Final Outcomes

These are some of the photos taken for the final piece. The composition varies in each of them, but I think the general setting works quite well. Some of these turned out too dark or the pose wasn't as interesting as I think it could've been.

 I thought the mask ended up being quite comical and shifty so I've tried to make the setting also reflect this by crouching amongst some trees and I think the flash also helps with this (it almost makes it look like the piece of bark has been caught doing something). This doesn't necessarily reflect my personality too much but I think as a piece on its on it works quite well. I think if I were to do this again I would perhaps make the shape of the bark more interesting, and add more texture as I've found that the flash washes the texture out quite a bit.

Testing and Development

I started making prototypes for the UFO mask first. I found the shape really difficult to create well though. My first idea was to cut a circle and then cut some slits around the sides to bend up to create the shape. After doing this though, I didn't think it worked too well, despite trying out different numbers of slits around the outside.

 After this testing, I thought that it was a bit too ambitious considering a UFO is a strangely shaped object. I also didn't want to just make a 2D UFO because I don't think it would've looked very interesting. Instead, I progressed with the bark idea instead.

I wanted to create an interesting texture on the bark, so I tried out pen lines but I found these too bold and I wanted something more subtle, so I went with gouache paint and coloured pencil instead and this worked quite well. To add further detail to the mask, I cut out sections and stuck a similar texture behind to make it more varied. To finish off the mask I stuck the eyes onto the back and created some leaves to put on my hands for the photo.

Initial Ideas

Initially in response to the brief I just started drawing faces and accentuating various features. After a while I decided this wouldn't be visually interesting enough for a mask so I started trying out various other things like animals and houses etc. I am very passionate about animals and animal welfare which is where those ideas came from, but I found the idea of just doing an animal mask a bit uninspiring. I thought the house idea could be quite interesting because it still represents a face, but I was thinking about the idea in terms of the photo. I thought I could stand in line with a row of houses so my head lines up with the street, but I realised that making the mask look realistic enough to blend in with the street would be too ambitious, and I also didn't think it represented any aspect of my personality.

 Eventually I settled onto making either a UFO style mask or a tree stump/piece of bark. The UFO idea was because I find the idea of aliens really interesting, and the tree bark idea was because I'm very into nature. I decided not to give the tree bark any features apart from thin eyes to make it look quite shifty. This reflects the shy aspect of my personality as well.