Song to the Siren - Progress and the final piece

 When I had finished my research and sketching (See Workshop book) I then went about drawing my Sailor for the final illustration. Adding in the fish as well so that I could later change the colours or details later in photoshop if I felt the need to. This was the progress of the drawing through to being finished and inked. 

With the scanned image I firstly removed all the white background pieces with the magic wand tool and some manual eraser work for hard to get places such as the beard/hair and tattoos.

I also played around with a few effects and colours to see what might happen and if anything could be used as part of the final outcome.

When I was starting to cut things into layers (e.c - Sailors hair, tattoos, fish) I copied an extra layer of fish to see what colours might look best and hid the original layer from view. When I re selected the layer I really liked the overlaying of the fish and decided to keep it. As I went on I also decided to do another ring of fish, changing the colour and shape as it looked much more dramatic and really framed the piece.

Seeing as this project was limited to colour use, as well as not being able to use solid black, I changed the outlines to a dull blue and hair outlines to dark brown. I also wondered at first about giving the Sailor blue-ish skin to have a drowned, underwater effect, but each shade I tried didn't look right.

 When I had gotten the right skin tone I was after and finished changing the outlines colours, I tried playing with backgrounds. I knew I wanted something simple and changing from dark blues to light to get a deep sea effect/look. This was a test with the Liquidify tool, but it looked far too rough for what I had in mind. 

 Adding a grain effect and slight glow for a test, also changing the brightness/saturation. Really didn't like the grain effect so that wouldn't be added, but the glow effects would be played around with some more. The lighter and third layer of fish was added also. 

 The background was put through a blur filter to mix the colours together in a much smoother outcome. The glow effect around the sailor was brightened and stretched outwards too. 

Back to testing out colours with the sailor, I felt that his skin tones needed darkening a bit so more playing around with colours, saturation and brightness. 

 The last things added were more glow effects near the top to create the real underwater look and a bed of deep sea coral too. After creating rough, rock-like shapes I then carefully painted coral shapes and copy-pasted them into different areas. A second layer was added for more depth, which looked much more impressive. The layer at front was darkened and finished with a 'outer shadow' filter to enhance the depth further. 


When I thought I was finished though, I realised I didn't like the very middle piece of the coral bed. it was far too plank so I added in more coral shapes and changed the colours around just a bit more for extra framing. More shading effects were added too.

 When looking around for the shadow effect, I also found a lens flare effect. I added it for testing and realised that it added just what I was looking for to fill the empty, boring part in the middle of the sea bed. 

I decided to keep the lens flare because it also looked much more underwater with it added. It reminded me of the photographs people take when the camera is just below the surface and catches the light of the sun of the surface of the water.

I also added a smaller flare to the top of the piece to give the effect of seeing the sun through the water. I wasn't sure if it would work, but when added I really liked it and wanted to keep it. With that, I was happy with the final piece and added the lyrics in the Photoshop template. 


                   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

David Bowie LP - Love is Lost - Planning, Sketches and Edits

 After picking out a song title, the next step was to start planning and/or drawing ideas! First of all I had an idea for the song Dancing In The Street, which I did begin drawing a rough idea before I then found the song Love is Lost, which motivated me much more.

These were the paper pages I started out on. Naturally they were only rough sketches and ideas to get me started or to keep notes I could maybe use in later stages.

The eye sketch was an idea for potentially the LP Sticker or as a design for a side of the sleeve. I also knew quite early on that I wanted to have the majority of this piece done digitally, so that I could have any and all images edited to match and also to practice my digital skills. 

I also wanted to include the David Bowie/Thin White Duke puppet in this piece as the majority of the music video featured the puppet. I wasn't really sure how to go about drawing the puppet or how to get a wood grain effect, So when sketching the puppet, I tried a few things. Using simply just coloured pencils didn't look effective/detailed enough, So I then dragged the side of a fine liner lightly over the the paper. I really liked this look and on the paper I have it came out much more grain-y which was just the effect I wanted.

The black background and waistcoat were painted with poster paint and the blue of the eye was a Duck Egg Copic Marker  

I ended up doing the fine liner side strokes for the outcome. I was really happy with how this looked! Although it did take much longer than I thought it would. Any areas that had a darker or thicker line in the wood, I would either had more pressure with the pen or go over the same lines again, while still dragging just the edge of the pen nib over the paper.

After the face was finished, I didn't like how plain the hair looked, So I added a few strokes to make it a bit more realistic. With the drawing done I then scanned it to change the background black to a solid digital black. I was also unsure as to colour it yet or not, so having a digital scanned version without colour was good as a back up just in case, or to even use if I wanted to add the colour digitally. 


             ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For an example LP sticker, I googled around for Columbia vinyl records for a realistic base. Columbia records are the company that produced the existing Love is Lost LP. When thinking about the design of the sticker, I had an idea for a heart shape to take up the majority of space, drawing it like I did the puppet's face, but in the music video there was no image of a heart so I felt it would be too out of place, seeing as the music video was my main source of inspiration. I ended up going back to my first idea of using an eye, centre of the sticker. 

 Taking this drawing of David Bowie's left eye, I made a few minor edits until I was happy with the overall look of the eye. I still wanted this to look like a simple drawing and to also keep the paper texture in the whites of the eye. The only edits were removing everything around the eye, changing the brightness and then finally a green layer with the effects of glow and fragment. This just helped the green of the eye look much more solid and stronger. 

The placement of the iris over the middle hole of the record is what I want to achieve, the background behind the eye would then be either the same pattern/style as the back of the sleeve or a similar design. 

           ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Next was the editing of the cover. I had an idea to have a collage style cover, with both the drawing of the puppet and the photograph itself. Firstly I just tried playing around with the layers of opacity and overlaying the images. I really didn't like the idea of them overlapping so plainly, but it was interesting to see and try. Also, I wouldn't chose to have the final outcome like this because personally I think it looks too busy and starts to do your eyes in after awhile. 

This was a creepy after effect of playing around with the magic wand tool, the tolerance was set higher than usual but it still only seemed to effect the right side of the image. Changing the brightness down gave it a really creepy look. It would have been fun to play around with this some more, but overall a creepy vibe isn't what I was going for. 

I also wanted to see what the image might have looked like when inverted, but it wasn't at all what I was looking for. It was a interesting way to see the drawing though, but I just ended up seeing Christopher Walken as the terminator, Which was really bizarre but funny.

 After all the playing around with effects, I thought it would look best to have the drawing simple but bold. I also wanted to keep the drawing black and white, So that the drawing when mixed with the photo would stand out with no distractions. When thinking of different ways of mixing the two together I thought of having a collage/layered effect. So I started creating lines to divide sections of the face. I really liked the look of having one eye being the drawing and the other from the photo, so this simple framed look was kept throughout each idea. The first time I tried this was with the opacity of the drawing turned down to about 170% of 255 (The maximum limit on Paint.NET) 

 After looking through other LP sleeves/CD cover designs, I looked at Muse's first EP. I liked the simplistic style. I didn't start out with the Muse cover in mind, but it must have been unconsciously in the back of my mind as an idea, but when I found it I was quite surprised that I ended up doing something fairly similar.  The way the Muse cover was made was by drummer Dom Howard, photocopying his face. 


Playing around with the opacity of the photograph as well was something I tired. I wondered what it might look like if the photo was much duller than the drawing on top. It did seem interesting and did allow the drawing to stand out more, but on the other hand the photo seemed to hidden in the background, which I didn't like. I then tried to see what the piece would look like if I really did frame the hole eye area on the drawing. I really didn't like this look as it felt too busy and distracting overall. However, one thing I felt was right as adding back in the right cheek with the drawing.


I then brought the colour and opacity of the photo back to normal and full, and was happier with the over all look. I also had decided at this point that using the whole hair section from the photo would look better than the drawn section or halving the hair between the two.  

The other thing I then tried was removing the drawn section of the shirt, I wasn't sure as to if it might look best to have the majority of the face be the drawing and the rest be mostly the photo. I quite liked this idea and edited out the left collar and side of the shirt.

All in all after all the edits and trying things out, I was most happiest with this look. I liked having the separate areas as it gives the drawing more depth and just makes for a much more interesting image and eye-catching image. Next is to piece it all together and make the final layouts/sleeve! 

This is the finished piece that I will use for the final design of the sleeve's front cover.












                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



The lyrics sheet I want to use in the final piece. I wanted a simple design but I wanted to get it looking like the projections used in the music video of the song. I first started with a layer to make thick black lines for a boarder or frame that I then joined up with thinner black lines. I really liked the look of it with the thinner lines as it made it look more professional and mysterious. Next I made a layer behind the frame with a dark grey brush stroke around the edges that were then edited with a glow effect, fragment effect and finally a crystallize effect. This helped make the whole sheet look much more interesting. Also, with the background design, I can remove the text and use that for the other parts of the sleeve.  


The text was downloaded from Dafont - http://www.dafont.com/rough-typewriter.font

             ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I then started to make a rough gatefold sleeve, not to scale to see how I will go about making the final version of the sleeve. The gatefold will open up like a book and have the above lyric sheet as the "inside" on the left, with the right holding the vinyl disk. The most professional and effective way to make this would be by printing each section of the sleeve (front, back and 2 inside piece) as a 4 by 4 square, that can then be folded and glued down with tabs to secure the 'front' while allowing the 'back' to be open and house the vinyl. 

I really like the look of gatefold sleeves and can't wait to print everything out and have the final outcome! 

                    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

7" David Bowie LP Sleeve - Stage Two / Project Proposal Form

For Stage Two of this module, we have been given a mini project surrounding a single David Bowie song of our choice. With the chosen song we have to design and create a 7" LP Sleeve and sticker. 

Naturally I instantly thought of Bowie's most famous or well known songs, but I wanted to do something different and pick a song that I had not previously heard. When I was looking through images of David Bowie, I found the one on the left and was really interested by it. After looking up Bowie Puppet, on google, I found the music video the song Love is Lost, which the puppet is seen mostly throughout. I had not heard or seen anything to do with this song, so that ended up being my choice. 



Love is Lost - 
From the 2013 album The Next Day. Puppets used in the music video were produced by Jim Hensons Creature Shop for an unfinished and unreleased video for "The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell." The video was filmed and finished in 72 hours in Bowie's apartment and cost $12.99 (£8) to make.  

I also decided to take note of images in the music video that seemed to stand out or that caught my eye. There following were :  

* Thin White Duke/Bowie Puppet
* Bowie's face projected onto a blank mannequin
* hands - clapping
* focus on eyes
* purple and blue lights
* signs with paper - LOVE & LOST
* bubbles (?) projected onto the wall
* tap running. 


LYRICS : 

It's the darkest hour, you're 22

The voice of youth, the hour of dread

It's the darkest hour, and your voice is new

Love is lost, and lost is love

Your country's new, your friends are new

Your house, and even your eyes are new

Your maid is new, and your accent, too

But your fear is as old as the world

Say goodbye to the thrills of life

When love was good, when love was bad

Wave goodbye to the life without pain

Say hello, your beautiful girl

Say hello to the greater men

Tell them your secrets they're like the grave

Oh what you have done, oh what you have done

Love is lost, lost is love

You know so much, it's making me cry

You refuse to talk, but you think like mad

You've cut out your zone and the things have fold

Oh what have you done, oh what have you done

Oh what have you done, oh what have you done

( Music Video via Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOy7vPwEtCw ) 

PROJECT PROPOSAL :

PROJECT PROPOSAL Complete for WEDNESDAY 5th NOVEMBER
NAME Lucy Anne Nutt	CHOSEN SONG Love is Lost
How are you visually interpreting your CHOSEN SONG? Consider the context of the single, when was it written? Is there an agenda? Meaning of the lyrics? The images from the music video will be the main interpretations. Images and items from the music video I want to make the main features of the sleeve.
How are you applying the processes developed from the WORKSHOPS? It is not necessary to apply ALL the workshops You may combine some element of a workshop, with another process What have you learnt? I hope to use my knowledge of digital work within this piece alongside traditional painting/drawings. Mostly using black and white and maybe a hint of colour, most likely on the LP sticker.
What Have you RESEARCHED? How is this APPLIED to your work? Illustrators, Album Covers, Designers etc Looked at how the music video was made and the full sheet of lyrics. Looking at black and white artworks and anything linked to music. Looked at the band MUSE and their single’s covers for inspiration as well as the work of Julian House.
How are you approaching the SLEEVE DESIGN? Are you creating two different images for the FRONT AND BACK? Are you designing a sticker for the LP? Are you customizing an LP for the sleeve? I plan to make a book style sleeve, to which I will design the front and back cover as well as a lyrics piece on the side .If I can find the style sleeve I have in mind, I would be customising a sleeve as the final piece I also want to design and add LP sticker to be added onto a Vinyl disk for the final piece.

ALL CHANGE - David Bowie Portraits

For the David Bowie portraits project I first started planning my looking up notable achievements and moments in his life that I could use to illustrate, as well as some of his iconic looks and styles over the years.
Many sketches were just quick doodles so I could try and get used to David Bowie's features, soon after I just wanted to jump right in and start my main portraits!

These are the pages I sketched out/took notes on. 

                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When we had all of our Bowie Portraits finished, we then had to pick a favourite. This was the piece I choose as my favourite. The image is from a video game called Omikron, in which David Bowie provided his voice and face to the character Boz, A revolutionary fugitive who exists completely in a computer. I had the idea to use a collage style for this piece as it would fit the look of the character. The paper used was from a phone book that I then painted over in watered-down acrylic paint to make it yellow. The face and background was drawn with pencils then outlined with a fine liner. This is my favourite piece as I think it's the one that looks most like Bowie and the fact it turned out much better than I expected. The collage was a bit tricky to do as this piece was about 10 inches across in size, although I think it was effective in creating a computer generated style look. 

Under Pressure - Berol Pens and Copic Manga Markers 

Aladdin Sane - Paper, Sweet wrappers and biro

Biker Bowie - Biro 

60 Second Sharpie Sketch

2 Minute Pencil Sketch

Classic CD Bowie - Permanent Markers & Crayon

Pixel Bolt - Coloured Pencils

Jareth the Goblin King - Coloured Pencils 

Picasso Bowie - Oil Pastels on brown paper

Bowie, His Royal Highness - Copic Manga Markers & Biro

Halloween Jack - Watercolour Paints

The Thin White Duke - Black Poster Paint

Continuous Line Drawing Ziggy - Biro & Coloured Pencils