OLIO

OLIO - Pandora's Box

Alex Robinson

After reading into the story of Pandora's Box, I thought it would be interesting to bring it into a futuristic setting. I decided that all of the separate sins that Pandora releases upon the world when she opens the box could be summed up into one 'evil'. This would help me to keep the story fairly short so it will fit onto the double page spread I have been given to work on.

Idea development.
I started by creating 12 separate thumbnail drawings, I used these to help bring my initial ideas to life and perhaps give me some new ones along the way.

[clockwise, starting from top left]
1.) When I think 'futuristic' I imagine robots, mechanized beings and powerful computers, with this first thumbnail sketch I started thinking about making Pandora's box a file or program on a computer that when opened would cause havoc, much like a present day computer virus. This first image is the office of a technician that creates and works on robots, the figures that surround the desk are his creations in various stages of completion

2.) This image would take up a whole page, this would be the moment when the robots have malfunctioned or been infected with the virus. I like the roughness of the image and the ribs give it a human-like appearance. I think if people see human qualities in the image they with find it more disturbing than a huge tank-like machine.

3.) The moment when we discover that the machines have malfunctioned, a terrifying sight as the huge, black, steaming robot crumples the computer screens like paper.

4.) A new idea: one of the robots is not affected by the virus, this is 'hope'. here it is escaping with a hard drive that contains the only program that can stop the evil robots. Naturally the infected bots are giving chase. The fate of the human race hangs in the balance.

[clockwise, starting from top left]

1.) While the robot technician takes a break from his desk, the massive army machine slowly begins to creak and move as the virus takes hold.

2.) A variation of the same moment as in number 3 above, a metal arm suddenly and violently smashes through the computer monitor and grabs Pandora. This occurs moments after she has opened the file that corrupts the machines.

3.) Before the disaster, machines creating machines.

4.) Either: An infected robot escapes destruction, the army have been called in to attempt to control the computer virus outbreak.

Or: 'Hope' escapes from pursuing infected robots by jumping through a window high above the ground, his metal body may not survive the fall.

[clockwise, starting from top left]
1.) The moment of infection, the virus passes from robot to robot through charging/uplink cables. I like the cable in the background of this image, as it creates depth and highlights the importance of the cables in transferring the virus.

2.) Hope grapples with one of the infected robots, in this interpretation the virus has begun to change the size and shape of the robots as well as the behavior.

3.) A change from the angular robot designs, This image is slightly more faithful to the original story, the evil robots/skeletons are climbing from their storage containers, they were locked in when humans discovered their evil intentions but Pandora has accidentally opened the locks.

4.) Another new idea, hope is created when one of the machines is captured and controlled by a human pilot, He will fight to save humankind.

This image shows the whole process from robot manufacture up to their rebellion and destruction of their surroundings. In this idea one robot is still inside the manufacturing machine when the process is shut down, this is the creation of Hope.

Page layout roughs:

In this story Pandora is not the girl's name, but the name of an email she receives, there is an attachment on the email. This is the virus that awakens the robots and causes them to rebel against their masters. I tried to link the panels with the theme of 'eyes' by hiding all but the top half of the girl's head and using the shadow in the final panel to hide a lot of the detail.

Similar to the first, but in this version she realises what she has done and presses the emergency stop button in the factory, trapping the last robot in the machine and creating Hope.

Out of the two page layouts I think the first one works much better, the theme of eyes throughout the story brings the whole image together and the narrative is easy to read. I don't think the second rough will work very well over two pages. I will use this as the base for my final piece.

I had originally planned to use a red/orange colour scheme for my final piece, I like the blood-red that many would associate with danger however I don't think this colour scheme shows the futuristic setting i'm trying to create.

The finished grey-scale image before colouring, I kept the electricity because I think it adds a danger aspect to the image.

Final Piece

The Finished final piece. I really like the blue and purple with a small amount of yellow/orange highlighting, I overlaid some of my own textures to try to make the image a little more 'gritty'. I left some of the brush strokes rough so the eye is drawn towards the areas of the image that have finer detail.

Influences:

Feng Zhu

   

I like the pale, washed out colours in some of Feng Zhu's illustrations, I started this project with the intention of recreating this look but eventually decided that a bright, punchy colour theme would be more interesting.

Luke Mancini

Stanley Lau

 

  

Stanley Lau was the main influence on my final colouring technique, his illustrations are usually brightly coloured and they include areas of rough and very smooth shading in the same image.