Compelling Composites
Summary: My goal for this project is to demonstrate how no matter how big or strong you are you can be taken advantage of. You can be the most popular person in the world and haven everything going for you. But people will prey on your weaknesses. But in this case of the tortoise, he is resilient and continues to push forward.
Goals: My goals for this project for myself were to expand my knowledge of photoshop and become more comfortable with it. I personally love editing footage and photos so gaining more of an understanding of this application was a must for me.
Ideation + Sketches:
What themes would you like to explore in this work?
I would like to dive into my creativity and explore ways to express hidden meanings.
What feeling(s) do you want to convey in this work?
I want to convey a dystopian world in the background, a world of unhappiness. But in the main point of my project I want to convey some sort of happiness being tucked away from the world.
What imagery or visual cues will you use to communicate this feeling?
I want the viewer to enjoy looking at the work. Visually pleasing is a must. I myself do not like looking at things that are off putting or visually unpleasing. So that is the route I want to take. This isn't going to be something beautiful though, visually pleasing as in it doesn't look like it was just thrown together.
Who is your protagonist(and/or antagonist)? Is the protagonist a human? An animal? An object? Or something else?
My main character in my work is a giant tortoise with an amusement park on the top of its shell. The antagonist is the humans who are taking advantage of the tortoise.
Is it necessary for us to see the protagonist in order to understand the story?
Yes. The tortoise is being forced to carry around others enjoyment while not being allowed any himself. He is only used as a tool.
What events led the protagonist to this point?
The humans figure out that the tortoise might be huge and very dangerous but is has one weak spot. And that is the fact it cannot reach its back.
What might happen next?
Nothing will happen next. Since the tortoise cannot reach its back, it is forced to play along in the game that it is stuck in. A cruel existence but one that he has to live with.
How can symbolism be used in this work?
Having your disadvantages used against you and there is nothing you can do about it.
What might your composition look like?
I want the work to look very happy and warm in the foreground and dark and gloomy in the background.
Rough Thumbnail Sketches
Rough Thumbnail Sketches
Final Decision Thumbnail Sketch
After many trails and errors I decided on this photo of this tortoise. On my pre project review speaking with the instructor we both decided that the tortoise should be positioned looking backwards. I found this to be a challenge but eventually found the perfect photo.
A couple weeks prior to this assignment we learned about A.I. in class and I was very interested in the abilities of it and wanted to challenge it.
This is where everything started to come together. My experiments with A.I. blew my mind to say the least, it truly is scary. But somethings were off and a little out of place. Proportionally there was also some challenges.
A friend in class found a contradiction in my story and image itself. In my story the tortoise is lugging around in a dystopian world and the humans are taken advantage of it. In my image you see the ginormous tortoise is walking through the ocean. Which means it would need to be rather large. This rendition of the image you can see the proportions are way off. Because there is no way the abandoned ship is almost double the size than this larger than life animal.
With the help of the professor and a quick tutorial on the rule of thirds we came up with this rendition of the image. Making the proportions much much better. Cutting out some of the background and increasing the visual size of the tortoise makes the image much more sound. But there is always an issue when resizing one layer and not the others. In the bottom left you can see my background is missing due to the resize.
Now this is the the final image of the giant tortoise. I fixed the bottom left corner. In the end I like how it came out. I can be honest and say that the story of this giant tortoise got a little mixed up through out the process but I'm still proud of it. It being my first photoshop assignment, I think I am off to a great start.
Knowledge Gained: This project I decided to challenge the A.I./Generative Fill on photoshop. With the professor telling us it is very new I wanted to challenge myself and it. And throughout the project there was some difficulties with the A.I.. Like trying to make a rollercoaster and a hotel. What I was impressed with was the crevasse on the turtle shell. It looks completely natural and not like the sketchy and botched A.I. you see all over the internet. The moon, forest, and ship in the background are all A.I.. As well as everything inside the tortoise's shell. I also used the burn tool to make the tortoise more worn down and dark. I also used the blur tool on the horizon to make it indicate the distance and fog you sometimes see at sea. This project taught me a lot and will for sure help me in the future of my career. I would love to do something like this again.
