Finished

The finished image of the girl with weapons on a building wall to get the setting right, as Banksy would do, I tried to make my image fit to the building wall but i didn't want to get the same white color in my image as was on the wall because then the girl would almost disappear, and also in Banksy's artwork he almost always has different colors to diffirentiate between wall and image.

I have acquired an appreciation for Banksy and his art during this assignment and found researching his work to be quite enjoyable.

Final Stencil Design

I have now finished the stencil design, the weapons need to be distinguishable from the body of the girl and not mix too much so the viewer won't be confused or can't see parts of the picture, to this effect i have added a green hue to the bazooka and missiles, this is something Banksy does as well but if it is for the same reason as me i do not know.

Stencil

I have experimented with different adjustments in photoshop to get the best stencil effect, below you can see a comparison between the color version and the later stencil made from the color version, i did do some changes to the stencil version to both clean it up and to make it as visible and understandable as possible.

                    I changed the eyes to a more stylized version to really make the viewer understand that this girl is as happy as can be with all these weapons, also adding and removing shadow where necessary so it look better and more like the Banksy style.                                                     

Coloring

I am now in the process of coloring the drawing of the girl so i can stencil it easier afterwards, i will use the same approach with the weapons, i tried to place the shadows as naturally as possible when coloring it.

Tests Tests Tests

Now to get the stencil look i could either try to do this through the different adjustment options in photoshop or i can try to actually draw the girl and weapons in the stenciled style directly.

 I believe it will be easier for me to get a natural look to the stenciled shadows if i actually color the drawing in photoshop then use adjustments to get the stencil look.

Banksy

The stencil method that Banksy uses are actually rather detailed, there arent any broken edges, Very harsh lines between black and white, to get this effect i have experimented a little with threshold effect in photoshop, this effect alone gives you a stencil look but leaves some to be desired when it comes to the white to black transition, looks more like a spraycan effect, now this would be good but not for banksy good.

Sketches

I have made some sketches of my idea, trying to make the girl look young and playful, and what type of weapons the girl should have and how they should be strapped on her.

In addition whether i should have something extra in the picture besides the girl, like a gum machine.

 

This was the very first one i did, a girl holding a bazooka with two rifles across her back and a revolver at her hip, also i played with the idea of having a gumball machine in there. due to the stencil method alot of information is removed in the picture so i need to be careful so that hands and other details are still visible and more importantly still distinguishable in the final image, so this might be too many weapons to keep track of.

             Here is another sketch, i tried to make her seem younger looking with wavy hair and a dress and also a little more realistic in terms of body proportions, i decided to draw the weapons seperate from the drawing of the girl because then i can decide later how it should be placed on her and i will also then have the freedom of changing my mind. I decided on "only" having the big guns on her, the rifles and bazooka as well as some bazooka missiles.

Checking out little girls

I'm researching Banksy's work that has little girls as a central element, to see how he interprets them as well as what detail he has in the different works, of course i will be doing my picture in my own way so that mine is as unique to me as Banksy's is to him, but it's useful research in my opinion because of the link it has with my own work.

Decisions

So my image of the little girl with the Rambo weapons needs to be done, but in Banksy's art the people are realistically stenciled, they aren't stylized in any way in how they are portrayed, since i don't have skill when it comes to realistic drawing, manipulating pictures in photoshop would yield the best result in terms of the look of it. But one of the objectives for this assignment is that our work should not be identical to the artist but should have our own visual stamp on the work. So drawing my idea then try to get the stenciled look i'm after will make my work look unique.

Color

I have noticed that Banksy does use some color in his work, sometimes in the entire picture, but mostly on some parts of the body or clothing. To me it seems that some of these examples help to define where the arms are when it goes across the body and wouldn't normally be seen due to shadows if it was only black and white. This is something I can use if I have problems with the different elements in the picture, for example if a rifle makes an arm look non existant and the girl in the picture seem to be oddly shaped or missing limbs.

Little girls play harderst.

I have just had an epiffany, the last idea about the stormtroopers i've noticed really didn't match with the quote either, but i thought "when was the last time you chewed bubblegum?" i chew gum all the time, but i haven't chewed bubblegum since i was a kid, so an image popped into my head, both funny and appropriate for Banksy, a little girl, standing innocently with a whole bunch of weapons strapped all over, she's ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum, it's looking better and better all the time.

I quickly photoshopped a "sketch" of a possible look for her to get an idea of how it would look, I'm not sure if i want to take my own photo's so I can get the exact same realistic look of the face and the stencil look that Banksy has, or another direction is to draw the girl and weapons so that it doesn't look identical to Banksy but so that it has my own "stamp" on it if you will.

Change of Mind

I have changed my mind about the stormtrooper idea, over the last couple of days it's occurred to me that the image isn't really that obvious or funny, and that's the whole idea, something most people will recognize and think is either funny or thought provoking and I am not happy with this first concept, So I'm scrapping the Stormtrooper idea and will continue to try and get some inspiration from Banksy.

Sketch

I've done a rough sketch of my first idea, in November 2010 North Korea fired several shells into South Korean territory creating a national incident sparking rumours that the uneasy truce that have existed between the two since the 1950's is about to go up in flames, nothing happened of course. Now my idea came from the idea that North Korea is a very strict place to live, with the government controlling and censuring a lot of what comes into the country so that they can, more or less, controll the population more easily, what this reminds me of is the Empire in Star Wars, keeping in mind the political critisism in Banksy's artwork, I thought of portraying North Korean soldiers as Stormtroopers firing at South Korean soldiers across the border.

After doing a rough sketch of this idea I am becoming a little less sure if this is the idea I want to go with, i'll probably try to think of some alternatives before I make a final decision so I can start serious work.

Thoughts

Ok, so my quote is "It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and i'm all out of gum", this quote is originally from the 1988 science fiction horror movie "They Live" by John Carpenter, the line doesn't seem to have any meaning whatsoever and seems to only function as a one-liner in the movie. Banksy often deliver a critical message through his art to either a current event of the day or about what is wrong with our system today, and if i want to think along the same lines i should think about either one of these things too, so a while back there was this incident between north and south korea, and we've all heard how north korea is such a totalitarian state, and i thought what is the most recognizable totalitarian state i know? and the answer is, the empire in Star Wars, so my first idea of an image is a bunch of north korean soldiers dressed up as stormtroopers chasing some south korean soldiers.

Blek Le Rat

To research Banksy you must also research Blek le Rat.

The french artist Blek le Rat has a very similar style to Banksy, some would say that he "made" Banksy what he is today, as Banksy said in his unofficial biography “Every time I think I’ve painted something original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it as well, only 20 years earlier.”

From looking at the artwork of both these artists i would not have been able to distinguish one from the other which also the reason some people portray a Banksy image as a Blek le Rat piece or vica versa, if i have done this throughout this blog you will have to forgive me, while the style is very similar, I would maybe argue that Banksy has more obvious and clear messages in his artwork

The main thing I want to do is to actually see how the stencils are done, are the edges smooth or really rough, and if I want to do my final image in this exact style or if I want to change small details to make it unique and distinguishable from both Banksy and Blek le Rat.

Banksy research

Well, the first impression is that Banksy is a satirical political activist. In almost every work he has done there is either a clever mix of political critisism and humour, or an image that really makes you think.

So for my final image I think I should find something along the same lines that I can either parody or give a political statement about in my drawing, I am pretty sure I would rather go for a parody of the quote itself instead of some political statement as I do not have any particular preference or feelings of todays political situation.

so the research lives on...

Obvious Observations

Well i`ve had a look at the brief and i immediately liked the Duke Nukem quote, at first i thought that we HAD to do the artist and quotes that were next to each other in the brief so Banksy was next to the Duke Nukem quote, so i started to do som research and later found out that we could choose any of the artists for any of the quotes but by that time i had already aquired a taste for Banksy's imagery, how he "hides" comments on current events or how we all live our lives in his art work. I quite liked his style and started to envision some really cool designs that would really compliment his style, the first observation og his style is a really obvious one, the fact that strong harsh shadows are important due to his stencil technique.

Still have to get a copy of the brief, perhaps a smart thing to start with eh?