FINAL EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION

The first three words in the title alone of the Metro Article was inspiration enough for my illustration. “Eyes wide shut” was definitely a strong common concept throughout this article and made me think about the extent of things happening in Afghanistan that the SAS, the NZDF and the New Zealand government are turning a blind eye to. Eyes wide shut is a clever play on words with the common phrase ‘eyes wide open’ making you wonder about things that are clearly visible, things that are happening right in front of us but, because of whatever reasons are being shut out to the public eye. In my illustration i have an image of two symmetrical women that have been blindfolded. This represents a number of things, one being the the truth being covered up to New Zealand public. From the experiences of some of the soldiers in this article there has been a lot of illegal discipline and punishment on innocent people that has not been publicly known to New Zealanders. Having read these few experiences alone has allowed me to have a small peek “under the blindfold” but i can say that having the blindfold fully off is a different story. The blindfolded women are also a representation of the victims being suppressed and being forced to cover their eyes to the injustice that is happening to them. With those that live in Afghanistan, especially the children, we see that they have a blindfold over their eyes since birth, not knowing or seeing anything other than war- they have been kept from experiencing and seeing what a normal life without war is like. And the last representation of the blindfolded women is in reference to the SAS, NZDF and the New Zealand government. In the law, we see the famous depiction of justice with the lady justice statue. We all know that lady justice is blindfolded where her blindfold represents “objectivity, in that justice is or should be meted out objectively, without fear or favour, regardless of money, wealth, fame, power, or identity; blind justice and impartiality” (2016, May 30). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice). In this case we see that lady justice is being blinded to the truth of what is happening in Afghanistan. It does raise questions as to if the government is aware of the situation and is purposely doing nothing to raise awareness and at least try to find a solution. I inverted the images of the women in photoshop and gave them no colour to erase the idea of this woman being a particular culture or nationality. By doing so, it also means that not only Afghani people are concerned in this matter, but all races should be as well.

I placed eyes of a woman staring out, on top of the blindfolded women. This represents that although there are more people blinded to the truth, there are still those few that aren’t and that are looking out and waiting for something to be done to correct these wrongs.

Although it maybe gruesome, I used the colour red for the watercolour effect over the women to make it look like spilt blood. The reality made known through this article is that innocent people, some as old as 70 and some as young as 6, are being hurt and killed. The colour red also symbolises blood. Blood represents life, whether it be the continuation of it of the end of it. You would think innocent blood being spilt would be more than enough to get the government to act, but we see that the ‘blindfold’ is still in place.

Research: Anna Crichton

https://www.behance.net/annacrichton

I really like how detailed her work is and reminds me of illustrations for a children's picture book. 

The concept for these two illustrations above is very interesting with the animals in the psychiatrist chair. Having the different animals could symbolise what type of animals we may be feeling like, for example a sloth could symbolise a person feeling lazy, while the angry octopus could symbolise anger and violence. 

Although the colours aren't as vibrant and bright, the amount of detail makes up for it and creates a very interesting illustration. 

http://www.metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/emergency-housing-welcome-domicide-city/

Full Definition of domicile. 1 : a dwelling place : place of residence : home. 2 a : a person's fixed, permanent, and principal home for legal purposes b : residence 2b.

Image of a house being weighed down by a number of balls and chains. The black of the balls and chains stands out against the white house. The illustration links to the article with the article being about the true definition of a home- how a house can be more than a building. Emergency housing is not classed as a 'home'. Ball and chain could symbolise those that are living in emergency housing feel like prisoners, or feel like they will be forever stuck in houses that will never become permanent homes. In the article it touches on the percentage of aucklanders actually owning their own home has lowered drastically. 

http://www.metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/neighbourhood-watch/

The image is of a crocodile with a dollar sign as it's eye with people trapped in it's jaws. 

After reading the article the image fits perfectly, with the crocodile representing Australia being money hungry and not helping those that are suffering and feeling imprisoned in the Nauru detention centre. The teeth of the crocodile look like prison bars. 

there's a lot of detail in the skin of the crocodile which is visually appealing. 

the imprisoned people being silhouettes only suggest that they don't even matter to the govt, that they have just become 'a number'. 

Research: Maïté Franchi

https://www.behance.net/gallery/38432155/Mait-Franchi-Stylist-Magazine

I really like the bright colours and shapes that in his illustrations. 

The article is about food so it makes sense that Franchi created food illustrations for each recipe. 

His illustrations look very clean and neat with clean lines and shapes such as rectangle and circles. They look like images that you could find on a video game. 

His illustrations use a lot of colours that are light and bright, which makes the illustration pop more and gives off a 'fun' vibe. 

Reseach: Holly Exley

I like how in this illustration the water colours haven't been blended together but placing the different shades next to each other still create that look of the colours being blended. The different colours placed side by side create shading in the hair and on the face. 

Watercolour painting style. I really like how the self portrait shown on this cover is painted in different shades of blue with the rosey cheeks and lips being the only other colour. 

Her style of illustration is very realistic, although the watercolour and colour palette give it a contemporary look.  Lionheart Magazine features crafts, art, music and anything artistic that is trending so the watercolour painting portrait style fits. 

Editorial Research: Illustrators

Daniel Egneus

I really like how all of the image is in black and white and the heart is the only colour. I also like how the drawing looks like it has been done with a fine point pen, creating a neat look. I also like how not only does the heart stand out because it is a different colour, but the way it is painted with water colour creates a abstract affect. Have the neat black lines in contrast with the abstract heart makes both styles stand out more. 

I like the use of fine lines in black and then having the water colour effect highlighting in colour only parts of the illustration.

Mixing what looks like fine pen drawings with either paint or charcoal. 

Holly Sharpe

I like the imagery of merging the faces of the women and the different animals. The placement of the butterflies and the birds makes both these illustrations visually appealing to the eye. the composition of the different elements in these illustrations work well- there's a balance. 

I like the colours and how the red and the blue colours in the background create the purple colour for the image of the girl in the middle. 

I think the messy watercolour style is interesting also. 

Judit García-Talavera

I really like the repetition in this illustration and how although the women has been repeated, the different colouring creates three different illustration. I think the colours used in this work well together. 

I like the washed out watercolour style of painting. I also like how in the illustration is incomplete in the corners, creates a 'memory' type of vibe. 

 My Dead Pony

I like the washed out colours and water colour effect. 

I also like the combination of text and images . These images are pretty abstract and contemporary. 

FINAL ALBUM COVER

 The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever

I recreated an album cover for the Kpop group BTS and their third album in the 'The Most Beautiful Moment in Life' series called 'Young Forever'. I actually had created 3 album covers, with a full pink butterfly cover for part one and a full blue butterfly cover for the second part. I decided to have half of the pink and half of the blue butterflies to create the third part, creating a new butterfly with with familiar parts. This symbolises how this third album connects with the previous two albums, as it has some reedited songs from part one (‘I need you’ and ‘Love is not over’) and part two (‘Butterfly’ and ‘House of Cards’) which help in creating this third album. It also symbolises how there are new songs (represented by the new mixed butterfly) but the sound is still familiar (BTS style from previous albums) as well as the concept of the beauty of youth, love and life in general, which is still present in the songs.

I used a butterfly as the main image as it is a representation of beauty, freedom, and a spirit of being carefree, flying through life. The butterfly and the concept behind it helps to visualise ‘the most beautiful moment in life’.

The original cover for the first album is pale pink and the original cover for the second album is pale blue, therefore i stuck with this pink and blue for my album cover. I wanted the colours to pop more so i used brighter shades of pink and blue. I also made the background black in order to make the colours stand out more. Using a black background also gave a clean look. I wanted to have the butterfly look like it is being preserved, hence the white square border creating a frame. The preserved butterfly symbolises how you want to save and treasure memorable moments in life that make living beautiful. Capturing a butterfly and preserving it prevents rotting and aging and so you could say that the beauty of the butterfly will last forever. Referring back to the title of the album, the butterfly will be ‘young forever’. The songs can also be timeless, and can act as a beautiful moment in time.

I created the butterfly in Photoshop, using a low poly effect to give it a pixelated look. I wanted to have the butterfly made from a lot of segments to symbolise that life has more than one beautiful moment, or that more than one thing can contribute in making a beautiful moment in life. I google searched and selected the butterflies i wanted to use and opened them up in Photoshop. I then drew a variety of sizes of triangles with the polygonal lasso tool on top of the butterfly image. After creating each triangle, i added a blur-average filter which filled the triangle with the average solid colour. There are little cracks and imperfections in between these triangles that i wanted to keep to show that sometimes it’s the failures, sorrows and pains that we go through that help in creating beautiful moments in life. In this album there are songs about lost love and fear of the unknown which link to this concept.

I also added a 3 outside the ‘The Most Beautiful Moment in Life’ logo (the square with Korean writing) and wrote with the text box under it ‘Young Forever’. I added the BTS logo and made sure both the title, butterfly and BTS logo were all centred. This composition looks well balanced and adds to creating the ‘clean’ look.

Experimentation: Low Poly on Photoshop

experimenting with faces, this is Suga from the group BTS

first experiment with a pink butterfly

2nd experiment with a blue butterfly

with this 3rd experiment i thought to have half of part 1 and part 2 to make part 3 with is this mix of the two. 

experimenting with where to put the title of the album

I like the look and composition of the Title of Album, the butterfly and the BTS logo all centred. 

extra experiment i did for Jackie. I like the green and i think if you were to try this effect with any bright colour it would turn out nice.