Final image

After deciding to re shoot my image I found I that the photos turned out a lot lighter and clearer. So decided to use this as my final image after slightly editing in Photoshop, I feel my work needs to be photographed the addition of the light just completes the effect and enhances the story I wanted to create when I set out on this idea. I am pleased with my final image and feel it works well and turned out successful.

Further Editing and Making Decisions

 After playing round on Photoshop I found a feature that helped lighten up my images a bit more than just using the levels. I really wanted to try and lighten the light box images as I really liked the light coming through my image. Although even after this I still felt that there were just to dull so decided if it hadn't worked as well as I wanted the first time I would go back to considering how I could achieve a quality image using the light box. After consulting with some others we decided I could try and stand the light box on the rostrum stand, this would produce a clear photo as I wouldn't be holding it and also it would be straight. I also played around with the setting on the camera finding there was a setting that would correct the dullness being created by the extreme light sauce. Although this meant I would have to re create my in design files I would rather have a better quality image than just giving up. 

Lighting experiments

Since my illustration was about souls, light and was influenced by stain glass windows I though if I had light coming through my images it would add and extra competent to the narrative and really give the scene of lighting darkness and afterlife. 

To get this light I simply lay onto the light box and photographed it, image 1 and 2 are the results of doing this. Image 1 is just the light and image, this really lights up my image and adds a glow an makes the image very biblical. But I do think its stripped a lot of the colour away and has draw the viewers eye away from the other elements in the image and that it is paper craft. While image 2 I added tracing paper and then the card before putting it on the light box this has just added a slight glow from these areas and is a lot more subtle. I do really like how this experiment went on image 2  it think it displays what I wanted my image to be, but again it was harder to edit as the light effected the other colours and limited hoe much I could move the levels on Photoshop. 

Light box and photographed 

Image 1

Image 2

Photographed

Here I have just photographed my work (image 3) to see how the colours would turn out as when I create my 3D paper illustrations I have to photograph then so I wanted to see what happens to a flat image. I think the photo did more justice to the image but has came out a bit fuzzy as I couldn't hold the camera perfectly still. 

Image 3

Scanned

As my images were flat I decided to see what they looked like scanned in and if I could get ant lighting of the scanner. Image 4 was just scanned with tracing paper behind and with the scanner lid open to see if would pick up any lighting, this wasn't as successful as I had hoped. So for my next scan (image 5) I added the coloured card behind to make the light go from bright to dim. After looking at my other images I have found that the scanned images with the coloured card behind probably works the best but sadly none of my photos or scans look as good as the real image. This a problem I am still finding with my work and am trying to solve. So before deciding witch image I use for my Olio final I want to print 3 of them out and see what happens then edit them a bit more in Photoshop so my image is to the highest quality I can currently achieve. 

Image 4

Image 5

Colour tests

After colouring the hair I needed to chose a colour for the outfit the lady is wearing as she is supposed to be a spirit that leads lost souls, but due to my decision to leave it so the viewer could decided who she was I didn't want to give to much away. Then again I still wanted my version to be seen so after selecting these colours I decided to go with a pastel purple as it matches the colour scheme I wanted for the image and the light colour hints towards her being dead. 

Making the illustration

Here are some photos of what my image looked like before I added any colour. At this point I was considering how to colour the hair as it would be the main thing in the image that I wanted to stand out. I considered having it go from blue to white as she is supposed to be a spirit leading the children's lost souls to the afterlife, but after some consideration I preferred the idea of the viewer being able to decided who this lady was. So by making her blonde, she could be the lady lighting the the candles to lead the lost souls or the leader, at the same time she could be and angel or god of the river. This will allow the viewer to create an ever deeper narrative rather than making it plain and to the point. 

Artists/ Influences

Beauty and the Beast Disney

In the film there are stunning images of the castles stain glass windows. They tell a narrative of the princes curse and redemption. I want my image to tell the narrative in the same way as a stain glass window, one image that has elements of story. Also because I decided to go with the idea of the souls being lead to the after life it kinds of fits in being styled off stain glass windows. I will also use bold colours like seen in image 1 and 2 to make my image stand out and replicate real life stained glass.

Beauty and the Beast image 1

Beauty and the Beast image 2

- Disney Beauty and the Beast Diamond edition, DVD 2013, images 1 and 2 screenshots from film

Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix 

Similar to my first images when I saw this in game I immediately liked how it had a limited colour scheme for the background making the character stand out. But this image isn't typical stain glass window its been stylised but even after that you can still tell what it is. This makes me think I could take some liberties and change it slightly and still have it like a stain glass window. 

Kingdom hearts hd remix image 3

-Kingdom Hearts HD Remix, Game 2013, Disney and Square Enix, 

Image 3 found, http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Dive_to_the_Heart accessed 02/12/2013

Finalising my idea

After getting feed back about how to make my image flow better I did some more small ruff sketches and came up with three new ideas how to incorporate my main female. These seem to work a lot better and added more to my narrative, now the figure was now part of the river. I wanted her to be leading the children's lost souls to a better place.

In the end I decided to go with this composition because I thought it flowed and would catch the views eye. Also because the narrative within it was clear but could be read in many different ways and I wanted people to stop and look and think about what my image was about.