Here is Why Simple Execution Solves Complex Visual Problems - Magic Video Process + File

Hey everyone,

Let me give you a brief explanation of the process so you can have some fun with the video and file.

Concept

The concept behind this piece is a combination of magic with music, I wanted to apply stereotypical magic ideas but mixed with an unconventional topic as music, they share in my opinion some magic as well.

The little boy that represents the deer of the reference is inspired by Beethoven as you can see in its hairstyle and costume, and the little girl that represents the white deer is inspired by Mozart, again dress and costume is thought to match the values and colors in the references but also the outfit these personalities had, additionally I took some liberties by choosing a pair of boots that although does not fit the style of the age they look distinctive and unique.

The goats, both the brown and black represent these ideas of the wise wizard and the dark wizard, I make the brown whiter to create this contrast with the black side. They also act as teachers in this kind of "trapping a monster" situation. I gotta be honest, this was supposed to be a very simple illustration but I keep falling into this trap of making things overly complicated.

Execution

When managing multiple characters in a composition, it is useful to have a hierarchy; in this case, the boy was first, then the girl, then the old man, and finally the woman. The monster, although a character as well, plays a very secondary part; this was the last character as I was not sure if it would be a character or just a prop, like a book or something.

Since the two teens were opposites, I took careful attention not just in capturing the original gesture of the reference but also to make them especially different, by changing the face expression, position, and body gesture. The goal was to make them struggle while they cast this spell, capturing the demon inside a book.

The gesture of the other two characters was focused on acting as support for the main kids, meaning that in terms of information, everything would be around a shape that represents the animal in the reference, a face expression, and a gesture that meets the character's expected attitude. For the old man, wise, like telling something to his apprentice; for the woman, stoic and even judgmental while she looks at her apprentice. These small points are the ones that tell the story.

For colors, I chose to split between black and white colors, white for the girl and the wise man, and black for the boy and the woman, because I had too much information. At some point in the process, I got lost; something was off, and I could not pinpoint what. It turns out the skin of the boy and some other colors in the composition were way too saturated and did not share tonalities, like they were too distracting for me. Also, the tones in the old man and the girl were too dark, shifting the competition from white vs. black to grey vs. black. The way I solved this mess was by turning saturated colors a bit desaturated and grey tones whiter. Also, on top of each character, I added a soft shadow with a bluish tone in multiply that blended all the different characters into a similar cold tonality, thus creating a mood. You will see this clearly in the process and file.

Conclusion

In my opinion, compositions like these, complex in terms of shapes, need to be as simple as I can in values and colors at the beginning; it's so easy to make wrong choices and not notice what is off. My solutions might not relate to your issues, but maybe the approach does; in other terms, it's about keeping the process manageable so when something falls off, you just need to check steps separately and solve by comparing with your usual process. For instance, if when checking colors you are using a palette, hue, or saturation you are not familiar with, perhaps it's not something wrong but something out of your comfort zone; in that case, now you can decide if leave it that way or just make it the way you often do it.

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