Destroy the Icon

I began by brainstorming what iconic person I wanted to do for this project. After making a pretty extensive list, I decided to do Steve Irwin because I loved watching his Animal Planet specials as a child and I still follow his family to this day.

 This is the image I settled on as my focus. I liked how dynamic his face is coupled with the texture of the tree and the inclusion of one of the many animals he loved and cherished.

THE PROCESS

I began brainstorming how I was going to "destroy" the image, and I started playing around in Photoshop. This was where I started:
 I decided to break up the original image onto all four planes and blow out the color. I liked the bright colors because I felt like it reflected how much of a bright personality he had.

To achieve these colors I added a channel mixer layer. If each individual element did not look the way I desired, I tweaked the color balance.













PROGRESS ONE

PROGRESS TWO

FINAL

 I wish the blog would let me post them where they all connected like they are supposed to, but I guess this is how it's going to be.





All of the animal elements are animals he regularly encountered. I also tried to make sure all the plants and animals were local to Australian (because that's where he's from obviously).

 I also had to have the stingray in here somewhere. Sad but still his cause of death.

This quadrant has the repeating pattern. It is the eyes of a crocodile peering out of the water.





My scanned in element is the feet of a plastic lizard that can be seen across two of the quadrants.



Each quadrant also connects to the other quadrants in some way.