2D Project #2: Forrest Gump // Digital Process

At the start I had trouble even solidifying any concrete ideas, so I broke down my quotes and focused on the main words (IN BOLD). Then I brainstormed what would best represent them.

  1. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.

Nothing: Black backdrop, Empty bottle/Jar/Wine glass, empty hands

Fox: Fox head, Fox tail, Fox silhouette

Hundred thousand: literally lots of foxes in the background, water droplets

So I first tried the composition with an Empty Wine glass:

After threshold effect on Photoshop

Added a fox tail:

Completed the background with lots of other foxtails:

Hold on, this doesn’t seem right- it looks like shit let’s just scrap this. Maybe we should try hands.

Added Background and the fox tail:

This time I tried using water droplets

Loved how it turned out, but when I think back about the quote, it doesn’t truly portray it. The quote “to you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes” is meant to be lonely and sad.

So (sadly), I scraped this idea too as the use of hands made it seem like they’re protecting the fox. Next, I tried an empty milk jar, but used the same background:

Again, it doesn’t feel quite right so I played around with composition and came up with a zoomed in one.

YES SO MUCH BETTER

OK so then I added in the fox tail:

I liked this concept so I tried a different composition:

Nah, let’s stick to the first one

In the end I stuck to the first one as it seems more lonely and the empty milk jar is placed at the centre of attention, really emphasising the ‘nothingness’.

2. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist.

Fear: Zombies, Scary stuff, Blood, fire

Oblivion: Black backdrop, Cracks

Did not exist: incomplete lines. faded lines, incomplete heart

I first went with a heart being engulfed by fire. It was quite lame and embarrassing but since we need to record our process down, here it is:

A big NO from me

This didn’t really portray the quote well so let’s move on.

I found this top half of a man(sort of)…He looks scary and zombie-ish so I used him:

I combined a cracked background and a fiery smokey one for fun to see how it goes:

After combining them and changing it to Half-tone

Added the Zombie guy in:

Something from the quote was missing- his own oblivion. So I literally made a copy of him and made his copy ‘faded’.

There wasn’t much contrast so I chose a lighter background:

After that I was still wondering whether I could incorporate the heart somehow:

Preferred him literally staring at ‘himself’ as it looked cooler and its a more symbolic approach of staring at your own oblivion.

3. In that moment his whole disgust for mankind rose up again within him and completely soured his triumph.

Disgust: puking mouth, cracks

Mankind: Chess pieces, Tie

Triumph: Light bulb, Light

I imagine ‘mankind’ to be attacking the light bulb, circling it:

    

Combined the two:

The background seems too plain to I tried adding cracks:

The chess pieces look like they are projecting away from the bulb, so I decided to collect individual chess symbols and arrange them myself. I also added in a tie to create a more interesting visual variety.

I figured using a broken light bulb will be better to project the ‘completely soured his triumph’ part.

 

After thresholding and a few arrangements:

4. For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words.

Close their eyes: Mask, Hand over eye, Eyes closed

Greatness: Crown, King, Trophy

Beauty: Rose, flowers

Melodies or Deceiving words: Alphabets, Crooked lines, distorted musical symbols

First googled and searched for masks I can use. Here are a few:

In the end I chose this mask:

The idea of using a gas mask instead of theatre or drama masks gives the idea that the ‘greatness, horrors, beauty, melodies and deceiving words’ are toxic and the character is forced to mask himself.

It’s more of a life and death situation, and not a choice, which is exactly how I want to project the quote.

I arranged the alphabets, flowers and crown in a way that there is a strong circular directional force, all going in toward the character.

The composition looked weird as the elements are very different and looked separated.

I thought it would look better with lines

I had a better idea, where I used distorted musical lines to ‘join’ the elements together:

Ta-Daah.

 

 

 

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