Rationale final

Here is my rationale in reference to my final:

Rationale: Assignment 1 – Story and Narration

For this assignment I focused on conspiracies surrounding vaccinations. I researched a variety of conspiracies online regarding this topic, but chose to follow on with the conspiracy that some people believe that vaccinating is actually a satanic ritual. This is based on the idea that the solution inside the vaccine is sourced from aborted foetus tissue which is laden with viruses and administered to children or adults, and that injecting people with this solution is an ungodly act.

My final output narrative focuses on a child going to receive a vaccine from a doctor, and because of his innocence is unaware that a dark ritual is taking place. The onlooker uncovers the scene and exposes to the viewer what actually happens when people go for their vaccinations in the doctor’s office.

The child is high key coloring in comparison to his demonic counterpart as this emphasises innocence, the darker figure is low key and low contrast, giving a rotten and sinister atmosphere. The child is also in a state of surprise which can either suggest it is glad that the onlooker is witnessing the act and may come to the rescue, or it may suggest that the child feels like the onlooker shouldn’t be interrupting the ritual.

Apart from the contrasting colours of the child and demon I decided to use red hues, blacks and greys because it adds to the ritualistic theme. The red invokes mystery and is a sinister and blood-like colour often used in satanic emblems and scenes. The black here is also used in a similar manner and suggests a sombre and foreboding atmosphere. The composition of the picture focuses on the onlooker ‘uncovering’ the ritual or conspiracy, and I felt the demon vaccinating the child needs to be relatively central as it is the most important event within the picture.

I chose to do half of my picture with paper-cut collage and half with digital lines, light and shadow, because I feel the cut paper gives a kind of jagged and disjointed effect and the patterns add to the uncomfiness of the scene. It also makes it feel like the walls could be crawling/moving, which could reference back to ideas of bacteria multiplying, and the content of the vaccine solution.

Final image

Here is my final image. I wanted to keep it still quite dark so that the scene feels spooky and sinister, I also added in a poster regarding the flu in the background and a stethoscope around the demon's neck for scenery context.

Collage backing

Before scanning my image again I collaged the background, so initially it looked like this before I went to add linework, light and shadow onto it:

Digital development

After showing the class the developed thumbnails it was suggested that the stronger image was the one of the child in the doctors office with the satanic 'doctor.' The idea was quite clear so I only planned to make minor alterations. Suggestions were:

- fix hands (noted)

- make the curtain more asymmetric?

-add more occult items to the picture to make it feel more ritualistic

-focus on reds and blacks, kind of satanic colour scheme

I did a digital draw up of these ideas to make my final concept clearer:

Developed Thumbnails

Here is the Satanic ritual in the doctor's office - I realise the hands on the curtains are placed kind of oddly, there could be two people watching or in the final output i just adjust the placement to make it seem like one person. Also I'm not sure whether the kid should be looking towards the viewer or up at the demon, and whether the demon should be grabbing the kid's arm or not:

Here's the one of the needle siphoning the vaccine material from the depths of hell. I'm still wondering about the contents of what could be buried in the Earth and what kind of liquid should be in the needle. I'm also not sure whether there should be people plunging the syringe pump down or making some kind of machine do it:

For my third thumbnail I focused on the one of the looming satanic figure around the child with needles pointing towards it. This one was more simplistic looking and is quite effective but I feel it might need more context towards vaccination as for now it looks a bit like the needles could just have anything in them:

I used a bunch of various pictures from the internet for the composition in these pictures but I still plan to do the final output with cutout paper/card and digital editing.

More thumbnails

I did a few more thumbnails here, but I've decided to develop the thumb of the ritual set in the doctor's office, and the needle siphoning chemicals/viruses into the hospital. I'll add my mockups of those two to the next post for general reference: