Process- Competition

“A butterfly from the point of view of a bee is competition.”

In this post, I will be showing some of the screenshots and images created while I was working on the pieces.

For this particular point of view, I was thinking about how butterflies and bees both collect nectar, hence I saw them as competitors. The story/scene I wanted for this, was one with tension. I chanced upon this comic cover of a giant and I thought it was really appropriate for this point of view. In terms of size, the butterfly is much bigger than a bee. Hence, the giant could be a butterfly. It also just so happens that the giant is in the pose where she is grabbing something which is good (better than a neutral pose). Such a pose results in a more interesting scene. Since she is grabbing something, I figured she would be grabbing either the competition/enemy or nectar.

[Image below] I thought this advertisement was pretty funny. One of the many interestingly quirky advertisements I saw while searching for images. I thought of competition of a lover. Two women (butterfly and the bee) fighting for the man (nectar). I didn’t use this in the end because I felt there wasn’t ample room to expand on the image. The image itself already screamed competition.

[Next 2 Image Below] These are images from a book I found (the mountain one). I knew the bottom image would go perfectly with the giant image. A scene where the giant is attacking the town or trying to take something from there (town symbolises nectar).

[Image Below] I’m sticking to the space backgrounds here too. Not only does it give the work a sci-fi look, I find that the black in the images also gives a good contrast to the coloured, vibrant images in the foreground and middle ground. In a way, it is present but does not distract or take the attention away from the immediate scene of the work. It complements the work.

[2 Images Above] These two images portray one of the challenges of working with collage and pre-existing images. The images usually aren’t in its full form (see very first image of the giant, her legs are cut off) and you also get overlap of images from the original image (e.g. the lamppost is in front of her right leg even after cropping). I am forced to think outside the box and come up with a solution to hide those areas without it looking like I hid the legs deliberately.

I actually would like to talk about the positions and importance of finding the right images. It just so happens that the existing shadow cast on the giant’s left leg now looks like it was caused by the hill in the town image. Take the mountain image as another example, the right side has a shadow cast, with the addition of the giant, it looks like it’s hers. Had the shadow been mostly on the right, I would have to flip the giant image. Light seems to be coming from the left, illuminating the left more, hence the space cloud is placed on the left.

[Image below] With the symbols for the butterfly and nectar (competition) already dealt with, I then went on to search for the bees. What could compete with a giant? Fighter planes. I imagine the planes (bees) protecting what they think is theirs (the town).

[Image Above] There were two main images of planes I wanted to use. I tried to incorporate both into the composition but soon realised that the grey plane was a little distracting and having two types was too messy. I thus stuck with the beige plane due to its colour.

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PROCESS- Cupid

“A butterfly from the point of view of a flower is cupid.”

I wanted to represent cupid as a puppeteer, controlling and bringing two people together. But I also wanted to use the fact that cupid is usually portrayed as a child so I began my search with these in mind. The flowers would thus be represented by lovers.

[Image Above] I wanted the nebula to be almost like a pair of wings for ‘cupid’ here. However, its form wasn’t too visible after adding the layer of the boy. In fact, at this point I realised this image of the boy with the machine was rather hard to work with. There were too many machine parts at the base of the image that would be difficult to work with and transition with. The chimney of the machine extends far up and it’s quiet dark in colour hence a space background would not work too well here.

I was looking for pictures with a child to represent cupid since he is usually depicted and known as almost a baby with a bow and arrow. I figured this image would probably fit the puppeteer scene due to his hand position.

The image of the boy proved too difficult for me to work around so I decided to look for an alternative. But in the meantime, I looked for images of lovers, couples and things like that to represent flowers. I’ve placed a few of the images I found below.

[Image Below] I came across a Tarzan comic. It was perfect. The colours were good, high resolution and dramatic enough.

[Image Below] This heavenly image of light streaming though the clods and through the mountains was perfect for this work. It goes well with the theme of angels, immortals and thus cupid as well.

[Images Above] I was looking for people (children in particular) who were looking down (supposedly to the lovers). I found lego advertisements that had exactly what I wanted. The children even had their hands partially out (to pick the toy) as though trying to pick up something. The only problem was the resolution. So I couldn’t use them. Luckily I found a better one (extreme right). The best part of it was that the two boys looked pretty similar, which could represent Cupid(Roman) and his Greek counterpart, Eros.

[Image Below] There was something missing in my composition. It seemed a little bleak for a scene of lovers. There was nothing magical about it. I looked through some of the old magazines that I bought and found flowers.

[Images Above] I realised the boys are holding figurines and the mountains cover the toys partially, so the question now was, should I cover the toys completely? Doing so would also cover their faces too.

I decided to just make the figurines only slightly visible, almost as though the cupids are about to add new characters to the scene. The scene then becomes a ‘playground’ for them.

[Images Above] Again, I had to work with the images. The Tarzan image was cut off at places. Jane’s hand was incomplete. To fix this, I made it seem like the flowers were a lot higher and denser and her hands were hidden within the flowers. I did the same for her feet (even though they were not cut off) for a coherent image.