line of sight - transport

- Create an illustration involving some form of transport that also has an interesting line of sight.

Some thumbnailed ideas:
- initially I thought about looking at trains, maybe empty tracks, creating quite a lonely atmosphere.
- but also liked the idea of creating a busy scene, lots of movement. So started looking at transport in Vietnam, which I went travelling around last year, and the amount of mopeds there and way they are driven so chaotically is crazy, thought I could try and capture that aspect of it.

Did some visual research into the mopeds and their drivers

I remember seeing them packed full of all sorts of produce, live animals, or up to about 5 people on one moped, so different from back home. Want to include this in my piece.
Also thought about the setting of the image, I remember being by this massive roundabout in Hanoi that got so busy it was impossible to cross 

It doesn't look busy in my photo, so I did some more research to find a better viewpoint.

Started thinking about how I should compose the illustration

I wanted the line of sight to be bending around the buildings, with the mopeds driving off into different directions.
I thought this would help communicate the busyness and madness of the city.








In terms of what materials I should use, I looked at Yann Kebbi's work for inspiration, because I love his line work; the frantic and loose nature of it definitely stimulates a sense of movement

So I tried to incorporate a similar style when I began to sketch out my mopeds

composition play

I decided to move away from the coloured pencils and change to watercolour, as I thought that could work too - if I used quite limited colours but then had flashes of bright colour for the products being driven around on the mopeds.

final image - 

I was quite pleased with how my final image came out, although I think it could be made to look a lot more finished, it looks a bit rough at the moment. 
- I like the composition I chose, I think it does have an interesting line of sight, and your eye does follow the mopeds round the bend. Although I think I got the angles and proportions slightly wrong on some of the mopeds

- The colour scheme didn't work as well as I hoped, I do like the use of limited colour but I think the bits of bright colour should have been made bolder - maybe if I used guache or another thicker paint than watercolour. 

- Also maybe if I smudged the paint a bit on the colour bits to imply a sense of fast movement, because it doesn't really communicate the busy feel that I was hoping for.

- I didn't realise the illustration was meant to be monochrome, but if I was to do it in that I would have drawn a lot more mopeds, really fill up the space to create the mental atmosphere. 

I edited the drawing in photoshop slightly to bring out some of the colours, and make it look more finished.