For this project, my goal was to further explore stylistically what I am attracted to in Adobe Illustrator. I’ve always been fascinated by cartoons from pre and post World War II, so for this, instead of the typical ‘Super Hero’, I made my two real life superheroes into two dimensional characters. I used simple colour palettes to communicate a sense of unity throughout the design, and the final product is showcased in an old Hollywood-like movie poster. Simple, effective, with all the focus remaining on my two illustrations. I rendered three illustrations originally, wanting to do some type of comic book narrative, however when it was time to put them all together on the same page, it seemed cluttered, sizes had to be altered, not giving much room for each illustration to ‘breathe’ and have attention drawn to it, so I chose to only use two. You can see in my “WIP” section, the process work of the illustration of the two of them kissing.
I used different variations of the stroke palette to exude a sense of depth in a clearly two dimensional composition, by having different weights in the lines used, especially on Lauren Bacall’s shirt, and Humphrey Bogart’s, there is an alluded sense of depth. As well with the colour palette, I used several different opacities, layers and transparencies to give each drawing more human like qualities, such as the emphasis on Lauren’s cheek bones, and the bags under Bogart’s eyes. While I was rendering these two characters, (I am obsessed with them), I paid very close attention to the details that make them who they are - their ‘signatures’, so, for Humphrey Bogart, I decided the gun, his forever-tired eyes, as well as his puppy dog stare, always deep in thought. For Lauren’s look, her eyebrows truly made her who she was, physically speaking - as well as her strong posture in my illustration.
In Illustrator, I used the Kulur palette tool to coordinate my colours, ensuring accuracy and consistency throughout the entire process of my work, making it readily available whether I was working on a computer at school, or home. I used the path tool to clean up my layers frequently, because this was a fairly simple illustration, it required that the details be near perfect - I also used the gradient tool in the background to create a sense of depth, and old Hollywood feel. The font choices were downloaded from the internet, and I layered the title ‘Lonely For You Only’ with the same type in three different colours, giving it a sense of volume. By playing with these aspects of illustrator, and element of design, I felt the overall outcome was successful to what I am wanting to learn from Adobe, and furthered my knowledge of how to go about it to reach my final goal. In the future, my graphic design goals are to further a similar style to this poster, because I feel it is both unique, and you do not see it often any more.
