In my illustration, we can see a man walking from darkness to light. The man walking is surrounded by colorful symbols of his hobbies such as basketball, painting, and music. Behind the man is a large shadow that is casted of him and each of his hobbies. In the background are multiple large buildings filling the horizon. The main message I am conveying is the idea of self-improvement by the comparison of who you were yesterday. I tried to implement light and dark colors to emphasize the progress my character was making day by day. On the right side of my illustration I used brighter and vibrant colors compared to the left. The use of gradients was also essential in conveying the message of progress. I also took this into account when creating the shadow of my character and its hobbies in order to show improvement from the past.
I made this using Adobe Illustrator. I used many tools within Illustrator, but after being told about using a gradient for the background I decided to use that as the main component for my PSA. The gradient I used in the background was able to show the transition of night to day. I used dark to light gradients on my buildings, character, symbols and concrete. Another way I expressed my dark to light these was by creating a cast shadow for my character. Initially, I envisioned having a desert as my background instead of a city, but I had issues with creating realistic desert in terms of texture and shadows. I also had problems with what to include in my PSA as far as background elements and elements involving my character. I solved this by simplifying my background and character.
My process initially started off with making gradients the main technique to convey my message. My foundation was a gradient sky and then made a city background that utilized the same gradient. I made my main character very simple in order to emphasize the large cast shadow behind him. Lastly, I made vibrant symbols of each hobby to emphasize the contrast from darker side of the illustration.
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