Now that all of my illustrative elements have been drawn, I can bring them onto the double page spread and set them within a specific style to convey an infographic. This is something that I am really looking forward too because I want to see my original sketch come to life! But, during this process I soon discovered a piece that needed changing and developing, this piece can be seen below along with the completed infographic:
Caesar and Anthony
This is the illustration of the statue busts of both Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. The illustration is meant to focus on the two main love interests that Cleopatra is seen to have in her life, and while the illustration is strong as it is, I wanted to convey a more torn love aesthetic in my infographic, which is why I am so keen to include a broken heart shape that holds the two busts of Casear ad Anthony.
At first, I was confused on how to turn the original illustration into a heart shape, I was overthinking he process and tried to create a heart from the shape tools, when this didn’t work I tried to work with a ‘3’ on its side and connecting the points together with the line tool – this to didn’t work. Just when I was about to give up, I had a light bulb moment! I used an image from Google which was simply a black outline of a hearth and used the lasson tool to trace around the edge of the heart and remove the background to place both of the two figures in a heart shape. Once this worked, I then also deleted the heart outline, leaving the image above – a perfect heart with two figures inside!
Next was the struggle of trying to turn this heart into a broken heart. I was unsure on how to do this, so I asked Tim and my peers, who came up with a very simple way of creating a broken heart which can be seen below – excuse the small size, Photoshop saves it to scale:
For this broken heart look, I took to Adobe Photoshop, and followed the instructions given to m by my friend. I first needed to rasterize the layer, which then allowed me to use the Photoshop tools on the image. I then used the polygonal lasso tool, and created a jaggered line effect down the middle of the heart to create the impression of a break. From here I was able to pull half of the heart away and leave a gap within the break. This is exactly what I wanted, and once the heart was split into two pieces, I was able to rotate them slightly to create a bigger and more realistic gap for the broken heart shape.
Above I have included both the starting point of the infographic illustration and the completed piece with all the illustrative elements included. From here you can see how all the elements fit together to create an effective infographic design, as well as seeing how the broken heart looks within the final piece. Overall, I am really glad with how this infographic turned out, I think it works really well and suits the illustration style I have worked with throughout the project.
For my Mystery of Cleopatra Conspiracy Plan, I had 9 different illustration elements – torn newspaper effect, map of egypt, Taposiris Magna, lined paper, Isis, Caesar, Anthony, poison plants and Cleopatra herself. I wanted to focus on the illustrations first as images alone and later on add the text elements outlined within my planned sketch – allows me to follow the plan of creating each illustration individually and to bring them onto the background as a complete illustration, and also experiment with drop shadows etc. My final 4 illustrations can be seen below:
Caesar and Anthony
I was torn on how to create this illustration, because the original sketch has these two elements as seperate pieces which sit within a broken heart. But, I decided to create this two illustrations on the same section because it would create an easier way of potentially putting them within a heart shape. The illustrations themselves are very simple and are meant to relate to the statue busts of each suitor of Cleopatra. Again, the faces are left blank with no features seen to keep in line with the illustration style I have previously shown in the other infographics anf illustrations. This illustration was created by using Adobe Fresco, but when I have to turn this illustration into a heart, I will most likely be using Adobe Photoshop. The busts of each lover have a very clear difference to highlight the difference between the men, Caesar is seen in a roman uniform – gold chestplate and brown sleeves – while Anthony is seen in a more traditional garb – linen cloth to surround his shoulders, clasped together by a gold broach of some sort and a crown of leaves to embrace to his head – one is seen as a person of war and the other is seen as a politician. Like every other illustration, I stuck to my colour scheme religiously, and made sure that my illustrative style was consistent throughout the process of this piece.
1. Caesar
2. Anthony
Poison Plants
This illustration changed from the original idea, I was originally planning on having these three plants drawn directly on to the papyrus background in Adobe Illustrator, but the sizing, style of the brush and strong black colour didn’t fit with the overall style that I had created when using Adobe Fresco, so I made the decision to swap software, which I think was the right design choice. Instead, I decided to create a small illustration that would fit within the space outlined in the original sketch and have the three posion plants as a seperate illustration which can be attached to the infographic with the cellotape design element. The illustration for this piece is very simple, and I decided because it is such a small scale, it would work better to have a linear drawing of the plants so they can be seen easily within the infographic illustration. Overall, I think this piece works really well, and I’m happy with the change I made at the beginning of the illustration process.
3. Hemlock
4. Wolfsbane
5. Opium
Cleopatra
I left Cleopatra for my final illustration for the infographic, and much like Isis, I used the same style and positioning – the only difference is Cleopatra will be on the left side of the double page spread looking towards the centre of the double page spread. Every illustration or drawing of Cleopatra is seen to have a massive amount of detail, but with my previous illustrations, I have already generated a very simple style that lacks a massive amount of detail, my style is very minimal, and while this isn’t exactly Cleopatra’s style, it worked best for my design. I used Adobe Fresco for the creation of Cleopatra, and followed the same technique that I used for both Osiris and Isis illustrations – strong black outlines and a simple block flat vector fill. I tried at the beginning of the illustration to line up my Isis illustration with the paper size so my Cleopatra illustration matches her in the mirror reflection. I think this worked quite well, and I also made sure to have the background colour the same as Isis for consistency and have Cleopatra hold an Ankh symbol in her hand – which is seen as a symbol for life in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I was planning on following the same illustration style with Cleopatra that I did for all human figures, lack of features on the face, and I especially wanted this for Cleopatra because the audience than has the option to imagine Cleopatra in their own view, as the image of Cleopatra is unknown to us. But when I was illustrating Cleopatra, my partner made the point that her strong, dark and powerful eye makeup is one of the greatest symbols for Cleopatra, which is why I made the design choice to inlcude her black eyeliner where her eye would sit in my illustration to convey a stronger image of Cleopatra to the audience. In addition to this, my partner also pointed out that I would have to break my colour scheme rule for her hair because she is always depicted as having black hair. I was originally planning on having her hair as the dark brown seen on my colour scheme, but it didn’t look right, Cleopatra is famous for her style that we have no idea if it is true or not, but for my illustration, I made sure that all elements of Cleopatra were easily visible, which is why her hair breaks the colour scheme! The last addition I made to this illustration was at the very end of the process. On the infographic, there is a space on the lined paper that mentions a snake bite and I wanted to connect Cleopatra’s arm to this snakebite possible death, so at the end of the illustration, I added two small dots on her arm to highlight where the snake could of bitten her. Overall, I think this illustration of Cleopatra is a very strong piece, and holds different symbols that help the audience understand that this illustration is of the last Queen of Egypt.
For my Mystery of Cleopatra Conspiracy Plan, I had 9 different illustration elements – torn newspaper effect, map of egypt, Taposiris Magna, lined paper, Isis, Caesar, Anthony, poison plants and Cleopatra herself. I wanted to focus on the illustrations first as images alone and later on add the text elements outlined within my planned sketch – allows me to follow the plan of creating each illustration individually and to bring them onto the background as a complete illustration, and also experiment with drop shadows etc. My first 5 illustrations can be seen below:
Newspaper Cutting
Witht the torn/ripped paper tutorial fresh in my head, I decided to start the illustration process off for ths infographic with the torn newspaper. Like the previous newspapers, I used Adobe Photoshop to create this piece, and followed the tutorial to the letter to insure I have a well designed ripped paper effect. When I was creating this piece, I left a rectangle space within the design to make sure I remembered to include the illustration of a map of egypt (once I had drawn it).
Map of Egypt
As I needed this illustration to finish the newspaper, I thought it would be best to make it the next piece I focused on. To create this illustration, I used Adobe Fresco and followed my reference image closely to ensure I had a accurate map of egypt. The actual process of creating this illustration was quick to complete, the only difficult bit of this illustration was trying to line up where the labels of the city should sit. In my original sketch idea, there is a location marker to be used on the map and the image of Taposiris Magna to highlight a clear connection. But I knew from the Hollow Earth infographic, that my location marker would be added on Adobe Illustrator, so I needed to ensure that I had a small mark on this illustration to show me where the marker should be placed later on in the design process. That is the reason for three small dots on this illustration, but they will be covered later on!
1. Map of Egypt
Newspaper Cutting with Map of Egypt Illustration
And here is the final newspaper piece – minus the location markers ofcourse! The headline for this newspaper, doesn’t make complete gramatical sense, but that is because the headline is partially covered with a later illustration, I wanted to make sure that the headline, when covered, held the words ‘Cleopatra’s Tomb Dicovered?’. In addition to this, I was slightly nervous with working with an image instead of text, because I was unsure if the mask tool would create the same effect of ripped/torn with an image, but I was lucky and it did! Overall, I think this illustration works really well, and the idea of a newpaper or any ripped out article is very realistic and consistent with the previous newspaper elements.
Taposiris Magna
The next illustration I wanted to focus on was Taposiris Magna, a possible location of where Cleopatra’s Tomb could be discovered. For this illustration, I decided small pieces of detail would work best. The image I was using as a refernce was very detailed, and the main building of the temple had different shades of colours to add depth to the image. I wanted to focus more on the shape of the temple, and as I have an aversion to shading, I knew adding that detail would look out of place with my other illustrations. So, I instead followed the colour scheme and the block flat vector fill effect on Adobe Fresco, and worked out that the best illustrative effect of adding detail to the my piece was to add small, little lines to the building to represent bricks. I think this small addition across the buidling adds a sense of detail and depth to the overall illustration, but also keeps the style consistent with my previous work in the series.
2. Taposiris Magna
Isis Goddess
Because of my previous infographic, I already have a system to illustrating a human figure, basically, rely heavily on the reference image! When I started the process of illustrating Isis, I knew I could do it because I had successfully completed Osiris, and from Osiris I took inspiration on how my take of Isis should look like. The illustrative style for both Osiris and Isis are very similar, and I think this is a key element to include because they are both from the same place in time and history – consistency is key! For this illustration, I wanted to have Isis standing looking into the centre of the double page spread because this is how I want to also illustrate Cleopatra, I’m hoping the mirror reflection will frame the infographic nicely. For Isis, I used Adobe Fresco and followed the same idea of a strong outline that I can easily fill with the paint tool. Overall, I think Isis as an illustration is a success, but from the reference image, I was unsure on how her headdress would be like in the final piece, so I made the decision to take inspiration of her headress from a different reference image, and I have to admit that I prefer the circle headress – I think it was a good design choice!
3. Isis Goddess
4. Isis Goddess
Lined Paper
There isn’t really anything else I can say about this illustration that wasn’t covered in the Hollow Earth section, because this is the same piece of lined paper! I couldn’t see the point of making a replica of this as this was already created for the purpose of this project.
With my first 5 illustrations completed, I thought I would include a screenshot of how my Cleopatra infographic spread looks like at the moment. Overall, I am really happy with how the design is coming to life, and I think once all the illustrations and infographic design elements have been added, I will have a well designed and consistent infographic style, that I can actually feel quite proud of! Whih is a new feeling for me, I’m normally my own worst critic!
Taposiris Magna Photos from Taporisis Magna Pictures from Taposiris MagnaPhotos by Ehab Samy. 2020. Taposiris Magna Photos from Taporisis Magna Pictures from Taposiris MagnaPhotos by Ehab Samy. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ehabweb.net/taposiris-magna/#.X7auOWj7TD4. [Accessed 01 December 2020].
HND2 Baxter's Designs 