06.02.10: More Pamphlets!!

Since last Monday's tutorial and feedback session, I am feeling really good about the slightly altered direction the project is taking. Flash will take a bit of a back seat so I can focus on creating these leaflets to display my research visually. I have fallen into the trap in the past of focussing too much time making things intricate in Flash where it isn’t necessary and losing marks because of it.

However, these images take about 2 hours to draw, then another hour or so editing and adding text in Photoshop which is a really efficient use of time. I’m happy with the result; trying to replicate the etched style of the age while also conveying useful and relevant information and they should hopefully add an entertaining angle to the audience.

The three pamphlets here show an attempt at a portrait which I find much more challenging as they have to look quite precise, another gun upgrade and an advert for traders. With the pistol, I used an incorrect perspective on the barrel, in order to be informative. I found this technique used frequently in such printed work as with the gunner's quadrant earlier.

I have also experimented with printing them out, using types of baking paper to get an aged look. Their greaseproof properties unfortunately meant the ink printed badly and wouldn’t dry so instead I went round a few art shops in town and found a range of beautiful parchment style A4 paper. I have seen and handled a few documents from the time period throughout my research and the printed finish is quite convincing. I am also weathering the Photoshop images so that they look like they’ve been printed using basic technology and not come out perfectly.

Single-page printed ‘pamphlets’ and the printing press were an emerging medium during the Civil War and provided a revolutionary way to reach a mass audience where before one was dependant on word of mouth. As such, this style of publication has huge significance to the game world and I now intend to make them more of a game-play feature. They could appear periodically as new information is made available to the player; from mission and event updates to newly available shop items and upgrades. They could be collected from locations or delivered by the carrier pigeon perhaps, which I have already developed as a concept.