Fantasy in the City: Creative Process
Inspired by popular culture and fantasy, I composited and edited my favourite characters into my favourite cities: Toronto and New York. These projects were in fulfillment of the Visual Communication and Graphic Design Certificate at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).
As a lover of photography and art, I wanted to explore light and shadow within the Adobe Photoshop world. As someone who spent 3 years studying in the urban space of downtown Toronto, I wanted to reimagine the landscape with a touch of playfulness.
For the “Star Wars” in New York project, I initially worked with a photo with bright lighting. I made sure to darken, saturate, and even the colour levels of the photograph to create a cohesive visual. One of the main problems I resolved during this project was seamlessly integrating these elements of outer space while preserving the story I was conveying: an intergalactic battle happening in the city. The final project continues this energy with the laser effects I played with using numerous layers of red in “Multiply” mode.
The second problem I resolved while creating this was the glowing red light coming from the lightsaber. I manually made the red glow reflect on the windows to make it realistic.
Project Assets:
Brooklyn Picture: https://unsplash.com/photos/ga7Tkjo14ZY
Jets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/four-jet-plane-on-sky-733254/
Spacecraft: https://unsplash.com/photos/uN-q7f-SiT4
Satellite: https://www.pexels.com/photo/space-technology-research-science-41006/
Person with lightsaber: https://unsplash.com/photos/EpIUbeFrqwQ
Star Wars Base Camp: https://unsplash.com/photos/BHKXFjJ1l3s
Sky: https://unsplash.com/photos/5LOhydOtTKU
Death Star (planet): https://unsplash.com/photos/F7UKfCkvjY4
For the “Gundam in Toronto”, I wanted to pay homage to the anime’s vintage movie posters, which were designed with vibrant colours and a strong attention to movement. This project’s uniqueness comes from my interpretation of perspective and point-of-view. To capture motion in my work, I played with the “Motion Blur” tool to one of the Gundams.
I edited the city’s hues to match the red sky, and played with light and shadow. In addition, I added laser effects, Colour Dodge and Hard Pin light effects, and “lasso tooled” specific areas for better colour cohesiveness. I used a clipping mask onto the words “Mobile Suit” to add texture and colour. Please refer to my layers screenshot for other things I did with my work!
Project Assets
Dragon: https://unsplash.com/photos/WjdHVGpqA1I (Links to an external site.)
Sky: https://unsplash.com/photos/wud-eV6Vpwo (Links to an external site.)
Gundam 1: https://unsplash.com/photos/nKO_1QyFh9o (Links to an external site.)
Gundam 2: https://unsplash.com/photos/iR94JY-a14U (Links to an external site.)
Toronto Skyline: https://unsplash.com/photos/SYHsBaRDWBQ (Links to an external site.)
Mobile Suit clipping mask texture: https://unsplash.com/photos/is1TjwYLhW0 (Links to an external site.)
Smooth Fantasy font: https://www.dafont.com/smooth-fantasy.font
