Week 12

Part of our assignment criterion was to complete and submit a piece of work for an appropriate competition. Since I am presenting myself as a digital artist I wanted to find and enter a competition that would allow me to make use of my abilities within this field. I have been searching for numerous weeks now for a competition which is requesting for entries showcasing qualities within my precinct but all I can find are either outdated ones or ones which request for something with little or no relevance to my area. I frequently visit the Adobe website and received an email informing me of the Adobe Design Awards competition a little while ago. There was no way I could even begin creating something that would be even worth submitting to this competition in the time which I had remaining. So after some more searching I stumbled on to Deviant Art where Wacom were hosting their own competition. The Brief was as follows:

The conflict of good vs. evil is one that’s universally known. Can good exist without evil? Can evil exist without good? Are they opposites, or one in the same? Is the battle between light vs. dark, order vs. chaos, Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader, or PC vs. Mac? deviantART and Wacom invite you to get your creative juices flowing and artistically interpret your version of bringing good vs. evil to life!

DeviantART and Wacom are proud to present the Intuos4 “Bring Your Vision to Life” contest. With the theme “Good vs. Evil”, the contest is open to artists of all mediums anywhere in the world. The “Bring Your Vision to Life” contest challenges you to use your creative vision to show us your interpretation of the epic battle between good and evil. You have the chance to win a sleek new "Intuos4", cold hard cash, and tons of other great stuff!

Summon your artistic abilities, engage the theme “Good vs. Evil”, and bring your vision to life. Your entry will be judged on its originality, creativity, and technique. You get a second chance if the community picks your entry as the best!

Competition Dates:

Competition commences: April 1st 2009
Submission deadline: May 19th 2009, 11.59.59 PM PST

The Brief

Competition prize list

The contest rules are as follows:

- Entrants must be 13 years or older to participate;
- Contest open to all deviants everywhere;
- Entries must be submitted in one of the following file formats: GIF/PNG/JPG, but may originate in any medium;
- Entries must not have been previously published or won any other prize/award;
- You may submit more than one entry;
- Online entries only, hard copies not accepted;
- Entry may not use any watermarks or distingushing artist marks

The Rules and Judging procedures with the submission link at the bottom

To start everything off I began by creating myself a Deviant Art account and putting my name down on the list. I usually do a lot of the brainstorming mentally to see if I can get an image of what I would like to pursue before getting it down on paper. I tried very hard to avoid going for the Angel versus Demon clichéd scenario and tried to think of something a bit more outlandish and a bit more extreme than you would usually see.

My line of thought was if I could think up a concept which is a bit realistic (in terms of reality) and then create it as realistically as possible then maybe I would be able to unsettle the judges and possibly win them over to my side. I eventually settled on drawing two humans each encompassing a separate trait to show the contrasting personalities between the two of them. But for some reason that just didn’t seem extreme enough, I was thinking of drawing them as twins but something just wasn’t adding up. Eventually I decided to stick with the human twin’s idea but take them back to before they each knew whether they were going to be either good or evil. Right back to before they were even born, right back to the placenta bag.

Now this is where I needed some visual aid by drawing up some thumbnails to see how the composition may be developed.

Final composition sketches

Here are the final four compositions I have settled on. Thumbnail one shows the babies sitting with their backs to each other, I’m thinking of possibly adding some facial features to distinguish between the two sides. Thumbnail two shows them sitting face to face but leaning back in a relaxed pose, I planned to give them both the same expression and features. This is meant to signify that you cannot tell which one is good and which one is bad until the twins themselves want you to know. Thumbnail three uses the more conventional composition where the twins are placed upside down and side by side in the placenta bag. Thumbnail four shows them in the same position as thumbnail two but this time they are more in each others face, this is to signify that the battle between good and evil has already begun well before they are even born.

After much more mental brainstorming I selected option one because it would allow me to show them in a more closer brotherly light regardless of their contrasting attributes. To get myself started I began by searching for images of twins in their placenta bags to help me get some idea of where to start, I also needed some images of people leaning back on each other, this would help me greatly when it came to keeping the characters proportions.

Reference images used for the competition piece

Then as soon I started I decide to make a quick addition. I wanted to make the good child’s traits more visible by having a very transparent halo above its while also being full bodied with soft features. While the evil one on the other hand would have small horns protruding from its head while being contrastingly pale and thin with sharper features. The evil one would also have a darker toned liquid on its side of the ovary with transparent skulls floating around in the liquid being feed to him through the umbilical cord. While the good one on the other hand will have exactly the opposite going on.

Competition piece: 45% completed

So far I have the good twin sketched up; hopefully the fact that it is the good one will be evident easily.

Competition piece: Completed

Finally the whole image has been finished. I have made some final tweaks to the composition, for example I have made the evil twin lean back further on to the good twin to signify that he already has the upper hand. I’ve also made the good twin look more observe of the surrounding space by making him tuck his legs in while the evil one stretches his legs out in a more arrogant lazy way. I think my concept here has been pretty successful and meets the vision I had of it in my mind.

There is however one drawback though, I will not be able to have it coloured the way I want it in time because f the lack of time I have on my hands. I don’t want to attempt to colour it because I will end up rushing it and this will result in the integrity of the illustration dropping very low. Therefore I have decided to submit my entrée as it is in its sketch form and wish it all the best.

If I should even come third place within this competition, then my prizes would consist of

- Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, Medium
- $500.00 American Express gift card
- A deviantART artist's bag
- A devWEAR shirt of my choice
- 1 year deviantART subscription

Fingers crossed!

Bibliography:

1. DeviantART Wacom competition
http://news.deviantart.com/article/76573/?offset=25#comments