Art Explosion Entry: "Technology"

Technology

The animated illustration was intended as an ironic visualization of our achievement in communication technology and the disconnection that drives us lonelier than ever. I tried to portray this incongruity of human and technological evolution in a day-to-day setting, where we often fake and filter our real feelings behind the safety and comfort of our bezel-framed (not for long) screens. It's a common tragedy we can similarly see in meetings of close friends but each one socializing on their phones with their superficial friends on the internet. Technology has also enable us to build higher and higher buildings but we still throw our garbage down inadvertently. To say we're left behind in catching up with the evolution of our own creations seemed to be perplexing, but looking at the rate, it is as much a truth as any others.

I am still a believer of future and newer generations. But in order to move ever forward, we do need to address the flipped side of technology. We have come so far - and still accelerating - in the advancement of our temporal needs, and yet never really figure out our spirituality, moral values and sensibilities that should come on par, for the betterment of humanity, as a whole. It's a vast uncharted ocean waiting to be explored.

And how we are marveled by our own pragmatic capabilities. Just look at our mobile phone in our hands, or in our pockets, they are simply the pinnacle of human achievement. But they also symbolize as the Pandora box that we have consequently unlocked, unleashing more and more great mysteries and potentials for us to tap into. Let us pray that we will have our ideas and values in the right place, in time. 🙂

The Process

Medium: Adobe Photoshop CS6

For the first step, I've drawn a line in the middle of the portrait canvas. Then I sketched the two characters and tried to make the two seemed to be communicating. In the early stage of the process, I'm a little split in picking which side of the technology that I wanted to convey as a message. I thought it has been quite a trend to do an uplifting and positive art these days. So I guessed being the old fashioned guy that I am, it's only appropriate that I should make a post that goes against today's call for compulsory happiness. 😂😅

I was struggling a bit drawing the girl. And when I finally finished with her line-art, I continued the process of coloring the subjects. Very simple method of filling them with flat colors and cellshading them with only a single multiply layer. Then I added the background, minimally, and used only 1 customized brush to get a little texture in the rendering of the walls and beds. 😂 😄

The third and final part of the process breakdown, I darkened the the atmosphere around them as if it was happening in the middle of the night when the lights were already turned off in preparation for bedtime. Then I put some glowing effects with the default soft round brush and dialog boxes coming from their phone. The emojis on them were hopefully illustrated in contrast with the subjects' real expressions to say that, well, you get the picture. I've laid a gradient map onto the whole image in the last panel, bringing both upper and lower images overall mood closer to the main color range (purple, and blue). Finally, I just animated the separated layers needed for the gif at the top.