Thursday, 30 April 2015

FMP - Pamundur Timeline

Today, I started to create my timeline of my fictional empire's history, form it's rise to it's downfall. The reason I changed from a straight-forward board to a timeline was because the board format was a little bit boring and was't working out for me. The layout is inspired by timeline posters that you would typically find in both museums and schools but it instead displays the timeline of my fictional country. It starts in the year of 1571 with the birth of the first Sultana and then ends on the takeover by the British Empire in the 1870's. I wanted to make it look as organized and professional as possible so I created a layout that the rest of the timeline would follow and made sure that the time-markers were all a equal distance apart so that they all measured correctly. I also didn't want it to look to plain and dull like some timelines so I added a blue and green sweep effect in the background to make it a lot more livelier and colourful. The reason why I displayed the images of the Sultanas on the timeline was because I wanted to make it look even more interesting then what it already was. The text was specifically chosen to the look the most official and easy-to-read which is often the way with most museum displays. Overall this has been a good start on the construction of my fictional timeline and I hope it looks good when its finished.


Monday, 27 April 2015

FMP - Pamundur History

In today's session I created both a new photograph hang up in my exhibition and a historical poster, telling people about the history of the Pamundur Empire. The photo was created around an illustration I did of their god Amalurra meditating in a way similar to the painted depictions of the Hindu gods. I decided to create a piece that was different from the other historical artifacts and go a sort of recent photo of a damaged shrine dedicated to Amalurra. The hardest part of composing this image was surprisingly thinking up the idea on how to do it. I knew I could do whatever I wanted with it but it was deciding exactly what to do wit was the hardest part of composing this image. I first found a cracked wall texture from the site lost and taken to form a wall for my goddess to be depicted on. Then I displayed the illustration on the wall and roughed it up a bit so it looked decayed and weathered. then finally I added the florr and some candles and flowers as "offerings" to complete the image. To finalise messed with the hue and contrast and added another texture to come up with final aged image.


 The other thing that created this lesson was a board describing the fictional events of the Pamundur Empire. This includes the details from the start and the downfall of the empire but leaves enough of the history ambiguous for the observers to make assumptions about the other images displayed and catch any references to events told in the text within the images. So far I think I need to change the layout as I think at the moment wit looks a bit too unprofessional to be on display in a real museum, so I might have to tweak with the layout a bit to get a more satisfactory image out of it. There are some features about it that I like, for example the curved border around the bottom-left looks visually interesting, and the idea of displaying an image from the empire in the background is an interesting design decision. However, I definitely want to organize that text a bit since it looks bit messy just being stuck in the centre of the image. Overall, the poster needs a little bit more development.


FMP - Further Printing

In today's session I printed off more artifacts from the Pamundur Empire starting with this poster from the 1800's depicting the Sultana Adiya tying up the different figures of the political world as a propaganda image for people to join the army. I tried to replicate the style of minimalistic posters of the 1850's because I really liked their particular style and I had to reference the fact that modern printing techniques didn't exist back in the 1800's so I needed it to look simple otherwise it wouldn't make any contextual sense. The other print artifacts I produced toady were much smaller then this one but still were just as important in establishing the empire. The first one was a picture of the first Sultana Umut posing against a tree with a bird figure representing the end of a recent conflict. I made sure to age this one a lot more then the others as it was probably the oldest artifact in the Pamundur collection so it needed to feel as old as it's supposed to be.

The third image that I printed and aged today was a woodcut print styled illustration of the Sultana Yeter leading an attack on the Fanarian Islands with the flying soldiers in the background. This artifact is supposed to establish what these islands look like so as ti immerse people in a place that could tangibly exist in the real world. The fourth image that I created for my fictional exhibition was  another woodcut print inspired illustration of the Sultana Kali burning two white men for treason. This was quite a dramatic image to compose that I had to look at other illustrations depicting burnings to gather inspiration. The fire and smoke was my favorite bit to draw as I liked replicating the billowing curvy lines of the fire that created a dramatic image. The fifth and final image that I printed and aged today was an excerpt from an ancient book about the newspaper culture of the Pamundur Empire with a racist caricature of a Fanarian couple. This was both fun and difficult to draw because it was fun to do some exaggerated features but it was also uncomfortable because I was drawing a sort of racist image that could potentially offend people in my exhibit.


Thursday, 23 April 2015

FMP - Printing and Aging

In today's session I explored the use of tea staining paper as an aging effect for my print artifacts and I also tried burning the prints as well to achieve a more tattered well-aged effect. The first print artifact that I tried these different techniques on was my map of my fictional country. The first thing I did was stain the paper by rubbing wet teabags on both sides of the paper and then let it dry out. This created a yellowed look typical of old papers and rougher texture that also captures the feel of aged paper artifacts. I then printed the map onto the newly yellowed (and dried) paper to see how it looks when it is mounted onto the paper. So far the map looks great thanks the other aged paper texture I had already added to its design and the fact I went out of the way to erase some elements to further solidify its age, but I'm not quite done with this map yet, so I do a controlled burn on the print using a heat gun to blacken and char parts of it so that it might crumble a bit or darken it to a much older looking colour. In conclusion these aging experiments have been a great success as they help to sell the authenticity of my country and it helps in making the age of the artifacts show a bit easier.


Monday, 20 April 2015

FMP - Creating More Prints

Today in this session I decided to draw up a couple more print sketches that will converted into artifacts for my final presentation. The first that I completed was of depiction of Kali burning some Fanarian gypsies due to her hatred for them and because a cremation in this world equals a dishonorable and damning burial as hell is in the sky according to her religion. You can see the stars as symbolism of the two dying men. I drew this sketch in the style of a 17th century woodcut print with the main inspirations being of depictions of witch burnings from around those times. The second image that I drew was of the Sultana Adiya tying up other leaders of the 19th century in a propaganda poster, including a figure of Queen Victoria. I completed this one in the style of Toulouse Lautrec because I though it would be interesting to fuse these different cultures of Arabia and Europe together to create a interesting amalgamation.



The third thing that I drew up was a depiction of the Goddess Amalurra in her version of heaven, Mirakel, which is located at the centre of the earth. This particular drawing was inspired by the depictions of Hindu Gods in Paintings and how all their stories, relevance, and personalities were shown off in a single image. I created a bunch of symbols that could reappear in my other drawings and I also coloured it in since I thought it would look more effective with a more rustic coloured in effect. The fourth thing I drew today was a stereotypical depiction of a Fanarian couple in the eyes of the Pamundur public that would go in satirical magazine like punch as a deconstruction of their way of life. The sketchy style is entirely inspired by Punch magazine. And finally, the last thing I drew today was a illustration of the Sultana with her harem of men. This image is supposed to reinforce the idea of mens role in this society. Its in the style of old Ottoman drawings and paintings.



Saturday, 11 April 2015

FMP - Prints

 In today's session I created a range of print artefacts for my fictional empire that included a aged old woodcut print, a line drawing of the first Sultana, a authentic newspaper reporting a assassination, a old stone table depicting the origins of Talam. The woodcut print was inspired by 16th - 17th century woodcut prints that were created to replicate significant moments in history or a infamous person. In the case of my woodcut drawing I depict the Sultana Yeter's assault on the Fanarian Islands which shows both the the flying technology they had and how the Sultana looked in her prime. I think it captures the look of the wood print whilst also keeping a unique style. The line drawing is similar to the woodcut print but it has a lot more detail and polish to it and is more in style with a standard ink drawing. I also added some text to explain the image whilst I aged it to look more appropriate. I think overall the drawing is decent but I wish I could have done something a little more unique with it.


One of the other things I created today was an aged 1700's newspaper that depicted the assassination of one of my Sultanas who was killed due to her restrictive views on other religions. I chose text that looked Arabian enough to replicate the style and feel of the location whilst also throwing other cultural influences of different newspapers to make it more unique to observe. The reason why art of the newspaper is cut off from view of the viewer is because I wanted to put a tear along the bottom to further age the newspaper and make it look more heavily damaged. I think it looks great because it feels like an authentic newspaper but also keeps an identity of its own. The last thing I created was a ancient Talam artefact of a stone carving of the Goddess Amalurra and the surrounding hell expy "Synd". It was designed in a similar way to the Mayan and Incan carvings in temples. I think it greatly captures the boundaries between photoshop and illustration as I used both skills in creating this.


Thursday, 9 April 2015

FMP - Map

In today's session I created the map illustration of my fictional empire/country and then I put this map illustration into photoshop to turn it into a full-fledged colour map inspired by 17th century map design. The first step in my design philosophy was to find as many reference images for the basis of my map design such as maps of the Ottoman empire and old Arabian maps. Then I had to design the shape of my country so looked at the shape of the Arabian sea where my country is set and decided to go by the logic of continent separation and have it fit within the sort of gap between India and Arabia by shaping it like a large wedge that settle right in the middle. then after I drew the basic shape of my continent, I then went over it in black ink while adding various craters and crevices to add some much needed detail to the edges of the landmass. Finally I created a Emblem in the left corner, which I found to be a common element in a lot of old maps, and then added small illustrations of boats and ships to fill in empty space within the areas.


After I finished the initial drawing of the map, I imported the drawing into photoshop via the scanner and began the colouring and ageing process. I used an old Arabian map as an influence on how the map should look and how I should age the map. I first chose the old paper texture and changed the colours tone to look a little more appropriate. I then adjusted the size of the drawing so it would fit within all the corners of the paper and then shrunk it down so I had room to tear off bits of it when I printed it out for my final piece. The colour scheme was based upon the old Arabian map I found which surprisingly had a lot of colour to it despite its age, although the colours were faded in the centre because of the sheer amount of time it has been around so I replicated that by making it slightly transparent and then adding another layer of pint around the edges. I think overall today has been quite a success because of the way it manages to keep its own style but still feel aged and old like it should do but I wish the font I chose for the text was a little clearer as it is hard to read.