Line of sight: Practical Task

Aims

My aim for this task was to do something a little different. There are multiple ways of applying line of sight to an image, wether it be a really simple yet strong line of sight leading the audiences eye in one straight direction landing on the central focus point, or a really complex line of sight which causes your eyes to dance across the image in all directions taking in multiple focal points and also helping to tell a story.

I want to challenge myself with this task and attempt to create a zigzag line of sight similar to my illustration example by Anastasia Bulgakova previously. I want to try to cause the audiences eye to jump back and forth across the image before landing on the central main element.

After being asked to focus on the theme of transport and produce an image centred around the principles we had been taught on line of sight, I noticed most people in the class were choosing very generic forms of transport to illustrate. I did look at reference material for cars, trains, trams, bikes etc etc but nothing jumped out at me as something I really wanted to draw in a composition with interesting line of sight values. It wasn't until I had a Skype call with my boyfriend to his parents in Qatar that I had a lightbulb moment and came up with an interesting take on transport and landscape.

What is your chosen mode of transport?
Camel

In what environment/ landscape would we expect to see it?
Desert regions, middle eastern countries, bedouin country etc etc.

How can you employ interesting line of sight?

Sand dunes themselves have a lot of interesting flowing lines and curves which could be used as a direction tool to help guide the eye of the audience to a central focal point.

What story are you telling with the image?

I want to tell the story of distance and travel through a vast and unforgiving landscape. Natives in middle eastern countries who do venture out into the desert are gone for weeks at a time and without the help, strength and stamina of camels, people would not survive.

Does it involve people, characters, animals?
You would rarely see a camel without its owner (unless it has escaped/bolted) so I expect my image to have a bedouin native leading their camel through the desert.

What atmosphere are you generating?

Deserts are extremely sparse and lonely and also forever changing which I hope will lend itself to the portrayal of distance and journey I hope to achieve in my image.

Roughs

I really struggled to generate helpful roughs once I realised camels are really difficult to draw from memory. I decided to use reference material to get the gist of a camel form and once I had become a bit better at that, I was able to work on how to employ line of sight into my images. Physically drawing arrows of where I expect the audience eye to lead across my image was really helpful when positioning the compositional elements.

Final inked image:

Once in photoshop, I cleaned up the image using the patch healing tool to remove any unwanted marks/dots.

Colour

I then began to play with colour, deciding upon orange to compliment the sand/desert element and played with the positioning of the colour in the image:

I like the separation of colour elements in this image
however I feel that the stippling effect is quite
lost in the block coloured sand 

I feel this image lacks contrast as a lot of the
detail is lost and drowned out by
the merging vast area of colour.

Invert:

This was a simple yet happy accident and I really like the results as an
interesting/striking image. All the key elements of the stippling are made
extremely vibrant and I love how the inverted orange turns blue and pops in
contrast against the black.

 Final chosen digital image:

After having a play with the colour, I decided upon this layout for the final image. As much as I liked the inverted colours in the previous image, the positioning of the orange in the final helps lead the eye compositionally and obviously the orange naturally relates more to the elements of sand/desert in the image. I varied the opacity of the orange throughout the details to help add interest, contrast and depth.

Strengths / Weaknesses

My aim with this image was to create a "zig-zag" line of sight, starting at the bottom of the image and working up through the middle towards the mountains at the top. The line was to be created by the zig-zag tops of the sand dunes and the first centre of interest being the camel/bedouin and the final centre of interest being the mountains - giving the impression of scale, distance and emphasising the long journey in which the travellers have made.

As much as I thought this idea would create an interesting line of sight (instead of the simple straight line 'point-to-point'), I'm not sure that the resulting image is successful in creating this. I feel a large majority of the "strength" in the line of sight elements is lost by the use of stippling - the line is not clear/strong enough. Because of this, the sand dunes also lack scale and the mountains are too centred/positioned/regular - they could span across the whole top of the image to create a stronger focal point.

Other than these (ahem...major) failings in the task, I am pleased with the overall composition and level of craft. I still feel it is a strong image and I am glad that I gave this task a go, as even through failing I feel I have learnt more about how line of sight works and why to use it. - It's really difficult and I need some practise!