Vis Com 3: Poster 2

In today's session I started to create my second poster which will end up in my final display, and based upon some more illustrations that I made in my book. The inspiration behind this sketch was a poster from the game BioShock Infinite on racial purity through restricted sex and some fairy-tale red riding hood imagery to create a illustration about safe sex with sufferers of Lycanthropy. I added canine teeth and long fingernails to remind the viewer of this fact. The reason why I based the pose on this image in particular was because I believe it reflects the dangers of mysterious women and casual sex, although in different ways, and the moon imagery in the original poster helped to make a connection. Red Riding hood imagery was included as it is mostly ingrained in collective consciences plus the association with wolf from that particular story.

The painting was completed in sections rather then in just one layer so I could customize each section of the figures colour, brightness, and contrast easily instead of having to repeatedly paint over sections of it. The tones of the painting was achieved by using a combination of the burn tool and the paint tool to create darker areas that could edit with the brightness and contrast to make it look more appropriate. I added a texture of tiles onto the hood to give it a woven cloth like feel to it and to differentiate the tones a little bit more. I had to experiment a lot with the saturation and the hue to create the most appealing yet darker look of the hood and the skin tone also took some perfecting because I never seemed to get the balance of colour right as she could look a little too red or a little too orange. I think overall though today has been a successful session in creating the initial illustration.

Vis Com 3: Finishing Poster

In today's session I finished off my second poster and have begun to document it in my book as well as consider the next steps I should take for the rest of the project time. I experimented  with texture and colour within this poster and the results were very interesting to say the least. To start off with I looked up dafont.com to look at some fonts that I would like to use in my poster when I spotted some grungy looking ones that gave me the idea to make this poster have a grunge style to reflect it's teenage audience. The phrase I create "Wolves never show their true hides" was based upon the fable the wolf in sheep's clothing in reference to the fact that you will never know who a werewolf is until it's too late. My slogan "Stay Safe, Stay Aware" made another appearance with the reminder to wear condoms. The text has a white paint like backdrop because of grungy visual to it.

I used a lot of old photo and paper textures within this piece to create the grungy aesthetic as well as a gradient overlay to create interesting colour patterns. There was old photo texture that covered the background and hood layers to make them stand out a bit more. There was another old photo texture overlay over all the images except for the logo, and a grungy black border that surrounds everything except for the logo. I think the textures create a interesting effect over the paint job as some areas are darkened but other areas of scratches and smudges are lighter making it slightly old looking but in a sort of cool hipster nostalgic way instead of like an actual old photograph way.  I like the background quite a bit as because of the high contrast and multiple textural and colour layers it only suggests it is an actual forest and makes the poster feel more surreal and, again, more grungy.

Vis Com 3: Finished Leaflet

In today's session I finally finished off the werewolf leaflet that I had been working on in past weeks with varying degrees of success. The information is now all filled in including n the back that contains a fake QR code. There is a lot of text within this piece that establishes the rules and conventions of my alternate werewolf interpretation and creates the world's standing on this big issue. Here I have included a basic Q&A to answer most questions about how this werewolf virus works and have added diagrams to demonstrate symptoms and the different types of werewolves that can develop from this disease. The illustrations were designed to resemble modern medical illustrations that you find in real medical leaflets and posters to give an edge of realism to this fictional world. The blue colour scheme was inspired by the NHS's colour scheme which is also blue because it gives the leaflet a sense of calm, trust, and sophistication which you would want to feel when tackling such a huge pandemic.

What I really like about this leaflet is its realistic design that creates a sense of believability and suspends your disbelief just enough to let you get wrapped up in it's lore. Like how there is a sense of restriction in showing off the actual werewolf figure like there is some sensitivity to the subject like how people feel about real sufferers of often debilitating diseases. I also refer to often less talked about aspects of werewolf-ism like sexual contraction and even blood transfusions which would be common for other diseases like Aids or even things like chlamydia. I think if there is one thing I would like to change about this leaflet it would be the background as keep getting the feeling that they look too simple and often unprofessional. Plus you got the text on the Lycanthropy types page that looks way too small and is too close to the edges of the actual page.

Vis Com 3: Illustrations and Leaflets

In today's session I finished of my illustration work in photoshop and have started the work on my werewolf awareness leaflet. For the second werewolf's character design I referenced a lot of pictures of real wolves and modern werewolf designs so that it appeared more wolf-like then the last. The feet and legs for example were heavily inspired by the back-feet of real wolves whilst the height and muscle structure of the figure was based upon modern werewolf illustrations. I also lowered the arms on the figure a bit more to make them more ideal for a creature that would walk on all fours and head was made a bit bigger to accommodate his large size. The fur was done slightly differently this time as I wanted a pattern to show up within the fur which was a trend that I found in real wolves. The pattern and base were painted with the normal paint tool, then i opened a new layer and created the fur texture similar to the one last week, and finally I overlaid the two images to create the effect.

Near the middle of today's session I begun on creating my leaflet for my fictional werewolf awareness campaign that I intend to fill with the fictional information on the disease that I created in my previous sessions. The leaflet was based upon the modern NHS design that I saw in my local pharmacy's and other various leaflets and posters that I found when searching for them. I chose a blue colour scheme as I felt it echoed the aesthetic of the NHS. I chose to have the images I created as silhouettes because I believed it looked a lot more effective then if they were in full colour. Everything is designed to look formal and clinical so it sells the realism of the situation and to create a strange surreal atmosphere that will hopefully pull and engulf my audiences into this world. I really like how it's coming so far but I think I would like to mess with the colour scheme more to see if it looks any more effective in different colours.