Urban Fantasy

This was the most difficult assignment. I had zero inspirations as to even start. So I went to google Urban fantasy and a couple of similarilities can be seen (mostly looking like storybook covers)






what I observed:
1. usually consist of an antagonist in the foreground
2. given the definition from wikipedia, the setting is in the urban areas
3. colours are usually dark/ surrealistic feeling
4. eyes+moon (this is extra)

So following these examples, I went on to search for my main character, and I've decided to use BoA's hurricane Venus promotional photos. There were quite a few, but i figured too many willl saturate the picture. So I chose the weirdest looking 'creature' like photo.



Actually, from her series of photos, I almost went with the concept of a tree goddess/spirit/guardian & the urban forest or something alike.




Search for the background:

I had some photos of marina blvd that I took for assignment 1 which i didn't use so i thought there may be one that I could use. And bingo!


And to add on, I love this shot of mine from taipei101,

so i used it in the background as well.

As I was photoshopping, I somehow came up with an idea about the insecurities of women in the night in this male dominated work society. Also, as venus is the greek god of lust and seduction, I thought it was apt to portray how in this cold glass cities, we should keep a look out always of who are going to backstab us anytime. Hence, the hand in a pool of blood too. But I decided to add some flowers around it to give it a softer touch, at the same time presenting the irony surrounding this flower-surrounded blood pool. Flowers are supposed to be lovely but ironicially what they present to us is a gruesome bloody pool. It also hints at the unsuspecting aspect of what jealousy can bring people to do. I also made the hand look more solid, giving it a metal look. This steel hands is also together with the concept of powerful women and their insecurities in the dark. It represents how they will not stop to get what they want.


The eyes also represent this omniscient view that someone is always watching you so you should watch your back. Of course I used the character to represent women in the night. "Venus in its ugliest form" - Lust, seduction, stopping at nothing to get what she wants. Hence also, the initial title: In the Black of the Night (Venus)

But I guess during that time I couldn't really convey my concept to the class as it was very scattered in my brain, so Jing also suggested that I just leave it untitled, for others to interpret. & that was exactly what I did. The class also suggested that the eyes were unecessary. Hence I removed them as well. So here's the final work.


Untitled.