Concept

For this assignment, I was inspired by American Horror Story: Apocalypse, where the main character had been adopted by a group of satanists when he was a baby, and when he grew up they realised that he was “The Chosen One” and his real father is Satan.

The show tells the story of the difficulties they had when raising him (murdering animals & people, conjuring satan, causing the apocalypse, etc). So I wondered “you know, all these problems could have been avoided if someone helped these satan worshippers parent,” 

Which is how i came up with the idea of a Mother & Baby Fair: Baby’s First Ritual.

Deliverables & Target Audience

Mother & Baby Fair: Baby’s First Ritual is an invitation only event for young Satan worshipping mothers out there. Some of the incredible things you will receive are:

I will be designing for two groups of satan worshipping people: 1) Mothers 2) Children (infants & toddlers)

• For mothers: Invitation card, lanyard, & swag bag
• For children: Onesie & activity book

Initial Stages

From the previous assignment, I felt that coming up with thumbnails and creating a mood board helped me a lot.

15 Thumbnails

While i didn’t use most of these illustrations, I think that’s okay because some of the concepts were used for later illustrations.

Moodboard

Initially, I wanted to do a black and red colour scheme for the illustration to SCREAM satanism. However, later during the illustrating process, I found that it was better to go with a softer version of this mood board, which in turn sets a more ironic tone for my illustrations (will be explained as we go along.)

Style-spirations

From my other two illustration assignments, I had a lot of fun exploring line art and how it told stories from different eras. This time, i wanted to use line art to make my work look more like illuminated manuscripts more. I chose this particular design aesthetic because whenever satanism is shown in movies and TV, it’s always some ancient thing from the medieval times.

Process

Invitation Card: An attractive pamphlet that will encourage young Satanic Mothers with young children to attend the event. 

 

I had to include that wholesome mother and child element to represent my audience. I used examples from 50s illustration.

 

After watching more horror movies, i cam top realise that a central and symmetrical composition is always being used to assert the characters in the show. So, for the invitation card, i decided that i should also use a symmetrical composition.

i was also inspired by tarot cards, which in a way, are satanic. It is also because i felt that the layout of the frame and the main graphic could work in my favour.

In draft 2, I established the visual hierarchy. Also i wanted a repeating element in my designs. I went with “Ave Satanas” in blackletter (Hail Satan in latin.)  It was not meant to be read easily, rather, act as a symbol that “hey, this thing is satanic okay.” In this draft i also established that the theme of the design elements were going to be the “fires of hell”, which can be seen in the background of the banner in the the draft 2 illustration.

Colour Choices:

Initially, i wanted to use red and black. i also wanted to limit myself to the number of colours i used.

I thought this was going to be my final, but then i still did not like this very much. It was too satanic and the ironic quality of the event was lost, and this looked more like a poster i would see at a bar or a club. At this point i hadn’t figured out my colours yet, but i just moved on to the next design first.

Tote Bag: To carry things around during the event and as a souvenir. 

 

For the tote bag, the design inspiration came from one of my thumbnails, which was a design which was inspired by one of the paintings of cute babies from the 50s. I liked the fact that this baby’s hands were on it’s face and the main focus was on his piercing little eyes, which gave me the horror element of this illustration.

To put the baby into a more satanic context, I decided to use this imagery of cherubs, which were supposed to be this delicate and cute angels. But then since mine was the fallen angel, i was inspired by depictions of Lucifer.

These are depictions of Lucifer from the horror show I watched and a renaissance painting of Lucifer crying. From here I used design elements of using red curls in the hair.

While i was drawing the curls in the hair, i realised that i could make it look like 666, as a form of subtle satanism.

Above, I coloured it in using the colour scheme that i wanted. However, i still felt that something was off, because it really didn’t say anything about the softness of wholesome motherhood.  So i did research on a softer approach to satanism, something that was more mother and child friendly:

I decided to then flip the whole colour scheme that i wanted on it’s head and make it a pastel hell fantasy :D. Below, i was happy with how the colours helped to bring out the ironic quality of my event out:

It worked so good that i decided that i needed to change the colours of my invitation card as well:

Button Badges: Form of identification during the event and to keep as a souvenir. 

For this button badge, I  was inspired by pentagrams, and how they always have a goat in the middle. The Baphomet. Since I had already established my design elements and colour schemes, the illustration for this and the final came easier to me.

I googled cute goat because it was an event for a mother and baby, so of course it had to be cute.

Before the final, i had one version where the goat did not have the middle eye. But after consultation, As it was also going to be a souvenir, i decided that i needed to also put event details in the button badge.

Baby Onesie: A souvenir gift for the little one

Some quotes for the onesie:

• “The Chosen One”
• “Cute as Hell”
• “Spawn of Satan”

I decided to go with Spawn of Satan, and was inspired by the satan stork concept i had drawn in my thumbnail sketch. In the horror show that i watched, the father of the antichrist was literally satan, so i decided to make satan a dad in my final illustration.

I used the stereotypical look of what satan looked like in pop culture.

Also i gave hum a tie to make him look more fatherly. :,)

 

Final thoughts:

I enjoyed this assignment because i got to experiment with juxtaposing wholesome and not so wholesome things to make something that  works :,)