Starry Island

Project brief

Create a poster for Starry Island, sci-fi novella written by Phaedon-Z, featuring a portrait of Glory the Wrathful, one of the major characters in the story.

Deliverables

One poster including title, tagline and author name, featuring portrait of alien creature.

Creative process

Starry Island features an alien race inspired by praying mantises but bearing strong human characteristics. We had to create several sketches developing the anatomy of the aforementioned creatures. Glory the Wrathful was in fact inspired by the orchid mantis. This influenced our choice of colour palette with heavy pink accents. Opaline was another word used to describe her so we put emphasis on her shimmering and added hues found in opals to give her exoskeleton a more gem-like appearance. Glory is an enticing, dangerous, ghostly character, strong and fragile at the same time. We chose to have her hide in the light, rather than in the darkness as one would expect, because light is a main theme in the story of Starry Island. We made her both sensual and challenging, tangible and fleeting, gothic and sci-fi, all of which communicate her own nature and the nature of the novella. The cracked wine glass and the vial she holds on her breast form part of her personal history. The title design captures the descend onto Starry Island – a planet resort – from space.

Tools and media

Photoshop.