape alone.

Colour passes

Colour tests for my final

Master studies

Mary Cassatt, looking at colours.

Alternate Thumbnails

Trying out some landscape layouts for my illustration.

I'm not really feeling these designs. Matt suggested trying some designs more focused on the characters, but I feel like doing so takes away from the battleships imagery and makes the theory less clear.

Week 4 notes

In our lecture today, the tutors pressed the importance of tone and colour, in particular doing tone and colour tests before proceeding to colour and finish your piece.

In class we did some master studies looking at tone.

I also blocked in some tones on my current sketch,

Matt suggested trying our some landscape layouts (I thought I had to stick to portrait) so I'm going to do some more quick landscap designs, maybe focusing on the characters more than the board to see if that works out.

Artist Model - Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was an impressionist painter in the late 1800s. I love her use of colour and brush strokes, and how lively they make the image look.

Artist Model - Glenn Jones

I don't think I'm going to go with a vector style, but I like how clear and crisp he portrays concepts and visual puns.

Artist Model - Jillian Tamaki

I love her use of line and ink to build feeling and detail into the work.

Poster dev - Sketching

I've started sketching up my best concept digitally.

 My design is pretty centre based, but I'm also keeping the rule of thirds in mind.

 

This is probably too many columns. Triangles are hard. 

 I'm thinking about insetting the bottom triangle to make it more like a view down on the real ocean and ships, rather than this all being just a game.

 

I wanna have a sinister figure on the other side of the board to show this is a game of the gods or other supernatural beings.

Design for the top board, based off a Ouija board. I wanted to push the super natural element with this design.

Week 3: Thumbnail development and class formative

Before class I did a bit of development on a couple of my thumbnail concepts; the Battleships image and the alien holiday image.

Today in class we had a formative with Tanya, looking at the general direction of each conspiracy group and discussing our theories. I didn't get any direct feedback on my concepts, but she pointed out that aliens tend to be an easy choice, and that sort of overused, so I'm pretty certain I'll be going with my Battleships concept.

New mood boards/image research

I put together some new boards collecting inspiration and references for my chosen concepts.

Battleships:

Postcard:

Aliens:

Thumbnails

Here are my initial thumbnails for my conspiracy.

My favourites so far are the parody ones (battle ships, alien postcards, tourist maps, etc) so I'm gonna focus on that direction.

Image research

Mood Boards

I haven't decided whether I want to go for a serious or more cartoony approach, so I made a mood board for each.