Web Banner

BMD Design - Artwork

This is my artwork with a Ukrainian theme, inspired by BMD design.

I was given the country of Ukraine for the playing card project. Initially, I researched the country as nothing stood out to me from memory. I hand drew the Holy Sophia Cathedral on A3 paper before scanning and adding colour in Photoshop. Much like the BMD artwork, I scattered various words across the design that related to the nature of the piece. Ukraine has wonderful nature and architecture, which drove the design heavily. 

Once it was scanned into Photoshop, I used one main colour selectively (gold), to fill in the windows and spired of the structure. As a lot of BMD's work features a rather "gritty" feel, I wanted to incorporate that into my own design, and so I left the speckles that appeared in the scanning of the artwork as I felt like it gave the artwork more character. 

The typography was also BMD inspired, where I would use various fonts across the structure to show variety in the words that were written down.

Guess Who? Progression & Final Piece

To put the final touches on the picture, I covered the unwanted areas of the picture with the required gradient and yellow border, which made my image fit in with the other Guess Who? characters. I found that the little details made this picture 'come alive' and resemble myself accurately, such as the creases in the skin as I smiled, the structure of my nose and the strands in my hair. Overall, the picture turned out better than I expected and gave me new skills to use in photo editing that I will carry through to my other projects.

The colouring process required a lot of back-and-forth checking to make sure that the image looked as close to the original photograph as possible. The highlights in my hair was achieved by picking a lighter colour than the base and then turning the opacity down so that it blended in with the hair properly. There was a similar effect used to create the reflection in the lens of the glasses, except with a blue gradient.

After tracing over every defining area of my face, I used the swatches available to get the best colour possible to match my skin tone and hair. For other parts of the picture, such as the lips or glasses, I used the eyedropper tool to get the most accurate colour.

Starting off with the pen tool, I traced over the defining areas of my face that would make up the detail that would show the resemblance of my face in the final piece (i.e eyebrows, lips, glasses, jawline etc). I used white initially as it was the colour that stood out from the rest of my face, and showed me which parts were left to trace. 

I started off with a raw, untouched photo of myself (taken from an iPad) and uploaded it to the computer, and began editing in Adobe Illustrator. 

Part 1 - Graphic Narrative Research

Ghostbusters Volume 6

I enjoy how the illustrator of the book has been selective with the use of vibrant colour; it is a common theme throughout the book where one segment of a page will feature an overwhelming use of bright colours and electric hues. The book utilizes a comic book style typography, where text bubbles are used throughout to show character's in the middle of conversation. This is something I may not necessarily use as it's not a particular style I find appealing. The characters in the book are drawn in an over-the-top, caricatured style which is probably reflective of the young target audience the author had in mind when writing the book. This could be a possible influence on my own design if I choose to appeal to young children. The illustrator possibly drew the design, scanned, then edited the sketches digitally.

Playing Card

Back of Playing Card

Front of Playing Card (Final)

Front of Playing Card (Development)

Ukraine

Architecture
Mila Kunis
Chicken Kiev
Nature
Tunnel of love

Tim Marrs Workshop