My initial inspiration for this project was cryptids, specifically Mothman. Cryptids and mythical beasts have a significant meaning in the LGBTQ+ community, as they have used these creatures to cope with how they are ostracized within society. As an LGBTQ+ person that is quite fond of monsters and all things strange, I found this concept very inspiring, so I chose it as my theme. I wanted to incorporate some forest elements into the design to reference the forests where many have claimed to witness this monster. The two contrasting layouts experiment with starkly different colours and aesthetics, as I am exploring what my audience may be interested in. At this point in the process, I have two concepts I am certain of: moths and bones.

I took multiple photos of my collection of oddities to be the objects for this project. I specifically gravitated towards this fox skull, as I think it matches the aesthetic of my design really well. I took a photo of a preserved mushroom and a flower I had as well for potential ideas for objects. However, I am still in need of the right moth specimen.

After some careful searching, I found an image of a cecropia moth (photographed by Carol Wolf) that matches what I am looking for. Out of the images I took, I am choosing to focus on the frontward facing skull and the flower as elements of my design. The mushroom is included, but I am still experimenting with its place in the design.

I have outlined my motifs in Illustrator. I scrapped the mushroom due to its complex nature. At this point I have reached a problem; I do not feel that my design is going to be very cryptid-esque at this point. I have added an eye motif to add an ominous feeling to the design, and I will attempt to add more to the sinister feeling when experimenting with colour and texture.

After a long struggle with learning to navigate fill tools, I managed to make tonal mappings of my motifs by using grey swatches and the live paint bucket tool. The colour in the eye was created by doing Object > Blend Options and setting the specified steps to 1. I notice my images are missing texture, so my next step is to experiment with different fill patterns.

After a lot of experimenting with different pattern and texture options, I found a method that created an effect I really like. I filled the 4 main wing shapes with gradients using the gradient tool, and then did Effect > Pixelate > Colour Halftone, setting the radius to 4. I used the same method for the skull. The rose was left as it is, as I found that adding texture made the motif too busy.

I played around with my primary colour palette until I settled on some that I liked. I find that the colours are looking a bit uncoordinated at this stage, so I will have to be extra careful when picking colours for the background. Now I am ready to combine these motifs into the final designs.

I started my repeat designs by converting my moth motif into a swatch, and messing around with the settings until I was happy with the result. Once I had the moth motif in a consistent pattern, I started to add the other motifs I had prepared. I added on extra elements manually, and contrasted different designs against different backgrounds. I ended up removing the outlines in my chosen design (right), as I felt they made the motifs too crowded.

I finally settled on a background colour I liked for the original. I also created my alternate colour scheme using the more colourful, pastel palette in my conceptual layouts. The munsell colour scheme is triadic. Now that the repeat designs are finished, I can move on to the non directional design.

I started plotting my non directional design by arranging my various motifs in different ways to see what I liked the best. Once I had an arrangement I liked, I used the rectangle tool to insert a 1'x1' square and a 5'x5' square. I then used Object > Blend to create a staged gradient. I repeated this for the other squares. I wanted to aim for a hue, value, chroma contrast effect, so I divided the background into dark and light colours. 

I added some eye motifs to the center of the design to create a more finished look. I used the text tool to write my initials on either side of the iris in the center. I kept the border of the image fairly simple, with a two-tone look separated by the quadrants of the design.

Overall, I am pleasantly surprised with how these designs turned out. I was quite unsure of myself when I was first deciding on the motifs, and I was worried about how I would channel my inspiration. My process was very unpredictable, and involved a lot of trial and error, but I believe that the final product grasps the monster-like essence I was going for. In the future, I think I would utilize more Illustrator tutorials and tools to really maximize the textures and effects I can achieve.