Ryan Jones and the Temple of Illustrator...

Illustrator- a piece of software untouched so far, so this project, from the start, was daunting. Having just become adjusted to photoshop, it was challenging to see how different illustrator was, and how much of a different working system was needed for it.

For this project, it was our own backgrounds that would be created, and I wanted to create mine based on the 'sack' animation that will be done next. The sacks will need to be animated jumping across some sort of ravine or cavern, basically jumping across from one area to another. So rather than stick with the traditional hillside, grassy area with a cracked ravine down the centre, I wanted to try something different and create a landscape that the characters could easilly interact with and become part of.

I thumbnailed some quick ideas about what I initially wanted the sacks to eventually do, and went through various ideas from riding a cart on a broken mine track, to leaping across temple ruins chased by a giant boulder, from walking and falling from a rickety bridge, to swinging across trees with the branch falling on them. But I was really interested in the temple idea and making it more of an Indiana Jones style scene to keep it interesting and different.

So this was the sketch of the final background.

Initially, I had drawn up a background scene for behind the main temple, which included a flowing waterfall topped with further ruin areas, and backed with a mountain range. But placed together, the scene became very crowded and cluttered, taking attention away from the main focus of the background and making it confusing as to what was going on. So instead, I tried a more subtle, simpler background that seemed to fit well- adding further landscape and depth to the scene, whilst also keeping attention and focus mainly on the temple.

The design and shapes of the deepest part of the background went through various stages, but were kept as simple as possible so as not to overcomplicate or get in the way of the main image, but also add to the detail and look of the overall piece, adding depth.

It was quite difficult to juggle how much detail to include on the main rocks and temple area without it either becoming unrecognisable, or too overcomplicated and detailed. Keeping the style angular and quirky seemed to suite not only the background but illustrator aswell.

The flowers ion the foreground then added the last element of depth- keeping them fairly detailed, and brighter to stand out and keep the depth as much as possible. the sky in the background is soft and kept faint, with a slight blurred effect, with the main temple using brighter colours and harsher lines to seperate it, and further still with the foreground, so that the image overall has an element of depth.

The overall image I am very happy with, for a first attempt at illustrator. The colours all seem to work, and the three layours all seem to fit together. However, the foreground could be seperated further, and the sun could be made to fit further, with harsher lines. But with this project I have learnt the basics and got my head around illustrator and the process of working in it which should help for future projects.