Digital experiments (illustration Brief).

I began to experiment with pictures using tutorials from the internet. All in completely different styles and representing different emotions, scenarios and a multitude of different layering, drawing and picture editing techniques done in Photoshop.

First off I explored a tutorial created to show how to make a digital collage, working in the style Miles Donovan using layering and blending techniques. The tutorial was very different to my outcome in the sense that it was a lot more regimented linear and was based on London. I on the other hand based mine on Alice in wonderland and tried to recreate a darker more overwhelming world with the focal point around Alice from the perspective that she had just arrived. I decided that the images of mushrooms that I obtained where too life like, plain and realistic, so decided to first off change the contrast of the background of the bottom image making it brighter, breaking away from reality. I used the blur tool to give a mirage/ hallucination effect. I did the same with the rest of the mushrooms I used to make them more vibrant. I crammed the images together to give the idea off being surround and emphasise the lost feeling that at Alice would have been experiencing. The dark colours give the idea of despair and being lost to the world. I placed the mad hatter looking down on her and the Cheshire cat above her shoulder to give the idea that they are tormenting her.

The second was a Chris Ede inspire illustration tutorial except instead of using a bird I chose to use a caterpillar to relate the piece to Alice in Wonderland. The caterpillar is blue and as Chris Ede uses varied shades of the same colour, I did the same using varied shades of blue. I used postures effects on the caterpillar to turn the shades into blocks of colour. I change the contrast an the lighting on the mushrooms to give more of a negative like effect as if they are getting brighter and eventually will turn bright white giving the piece a buzz about it. For the rest of the foliage  used roses poppies. The use of the poppies relates to the pipe the caterpillar smokes, most likely opium which comes from poppies and was a popular recreational drug but was also legal at the time sand so I began to make giant dense garden the surrounds the right hand side of the caterpillar. I used the selection tools to allow me to delete the shape of the flowers from other pictures. The other pictures were blue butterflies which allowed me to get caring textures of blue and shade on the picture and by layering and rotating the pictures and changing the fill and opacity it gives the "garden" some depth and makes it look like a a lot is going on in there. I then began to trace over the original pictures with the pencil tool so that I could obtain the details of the pictures. I then put the traces over the top to give the effect you now see. I made a copy of the rose trace and placed it on its own so there was no colour to fill the empty space, making it look as if fading into the mist of the dissolved background.

This tutorial that I followed taught me how to make a vintage collage poster using a few layering techniques and the pen tool. Originally it was for a flying woman but I decide to add a little humor an incorporate the vault boy from Fallout, a game based on a post apocalyptic world which occurred in the 50s. I put a nuclear explosion in the background and in the foreground wrote the words have a good day in the typical "perfect American white picket fence" style where there is an emphasis in remaining ignorant in the face of danger.