Research
Starting this process I created three mind-maps trying to narrow down the shapes and processes in which I work and feel during creation.
I was trying to do this without thinking too much about what I was putting down and just writing whatever came to mind based on the original words. I tried getting into the various mindsets while I was working on each and kept the doodles because they sort of went with each idea.
The next thing I did was create a page of possible shapes that I could place to create a base for the portrait. I took a little bit of inspiration from the three mindsets and tried to base shapes on those mentalities.
Many are just little doodles that came to mind but many fit the mentalities very well and will be ones I choose for the next step of the process. Like the mind-maps, I wanted to draw whatever came to mind and just put shapes down and expand upon them by reacting to them and drawing what I felt.
Before I continued the process of choosing shapes to go into the base of the portrait, I needed a bit of a reference to go off of so I took a self-portrait at a 3/4 view.
This would be the reference I would go off of to create a base sketch to place shapes onto.
Production
I started drawing with some shapes I created
I had stuck pretty close to the shape of the face on this but I enjoyed it so far.
This was the final linework for this draft and I was starting to get a little unsure about it as it highly resembled the original picture rather than being a more abstract piece.
I colored the full piece just to see if that would change anything but I was still not super happy with it, I think it looks cool but doesn’t really fit the assignment.
So I started this part over from scratch.
I decided to go with much larger forms and make them 3D right off the bat. I enjoyed the graphic aesthetic of cross contour lines and the high contrast so I wanted to keep that going. I added some more of these forms and selected a different color palette than the last draft.
I wanted to go with a much softer and more cohesive color palette so I went with a low saturation split-complementary array. I was really liking this so far and liking the graphic style.
I added some core shadows and some halftone shading, as well as pared down a few shapes. I wasn’t too sure about the halftone though, as I thought it was a bit too much so I went back and removed some of it, only leaving it in key areas.
This was my final draft for the project. I’m quite happy with how it came out, and I especially like the colors and how the green and yellow have a heavy contrast and just sneak their way in behind all the purple. I’m also much happier with the shapes in this piece than in my first draft, it feels like a much more successful piece in comparison.
Final project: Inventive Portraiture