Final Process Creating ‘The Scylla’
My ‘Scylla’ design is made up of two main components, the sea and ship background, and The 6 headed monster. Initially i separated the black ink line from the white background, and created as a separate layer, so i am able to combine them with texture.
Hiding layers allows me to focus on one specific section at a time for accuracy.
With this piece being my second, i am feeling more confident about how to approach the process. I start in the same way as my ‘Charybdis’ design, by focusing on the monster first, before adding the sea texture to the background, and boat cleaning up the edges with a rubber.
Next, it was very much about experimenting with the light balance - making sure there was enough of a contrast between sections, for each pert to stand out. I added a subtle gradient to help create a sense of depth to the ocean, but this is only really enhanced with the dark shadows and highlights i added after. I continued to add highlights to rest of the image, - with this being particularly effective on my Scylla monster. The white really pushes the character to stand out and be the main focus of the image as i intended.
Previously I tried making the monster the burnt orange/yellow shade as i thought it would make it stand out, but it didn't work as well as i’d hoped. However the brighter orange background sets off the grey of the monster much more effectively! The rest of the image is also much more striking with the addition of this coloured sky. Also, keeping the consistent background throughout all the images helps tie them together, - a more coherent series.
 Final touches. - Adding additional highlights and shading, as well as my tiny men characters. - initially they were going to be in detail, but i had decided that on this scale using silhouettes would be more appropriate. I had also changed my focus to the monsters of the odyssey not people so there was no need for them to be detailed. -
Levelling out the sea was also something that needed to be addressed! but was simple to fix.
I think the line work in the image has that look of lino cut that i am aiming to create throughout all of my pieces. - perhaps there are not as many consistently thick lines like in my ‘Charybdis’ piece, but i think it balances nicely with a combination of think thicker weighted line, and finer detail.
My ‘Scylla’ final piece is probably my favourite out of the collection of three. Personally i think it has the best balance of detail, and texture, and has the most striking contrast of tone. The highlights are particularly effective in this piece i feel, they provide a lot of movement to the sea, and help to bring the monster to life. Compositionally I really like the arrangement of my 6 headed Scylla; I thoroughly enjoyed creating the character and scene of the boat attack. I think a lot of roughs have contributed to the success of the piece.