Evaluation

Final Piece

The first step I took in creating my final piece was to import both of the images I had painted into photoshop and place them in the initial places I wanted them in the layout. I proceeded to do the same with the game logo which I left unedited for the time being so that I could get the positioning exactly how I wanted it. 

My next step in the process was adding a rough, gritty texture into the background and editing the blending on the layer, changing the colour channels on it too so that only the red showed. I feel that this gave it both a gritty and bloody sort of look and turned down the opacity. This meant that it blended into the black background better rather than sticking out and made sure attention wasn't taken away from the illustrations.

Next, I proceeded to add the subtitle and tagline that I had created using the typeface I had created. I also edited the sizes of the illustrations as well as the positions so that they were more prominent within the composition and caught the eye. I also added a red layer and created a clipping mask so that just the logo was red. I decided that just having it in a solid red looked too boring and uninteresting so I changed the blending upon the red to make the logo look as if blood had been smeared on it or dried onto it, keeping within the theme of horror. Not only this, but I chose to also change the brightness and contrast on the images so they blended into the background more rather than sticking out too much.

 One of the final things I did was to change the hue and saturation on the subtitle and tagline. This was to make the red a shade that was closer to the red in the logo, establishing a clear relationship between them and creating more consistency in the design itself.

Final Piece:

Final Draft

Media I will use - acrylic paint for the illustrations 

• Photoshop to assemble all components
• Digitally create the taglines/subheadings 
• Import logo from the internet and make small changes to it e.g. colour and size 
• Colours - warm and saturated for skin and gore, cooler and neutral colours for clothing and eyes 
• Add some sort of texture into the background - add interest and more aesthetic appeal 

Colour Choices

Colours used in the game itself

My colour choices

Typography - Creating My Own Typeface

When creating my own typeface, I decided that I wanted it to be based on the typeface constantine. This is because it's a very similar typeface to the one used in the game and I wanted to create a clear link between the poster I was creating and the game that the poster is linked to. However, I also wanted it to look like parts had been eaten away and other parts were covered in frost or snow. I made this decision as the game takes place in the snowier parts of Canada in February and sections of the game take place in caves and an old, desolate sanatorium. 

The first thing I did to create my new typeface was to open a new document in photoshop and use the text tool to write out the alphabet and punctuation in the typeface Constantine. This was so that I could rasterise the layer and make the letters easier to edit with different layers and brushes.

Next, I edited a soft edged brush so that there would be more noise, making parts of the letters look more frosted over and eaten away when used on a black or darker background.

I then proceeded to use the brush on some edges of the letters to give the effect that I wanted and made some minor tweaks to the brush to improve the marks made on the letters.

After this, I changed the colours of the letters to red similar to red similar to the one used on the font in the game itself, creating consistency and a link between the two.

The final step I took was to arrange the letters in a separate document to create the tagline that would go underneath the game logo on the poster and made the background black so that the letters would stand out more and so the effect would be more obvious as opposed to placing the letters on a white background.

Typography - Digital

When considering typography for my poster, I decided that I wanted a typeface that is easy to read and contrasts with the Knockout typefaces of the game logo. With this in mind, I went for typefaces that were capitalised as this is easier to read as well as catching the viewer's attention. I also chose mainly old-style and display typefaces that contrast with the logo in terms of shape and form as this makes the design more contrasting and less concordant. 

Looking at the typefaces above, I immediately decided to rule our DK Lemon Yellow Sun and Stencil as these fonts do not encapsulate the eerie atmosphere of the product being advertised, neither were they suitable for the game gene of horror. DK Lemon Yellow Sun looks too friendly and welcoming to be used for a horror poster and Stencil is too bulky and looks more like it should be used for an action game as it is associated more with army and spy style products. I then ruled out Engravers MT as it doesn't suit the genre either. 

Eventually, I decided upon Constantine. This is because it is this typeface looks much eerier than typefaces such as DK Lemon Yellow Sun and Charlemagne STD. It looks more chilling and suits the genre better. It is also very close to one of the typefaces used in the game itself at the start of each chapter which gives the poster a clear relationship to the product being advertised. 

'Until' typeface: Knockout Flyweight
'Dawn' typeface: Knockout Junior Sumo
Logo and typeface names from http://fontmeme.com/until-dawn-font/

Experiment - Acrylic Paint

For another experiment, I chose to work in acrylic paints on black paper. This is because I wanted to emulate the bold colours used in some of Bill Gold's posters and I wanted the images to have a painterly quality where the textures of the strokes could be seen. I also did one image in colours similar to the ones in the reference image of my subject matter and one in an achromatic colour scheme to try and create more tone and form. I used black paper rather than white to make the paint stand out more. These were then scanned into photoshop and the levels, brightness, contrast and saturation were altered to bring out the colours and tones more which resulted in more aesthetically pleasing images.

Editing My Intaglio Prints

After creating my intaglio prints, I decided that I wanted to bring out the blackness of the ink more. I did this by importing my prints into photoshop and editing the brightness and contrast in order to bring out the dark lines. I feel that this was effective and has made my prints look better as the black stands out more and there is more tone than there was in the unedited images.

Experiment - Intaglio

 For this experiment, I chose to use the intaglio printing technique. The reason I chose this is because mark making on the acetate can be utilised in order to create tones and textures and it is easy to experiment with different colours without losing the shape or form of the image itself, allowing me to compare which colour schemes work best with the images to create tone. 

The first step I took was to draw out the subject matter that I wanted to do the intaglio print of and I used biro to mark where I wanted the shadows and darker tones to be when creating the image on acetate.

Next, I used a craft knife to scratch the image into the acetate, placing the plastic over the image so that I had a rough guide. I used cross-hatching to create more markings in order to have more darker tones that would stand out when printing. 

Once I completed scratching into the acetate, I trimmed it down and inked the plates up with black intaglio ink. I then dampened some paper and removed the excess with newspaper so that the paper would take in the ink more. I then proceeded to add dabs of watercolour paint to a couple of pieces of paper to see what effect would be accomplished and ran each piece of paper through the printing press with the intaglio plate on top each time. 

Print with watercolour paint dabbed into the background

Print with watercolour paint dabbed into the background

Normal intaglio print

Normal intaglio print

Intaglio print with ink wiped onto the plate to create gradients

Intaglio print with ink wiped onto the plate to create gradients

Graphics Print Analysis

Developing A Scamp

When developing one of my scamps, I decided to first draw out two possible layouts for the design. The first design is plain and simple and looks more aesthetically pleasing whereas the second design has too much going on and has no hierarchy as opposed to the first one. This is why I then decided to develop the first design rather than the second one.

The next step I took was to roughly lay everything out in photoshop on a black background and then use an eraser with a soft edge to blend the images into the background so that it would seem like the black was the shadows within the image. After doing this, I added in the game logo and the taglines so that I would have a basic idea of what my design would look like. This then led me to add in a rocky texture beneath the layers of the images of subject matter and I edited the blending options so that it blended into the black better. I also changed it so that just the red channel was showing with has allowed it to add to the colour scheme as well as establishing a relationship between it and the text within the poster. I finally made the text layers into normal layers and edited the texture so that it looked embossed and stood out on the page, drawing the viewer in to the image. 

Developments On Photoshop: