My piece is entitled “You Never Know Just How You Look Threw Other People’s Eyes” as suggested on the front cover. The concept I strived to portray for my self visualization project is the image others view me as, as opposed to who I really am. I did this by creating an image comprised of 3 separate depictions of myself. The first depiction of me in a pink room in a cat had it the lighter side that many view me as. It is both happy and childish due to people’s assumptions of a bubbly nature and young age. I chose this image because it is one that I am most recognized as, though it is not an accurate portrayal of myself. Likewise, the image to the far right is also an inaccurate portrait of myself that many have seen me to be. This depiction possesses darker and a more menacing air about it due to many people‘s negative reactions to my person. I chose these specific images because of the greatest contrast between the two and the personal experiences tied to them. For example, the comments I’ve received from complete strangers “I can’t wear a cat hat because I’m an adult” as well as “are you a Satanist”. As for the center rendering of myself, unlike the others, it is not drawn but a digital photo of me. I felt it important to use a real photo of myself because it introduces an aspect of reality not shown anywhere else in the piece. The significance of this in relation to the concept, is that the reality of who I am is different from the fabricated renderings viewed from the minds of others.
The images was created through manipulations of drawn images scanned into Photoshop and Illustrator. After drawing all but the center depiction of me, I used Photoshop to adjust the thresholds to generate a cleaner picture. After cleaning up the drawings, I transported them into Illustrator to color them. For the coloring I made live traces of the images, closed all the gaps through vector manipulation, then colored them through the use of live paint and the paint bucket. After I was satisfied with the colors, I brought the images back into Photoshop. From here I added shadows to the pictures to give them a weighted appearance in the rooms. Furthermore, I melded all the rooms together an did a few small manipulations with opacity, transforming, warping as well as other Photoshop elements to give the images accurate proportions and angles.