For those who are just now joining me feel free to read more on the project and why it is that I’m doing this in these two posts: The “Personal Project” Project and “Project 1: Kickoff”. You can view the previous post in the series: Research, Direction, Sketches for some more insight on how I got to this week’s status update.

Where I’m at

I had not even intended on posting a status update but since I’ll be taking my first vacation in three years this week (we’re going to Disney World) I figured why not share what I have so far. Granted, what I’m sharing is nowhere near complete nor up to the level I had hoped it would be I’d love to get some feedback from those who are following the project.

The Reference

After spending a good amount of time researching story arcs, re-reading some comics and doing a mind map (seen in the previous post), I began searching for visual references. Initially I began Googling images based on keywords taken from the mind map and stuck them in a folder. I ended up with dozens of reference just based on imagery alone.

My Inspiration Library — stored on Dropbox for easy access across all devices. Organized in a very OCD fashion.

From there, I began digging into my vast library of inspiration that I’ve been collecting over the past several years. I dug into every folder — not just the “Style Frames” folder, and grabbed everything that caught my attention. I used Adobe Bridge to add a “1 Star” rating to everything that I thought was interesting at first pass. I then did a second pass with the images I starred filtered and thought about what it is that I liked about each piece of inspiration, rather than simply saying; “Oh this looks cool! Let me copy it!”

At that point I began laying out the mood-board. I usually make these in Indesign with a really nice grid setup but seeing as I was strapped for time, I simply opened all of the reference in Photoshop and ran the “Load files into stack” script to get them all into one PSD file. I’m all about automation for boring, repetitive tasks.

It is important to note that what I’ve placed on the mood-board is not to be taken as imagery that I’d like to directly copy or steal. Each image has something that I liked in particular. I tried to focus on typography, color, texture and light. From the transparent wings of the bat, to the deadly stare of the Owl to the nicely set typography — each image will hopefully spark inspiration as I reference it throughout the project.

The Work In Progress

The Owl Medallion in Cinema 4D

With the limited time I had, I wanted to get a few key elements underway before I began the style frames. I started modeling the Owl Medallion that is found throughout the entire Court of Owls story. In the comics, you see the Owl Medallion on the throwing blades of the Talon Assassins, inside the “Owl Nests” and even in the tooth of Talon recruits. I think that the medallion needs a lot of work with the lighting and texturing still but I’m happy with where I’m at so far.