With my the Raven DPS safely out of the way and awaiting feedback I can now work on my other DPS designs, and the first one that I want to do is the J.R.R. Tolkien quote. I am a big fan of his work and have always loved the little sketches of the maps in the books, so I used them as a big source of inspiration for this design.
I had the idea of just carrying the design on as if it was a map, possibly just using the same tea-stained background as I did before. They actually have a really good format so I might just use theirs as a reference. I really like how the compass' and the name of the map are laid out and drawn, so I thought the best place to start was with the book title and author's name. It would be nice to practice uncial handwriting again!
As it had been a while since I had done uncial lettering I allowed myself a couple of hours just to practice with the letters I was going to use. I first started with the ones I had already done before, and after a while I was beginning to get used to it again so I tried out different letters.
It didn't take me long until I was able to actually write out "the fellowship of the ring" with ease, so at least I had that section ready. I had to practice several times on how to write the uppercase K but once I got the hang of that I was able to write out "J.R.R Tolkien".
I was now able to do both lines and so on another page I used black in and wrote them out.
While they were drying I traced over my old sketch of the Tree of Gondor and inked it in. Then I scanned everything in.
With those two pieces (the type and tree) scanned I could start making my adjustments in Photoshop. I have gotten used to doing this now and the process becomes a lot quicker because I know what to look out for.
For the type I didn't do the Threshold process because it reduced the gradient created when writing with the ink, and I wanted it to look as 'inky' as possible. This meant that the process for deleting the white areas took a bit longer than expected.
Once done I created a separate document and lay everything out roughly on the page. I wasn't too worried about sizing right now as it could be easily reduced once done, and I wanted to concentrate on getting that curve I had sketched out previously (see below).
My first try was using the warp tool but this didn't work out so well, so I looked up on Google and found a technique called the "Puppet Warp". It wouldn't allow me to warp my type as it registered each letter on a different layer, so I drew a box in pink behind it and then merged it so that it became one shape. This time it seemed to work so I had several goes at it.
It took me a while but I finally got there, yet... There was still something not quite right. The balance wasn't right as the top line was much longer than the author's name, yet if I made the author's name longer it would still make the image unbalanced.
The Puppet Warp also messed around with my type and actually warped some of the letters, and all I wanted was a nice bend...
I thus went back to my sketches and looked over at my other layouts before reaching the conclusion that it'll be easier to do this if I had my whole map drawn out beforehand. I roughly sketched out my map - taking referenced from the Lord of the Rings maps - and once I had a thumbnail I went to open my original document and printed it out.
I made sure that when I printed it out that it was positioned on the far right so that I had space to work on. I drew out the guidelines and then began to work. When it came to the inking stage I used 02 and 03 micron.
Then it was time to scan that in which I did, and once done I just created a new document and dropped the scan in. I had already made my adjustments at this point so all I needed to do was paste in the tea-stained paper background from my original document. I was satisfied with how it looked so I cut it in half - to make it easier later when I need to rearrange my pages - and began to drop in the type and tree I had created earlier.
I had a bit of a play around with layout but I really did find it a lot easier to come up with some ideas now that I knew my boundaries. I was going to place it in a scroll of some sort but then that'll overwhelm the design, so I kept with my tree and type on it's own.
When making my adjustments I often went back to my old document and worked on there before pasting it to my page.
Once I was ready I then dropped in my layouts onto the DPS to see how they looked. I had two type arrangements; one where it was more structured and the words "fellowship" and "of the ring" were bigger, and another where they had simply been centred.
I noticed that I had forgotten to include some form of compass on my map, and so quickly drew up a series of 'n' so that I could simply place it atop of my tree of Gondor. This is because I thought that if I drew up a compass it would just overwhelm the page as it already has a lot of illustrative elements, and one of the maps for Lord of the Rings only has an N placed above their compass (which you can see here).
I did my N's in different thicknesses just in case it ended up being too thick for the compass. Once it was scanned in I made my adjustments and then brought it onto the document.
The first N that I included was a bit too thick, so I tried out a thinner N to see if that would work. This one was a lot better because the thinner strokes separates it from the other type.
My map is now complete! I have my compass, the author's name, the book title, and the quote. Now I just need to figure out what type arrangement is best in terms of legibility and layout.
Thoughts
1. The writing and tree is 'shorter' therefore is more structured like a box rather than a rectangle. Sits easily with the rest of the map illustration, doesn't take any attention away from the text. Only worry is... Is the text too small?
2. Tree is reduced quite a large amount so that there is more focus on the text. More structured, aligned and centred. Although the text is larger it is still quite small in comparison to the main quote so the main focus is still on that. However, text looks too large in comparison to the tree?
I'm still a bit unsure so I'll ask my classmates and lecturers for some feedback.
Reflective and Critical Thinking
I feel that this piece is one of the strongest I've done, and I think that might be because I enjoyed doing it the most. I have a deep interest in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and J.R.R. Tolkien's work, and to include it in my project was really good for me because the more I enjoy doing something, the better I find my work is.
I had begun to get the hang of uncial lettering and I can safely say now that I could do it with ease. I have noticed the relationship between each letter in terms of dimensions and kerning, so I will be able to use it in future designs.
I used uncial lettering because of it's great resemblance to the lettering used in the Lord of the Rings books, although Tolkien had adapted his slightly by adding some extra "dots" such as the ones you see in his Elvish languages. Instead of imitating his, I went back to the roots of his inspiration and drew inspiration from that. When I had showed my classmates this piece they - without even knowing the subject - knew immediately that it was a Lord of the Rings inspired piece because of the writing and the way I drew the map.
The map was one of the most important features in this design. I tried my best to use all of the characteristics shown in other map designs done for Lord of the Rings but made sure not to completely copy their style. I made mine less elaborate without any writing, and of course I used a thick uncial writing whereas other maps used very thin uncial/script lettering.
I had done all of the other words as if they were running along the roads, with "wander" separate from them and floating above mountains. This relates to Aragorn because he spent quite a lot of his life as a Ranger where he would often wander down mountain roads and forests. Therefore wander wasn't drawn atop of a road, as it reflects his nature of going down unknown paths.
The reason why I included the Tree of Gondor was because of it's deep connection to Aragorn, of whom the quote is based around. Gondor was the place where Aragorn was crowned King of Middle Earth, and so I thought it was relevant to include it in my design.
This piece took less time to complete than my previous designs and that's mainly due to the accuracy of my sketches. I spent more time sketching out the layouts and figuring out all of the elements that were to be involved that it made it much easier for me to just do on the computer. A key example is shown in the way I drew a circular design and then tried it on the computer... Even though it didn't work, I didn't linger on the problem and tried another method straight away.
For my future design - as I only have one more DPS to do now - I shall spend more time gathering some inspiration and sketching out layout ideas so that the digital process would be a lot shorter.
Learning Outcomes:
[9] Developed their ability to work with complex material, analyse problems and identify appropriate solutions.
I did my N's in different thicknesses just in case it ended up being too thick for the compass. Once it was scanned in I made my adjustments and then brought it onto the document.
The first N that I included was a bit too thick, so I tried out a thinner N to see if that would work. This one was a lot better because the thinner strokes separates it from the other type.
My map is now complete! I have my compass, the author's name, the book title, and the quote. Now I just need to figure out what type arrangement is best in terms of legibility and layout.
Thoughts
1. The writing and tree is 'shorter' therefore is more structured like a box rather than a rectangle. Sits easily with the rest of the map illustration, doesn't take any attention away from the text. Only worry is... Is the text too small?
2. Tree is reduced quite a large amount so that there is more focus on the text. More structured, aligned and centred. Although the text is larger it is still quite small in comparison to the main quote so the main focus is still on that. However, text looks too large in comparison to the tree?
I'm still a bit unsure so I'll ask my classmates and lecturers for some feedback.
Reflective and Critical Thinking
I feel that this piece is one of the strongest I've done, and I think that might be because I enjoyed doing it the most. I have a deep interest in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and J.R.R. Tolkien's work, and to include it in my project was really good for me because the more I enjoy doing something, the better I find my work is.
I had begun to get the hang of uncial lettering and I can safely say now that I could do it with ease. I have noticed the relationship between each letter in terms of dimensions and kerning, so I will be able to use it in future designs.
I used uncial lettering because of it's great resemblance to the lettering used in the Lord of the Rings books, although Tolkien had adapted his slightly by adding some extra "dots" such as the ones you see in his Elvish languages. Instead of imitating his, I went back to the roots of his inspiration and drew inspiration from that. When I had showed my classmates this piece they - without even knowing the subject - knew immediately that it was a Lord of the Rings inspired piece because of the writing and the way I drew the map.
The map was one of the most important features in this design. I tried my best to use all of the characteristics shown in other map designs done for Lord of the Rings but made sure not to completely copy their style. I made mine less elaborate without any writing, and of course I used a thick uncial writing whereas other maps used very thin uncial/script lettering.
I had done all of the other words as if they were running along the roads, with "wander" separate from them and floating above mountains. This relates to Aragorn because he spent quite a lot of his life as a Ranger where he would often wander down mountain roads and forests. Therefore wander wasn't drawn atop of a road, as it reflects his nature of going down unknown paths.
The reason why I included the Tree of Gondor was because of it's deep connection to Aragorn, of whom the quote is based around. Gondor was the place where Aragorn was crowned King of Middle Earth, and so I thought it was relevant to include it in my design.
This piece took less time to complete than my previous designs and that's mainly due to the accuracy of my sketches. I spent more time sketching out the layouts and figuring out all of the elements that were to be involved that it made it much easier for me to just do on the computer. A key example is shown in the way I drew a circular design and then tried it on the computer... Even though it didn't work, I didn't linger on the problem and tried another method straight away.
For my future design - as I only have one more DPS to do now - I shall spend more time gathering some inspiration and sketching out layout ideas so that the digital process would be a lot shorter.
Learning Outcomes:
[9] Developed their ability to work with complex material, analyse problems and identify appropriate solutions.
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