My sustained investigation question was, "What would mental illnesses look like if people could see what others were suffering and dealing with?" For my fifth sustained investigation question I wanted to portray dissociative identity disorder and what the people who suffer from this disorder have to battle mentally everyday. First, I started with a sketch. I wanted to have the main focus on an eye. With the eye I had an idea on how I could illustrate multiple bodies being inside because these people feel as if they have voices trapped inside of them. Next, I wanted to have a purple with multiple colors to portray multiple eyes from the different personalities merged together. I wanted vibrant colors to add contrast and dept. I wanted an eye to be seemingly climbing out of the eye to further the people trapped inside trying to get out effect. Lastly, In the eye and iris I wants the illusion of should trapped inside.
I started by looking up an eye that was high quality but also in the right perspective. All of the color eyes I looked at were bland, so I chose an eye in black and white that had more character. Although, I wanted the skin to have color because I didn't want this project to be bland because the high colors would resemble personality, which is a focus for this project and the representation of dissociative identity disorder. To accomplish this, I created a separate layer from the eye picture. Then, I chose the brush tool and color selected a skin color from the color palate. After, I used the hard brush tool, enlarged it, and painted all the skin around the eye. Then to clean up the edges I placed a layer mask and masked over the areas that were jagged and/or not in the correct places. Lastly, I wanted the color to bled in so I changed the overlay to overlay to achieve this effect.
Next, I wanted to portray the person trying to escape from the body through the eye because people who suffer from dissociative identity disorder feel as if they have more than one personality. Their personalities "escape" and come out at random times, and the victim often blacks out and doesn't remember the moments when their different personalities come out. I wanted the eye to be in the right angle and shape so I just searched for a hand coming out of an eye so that I could just use the hand from that image. After finding one that I liked I placed a layer mask overtop of it and cut out the hand. The eye images colors contrast so much that I wanted to keep this hand in black and white but I changed the curve adjustment so the images shadows were more prominent. Next, I needed to add shadows underneath the hand so it didn't look misplaced and it looked like apart of one picture. I did this by creating a separate layer, selecting the brush tool, lowering the opacity, and coloring underneath.
Next I wanted to add the multiple color iris to illustrate all the eyes of the personalities merged into one to add to the multiple person effect. I also wanted to do this to bring in more colors and vibrance into the picture because it looked a little blander than I had anticipated it to look. So, I searched the internet for an eye that real eye colors and not just the colors of the rainbow. Once I found one I liked, clicked the circle ellipsis tool and made the circle the exact shape of the former black and white iris. Once the selection was made, I then when to the image with the colorful eye and made a copy, and this made the copy only have the iris. After, I placed a layer mask overtop and cut out the areas that were overtop of the fingers.
Lastly I wanted to really showcase the multiple people trapped inside as clearly as possible because the people trying to break through the eye depict how the sufferers of dissociative identity disorder feel everyday. I wanted to illustrate this mental battle through shadows of distressed people who are pressed up against a surface. I wanted to carry over this emotional and moving message through the iris. To do this I searched up an image of a shadow with his arms up trapped and found one I liked. So, I placed this image down and to make the image fit the iris I used a different technique. I applied the layer mask of the colorful iris to the image and then used to selection tool on it. Then I went to the shadow image and made a copy and this left me with a perfect circle that matched the other irises. Then I changed the overlay to luminosity so that the eye looked foggy and the shadow showed.
To finish off the project I wanted to magnify the people inside and the perfect place to do this was through the white space in the eye. So, I searched up more images of shadows trapped and trying to escape. Then I resized them, placed them where I wanted them, and then used a layer mask to cut them out. After I changed the overlay to luminosity as well because it really melted the images together. I realized I wasn't satisfied with the color of the skin because it looked bland so I changed the curves to add more depth, contrast, and vibrance into the picture.
