Editorial Module: Testuo Iron Man

My choice of film from the available 3 for my Editorial module was Testuo: Iron Man as I found it the most unusual and felt it would challenge me. I ended up creating a wide variety of illustrations designs and styles before deciding upon the final and used this to influence the style choices of my double page spread. I didn’t want to begin the process of creating my double page spread until I had the stylistic decisions made for my cover design first, to ensure both sets of illustrations worked alongside one another effectively.

I made sure to create all of these designs to the dimensions provided by Penguin taking in the need to allow for a bleed as well, along with incorporating the logo of the magazine at the designated area on each to ensure I was able to effectively visualise whether this design and style would be suitable for the purpose of this editorial illustration.

The first design I created was based around the villain of the movie and I used the newly learned skill of using digital oil brushes to form this character. I wanted to create something heavily textured considering the grunge theme of the film hence I chose to add messy line work over the top to accentuate this factor. I wasn’t sure what to do for the background at first and ended up deciding to create a simplistic pattern based around the maniacal laugh of the villain. However I’m not sure how effective this design is overall with communicating my chosen film due to my choice of character; alongside this I feel the background reminds me of the iconic feature of the DC character The Joker. Due to this I feel this design would be ineffective for my final design as I need to clearly portray Tetsuo: Iron Man and its themes not the subliminal recognition of a different character.

In my second design I chose to illustrate the main character, using a still shot from the film itself for the posing of my illustration. I wanted to explore the creation of something more graphic as I felt this would be more appropriate given the purpose of these designs. So I chose to create the character in a silhouette style using 2 tones to add the basic detailing and features. I then added the wires within the background to emphasise the sense of an impending challenge. I thought this would help communicate to the audience that the main character goes through a transformation during the film. I liked this concept much better of having the main character on the cover, it feels much more appropriate. However, I definitely needed to work on the design of my wires which are placed in the background as currently within this design they are not clearly recognisable

Due to this within my third experiment I spent a lot of time working on the development of more intricate wire designs as I felt this would help enhance the overall aesthetics of my design. I was much happier with their appearance in this design; I still chose to incorporate them as a background element however having them more refined definitely enhances the visuals. I’m happy I chose to explore this avenue as I feel I will definitely be taking these elements further during the development of my final design as I’m really happy with how it turned out. Not only this, but I made sure to create each wire as a brush so I can easily navigate their use between various files which will help my exploration.  

For my final design, I chose to re-use the wire brushes I had developed for my previous experiment however I wanted to explore their incorporation within a character. Having the main character incorporated was important for me as I felt this was the best narrative choice for the film. Due to this I chose to illustrate the character going through their transformation where the wires are exploding and taking over their body. However I made sure to keep recognisable elements of the character to ensure the efficiency of the design, such as the incorporation of their glasses and shirt and tie from the earlier parts of the film. I feel this worked really well and I love the way the final illustration turned out. I chose to border the illustration with a heavy grunge texture to provide some negative space which would help draw the viewer’s attention to the character and I feel the aesthetics work perfectly with the creation of an editorial Testuo: Iron Man illustration.

Once I was happy with the creation and completion of my front cover I began the development of my double page spread. Once again I decided to use the wire brushes I had previously developed in order to incorporate a level of consistency throughout each of the pages, which I felt would help direct the audience when looking through an entire magazine. However, I still wanted to try and incorporate the villain and location somehow, due to this I created a spot illustration on this spread using a still image from the movie as reference. Using the same block shading style I had used during the creation of my front cover, I created the entire scene as I felt this would help provide more narrative to the story whilst also informing the reader of the movies location due to my choice of colour incorporation, using red to highlight the Japanese street signs.

I’m really happy with how this turned out and I love how the wires seem to flow naturally around the page, edging in between the text as though they are ready to consume the pages whilst being read. By reusing the same vignette structure as my front cover as well it further enhances the grunge styling and consistency between my front cover which I really like.

I was extremely pressed for time during this module as I was put into a cast for my broken hand so I faced great difficulty forming these experiments, but I am pleased with the end results. If I were to repeat this process again in the future I feel it would have definitely been beneficial to have investigated some different illustrated editorial magazines, to help boost my knowledge and understanding of an effective design. I feel having only focused on researching the ‘Little White Lies’ magazines has limited me as I tried to create a design specifically for their illustration style before truly understanding what is meant by an editorial illustration.

I will take this into account in future and try to make sure I use a much broader spectrum for research and inspiration, to ensure I do not limit my possibilities.