Illustration Friday: Moon

Initial Ideas

• space men
• aliens
• spaceships
• were-wolves
• jaffa cakes
• cheese
• rooftops
• the cow jumped over the moon
• landscape with a moon
• moon stones
• other planets
• dancing in the moonlight

Reference Imagery

Reference imagery was almost essential during this task, as it is really rare and difficult to get a good close up picture of the moon! I did however attempt to take my own photographs of roof tops and work from those although I did not use them for my final piece.

Thumbnails

I decided to develop four of my initial ideas, which were; dancing in the moonlight, werewolves, rooftops and jaffa cakes. I thought I would challenge myself by attempting to digitally illustrate a moonlit rooftop scene. However, after discussing my ideas with my peers I was persuaded to go with my jaffa cake idea (the well known advertisement; 'full moon, half moon, TOTAL ECLIPSE')as this was a funnier and more original concept.

Process

I was keen to have another try at using photoshop brushes for this weeks brief, so I chose a brush texture similar to that of a pencil crayon and gradually built the layers up of the jaffa cakes going from dark to light. I found it difficult to blend the different shades of brown in places, especially the highlights of where the light reflected from the chocolate part on top. To amend this, I experimented with multiplying and blending layers until I was happy with the colour and tone that looked more natural and realistic.

Evaluation

Already I can see an improvement in my photoshop painting skills which I am really happy about and shall aim to practice this in upcoming illustration Fridays. I'm also glad that I went through with my jaffa cake concept, as I feel like for once I haven't just gone straight ahead with the first idea that came to mind, allowing myself to think outside of the box and come up with something that a large percentage of people recognise and appreciate. On the other hand, I did say to myself that I would aim to construct a more complex image rather than just a vignette but this week I had to prioritise the effectiveness of the concept and communication.