Final Poster

Rationale

This illustration depicts a cheese seller that decides to scam his audience in order to gain profit for himself. He lets the audience believe that the moon is made out of cheese while claiming that his normal cheese are actually the best quality moon cheese.

I decided to illustrate my story in a way that the audience views my story in first person, as if the cheese seller is directly persuading them to buy the cheese. I found this to be a more interesting method for the audience to engage with my story.

My palette consists of mainly dark colours to successfully build a mysterious aura. To make a connection between the moon and cheese, I decided to only use light colours.

In terms of media style, I decided to create my story through illustrator. I like the clean-cut images that illustrator produces and it fits in quite nicely with New Scientist style.

As for composition, the moon, cheese seller and shack are the largest component in my story, as I wanted the audience to focus on these images to find the relation between these images and unpack the story.

I wanted to convey to the audience that the business is dodgy through imagery. Instead of positioning the cheese seller in a shop, I found that a painted sign and shack is much more unprofessional. I also played around with the expression on the seller's face, giving him a sly expression. I also added a sack of money to convey the deceitful lies are working. 

3 Developed Thumbnails

Paper + Test Print

I was fortunate to get some paper samples to choose for my test prints.
I ended up choosing 200gsm satin matte paper and the colours came up extremely well on this paper.
However I noticed there was some minor errors in the poster that I wanted to fix.
I also got some opinions from some students at university and they gave me some good feedback.
One commented on how the text + text colour looked like blood and made it appear more gruesome which is not the idea intended for. She suggested I should try a text that has brush strokes and also play around with the colour. A lot of people suggested white as it has a nice contrast to the wood.
I was also ask to remove the clouds as the moon is an important image to the story and shouldn't be covered up. I also found the factory to appear too white when the poster was printed out so I had to tweak it a little and make it darker. Some also suggested to remove the windows on the factory as it is more of a silhouette and it didn't suit the windows.

Various type I played with. I ended up choosing 

paint peel as it fit into my poster concept the best.

Factory colours + Text changes 

Removed windows + clouds

Test print.

Refinements + Final Poster

Taking all the feedback from the last session, I began to do some final refinements so I can do some early test prints, ensuring that all the colours come out how I wanted them to.

Image reference from google.

Re-drew the factory as my previous one looked more like a power plant. 

Image reference from google.

Adding some moon textures so it won't appear too flat.

Re-drew the money bag - Exposing all the money that the character scammed from people.

I played around with out-glow for the moon.

Added some clouds and stars. Also added more cheese to the stand 

and put drippy paint text on the sign to make it appear more like a dodgy business. 

This is my final piece for test print. 

Feedback

After some further feedback, I had a little more refinement to do to make my narrative more clearer for the audience to interpret. I was suggested to avoid script/calligraphy fonts, instead to make my text appear like it was painted on the shack to further suggest that it was a dodgy business. I also need to add more cheese on display so it looked more like a shop. The factory looked like a power plant opposed to a factory, so I was suggested to look at some picture examples and refine it. It was also recommended that I change the colour of the money bag to a beige/brown colour with possibly money spewing out of it as it is easier to interpret by others.

Refinements

Referenced Imagery

-A shack to possibly portray the dodgy salesman and his factory. 

-Cheese wrapper (saying best moon cheese) to make a connection 

with the cheese and the moon.

-Money bag to show the fraud, making money off people from the lies.

Critique Feedback

After critique I found there were some changes I could make to improve my image and help convey my story a little better. I was told to maybe add a store in my story so it is easier for the audience to understand that the figure in my story is a cheese seller/maker. To also create a further link between the cheese and the moon, It was suggested that I can maybe add a wrapper (possibly on the cheese) showing that it was the "best and only moon cheese" around. I also needed to add some imagery that can show the cheese maker/seller scamming people and becoming rich off their money. Overall the style of the story was fine but I had to make a better connection between with the images in my story.

Critique Presentation

Conspiracy Theory: 

The (moon is made out of cheese) conspiracy is created by a cheese seller who decides to scam everyone by telling them that his cheese are the top notch moon cheese around the market. However the moon is not really made out of cheese. It was a conspiracy created by the cheese seller in order to gain profit for himself.

Tonal Exercise

Thumbnail Developments

Perspective Imagery

Collected some perspective imagery to help aid me when I start doing my own work digitally.

Stylistic Research

Going for a more illustrated approach to suit the style of the New Scientist magazine. I also like the look of the simple and clean cut images when produced on illustrator. Researched alternatives that I could incorporate with my current style.

Surrealist illustration may be quite interesting to tell a story.

Perspective was also a nice touch to the image as it creates a visual flow.

I like the use of water colour and ink/ink pen. 

It adds nice detail to the overall image and it is also a nice way to 

create and show texture like the wood.

I like the simple illustration - clean cut and simple images - 

what I am currently going for. The foreground can be the most 

detailed to emphasise their importance. I also like how 

the background is quite washed out with the same sepia colour 

but the important subject is a vibrant red so it pops out of the image.

I quite like the Disney illustration style. The shading in particular 

really stands out in this image. It will be helpful when it comes to 

shading my own work.  

I like how they use pen to do the details and outline 

and then wash out paint to fill in the colours. 

The paint bleeding out of the outline also eliminates 

the roughness of the outline.

The use of mix media. Clipping in photographs to create 

patterns / fill in the image like the girl's blouse. The use of 

pen, illustrator and photography works well together in this image

as the colours are similar shades and tones of each other. 

I find Disney illustrations to be quite interesting as they 

are not over the top detailed but just the simple use of colours 

and shading can change the expression and atmosphere of the 

image. 

All images are from pinterest.