DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY & IMAGING - FINAL PROJECT

27/5/19 - 2/7/19 (Week 9 - Week 14)

Neoh Kar Yan (0339338)
Digital Photography & Imaging
Final Project - Recreation of Surrealist Artwork

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INSTRUCTIONS

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FINAL PROJECT

For our final project, we were required to choose a surrealistic artwork from the list of artists given from the link https://surrealismtoday.com/17-mind-blowing-surreal-artists/ and to recompose it in Adobe Photoshop using stock photos or our own photos. The submission size has to be in 1920 x 1080 or 1080 x 1920. Recomposing artworks which are not within the ratio will require cropping/ filling in gaps with content aware fill. 

After looking through all the artists' works, I personally like John Brosio and Casey Weldon's work. Here are some of the artworks that I took interest in.

Fig.1.1: "Tomorrow" by John Brosio

Fig.1.2: "House Cat" by Casey Weldon

In the end, I decided to recreate a surrealist artwork done by artist Casey Weldon.

Fig.1.3: Original surrealist artwork by Casey Weldon

Elements used:

Fig.1.4: Stock images used

Process:

Fig.1.5: First attempt

Fig.1.6: Adjusting the colour

Fig.1.7: Changing colour of gramophone

I changed the field and bee because I thought that it didn't really match the original. 

Fig.1.8: Change of field 

Fig.1.9: Added flower anther into gramophone

Fig.1.10: Change of anther 

Following Mr. Jeffrey's advice, I tried making the gramophone look more realistic by adding the grass effect so that it looks like it is within the field. 

Fig.1.11: Process of adding grass

Fig.1.12: Finished grass effect

After receiving the final feedback from Mr. Jeffrey, he stated that the bee doesn't match the background and I also add the texture of the gramophone. However, I personally don't think it will look good because I tried adding a pomelo texture to it and the outcome looked weird. Hence, I decided to stick without the texture and went ahead with this final outcome.

Fig.1.14: The Final Outcome of surrealist artwork

After completing the static artwork, I exported the PSD file into After Effects and began animating. I animated the sky using the distort effect called CC Slant, gramophone's anther with the puppet tool and the bee that flies to the anther. Initially, my first animation outcome looked like this. 

After receiving feedback from Mr. Jeffrey, he suggested that my bee could fly inside of the gramophone instead of revolving around the anther. He also suggested that my sky could be looped as well.

Mr. Jeffrey also taught us how to make a loop sky by first using the offset tool in photoshop to create the beginning and end of the sky the same. Next, I proceeded to blend the line using the clone stamp tool. Then, I transferred the image into After Effects and duplicated it as two separate images. I parented one of them and adjusted the position. Finally, it becomes a looped sky.

Here is the second outcome:

I liked my initial animation more as it suited the concept much more in my opinion, thus, I went back to After Effects and made the animation longer than 5 seconds. 

Here is the Final Outcome:

In conclusion of what I've learned in this project, I've learned that recreating an artist's work is easy. However, achieving a similar concept yet maintaining the same feeling requires skill. It is crucial that in the midst of the surrealism, we still have to make it look realistic. Sounds ironic, but in order to impact viewers, the animation of the static artwork has to come to live and to feel realistic although it is surreal. Through this project, I've learned to appreciate the process of making each detail and animating. And though the journey was time-consuming and difficult, the result will always be the fruit of your labour.