My 3 Final Images for The Outsider

Here are my final 3 pieces for the Outsider book.

I had some fun with these images, I got to draw with ink a lot, which I love to do and also go onto Photoshop. My aim was to produce a number of images really quickly on Photoshop, just like I did by hand and to see what I came up with.

The 1st image, the cigarettes in the ashtray is my favourite. I had an idea in my mind that I would illustrate this as Meursault constantly smoked throughout the story at 'strange' times and thought this was interesting to his character.

I love to work on different and random pieces of paper and with photoshop that is easier for me to do. I draw everything by hand and then play on photoshop where I uploaded a number of old/tatty/diguarded paper.

The 3 of them are on paper which gives a rustic look to the images.

I also picked out how the main character drinks white coffee all the time so I decided to put these two things together- an ashtray surrounded by constant coffee rings.

I think this is the strongest out of the 3...

The 2nd image illustrates the time when Meursault shoots the man and is very aware of the heat around him and the sun, beaming onto him. So here comes the paper, with dried tea on it, to give the effect of the sand. The water at the bottom is actually Algerian water over the top of graph paper. On the right hand side there are 4 small bullets that stand for the 4 shots Meursault takes at the man.

The main thing in the centre is a cigarette burn. I thought this would be perfect to in-corparate his passion for smoking, and the burning of the sun.

The 3rd image is based on the last part of the book (I have tried to even the illustrations out) when Meursault is told that he would be 'decapitated in a public place in the name of the French people.'

I wanted the guillotine to be the main object within the image, as the others have all got one main object in them. I spent 2 days drawing/ painting and using ink to produce the perfect guillotine and out of the pages I completed, this seemed to be the one which worked.

The guillotine is such a strange thing. It is rather an elegant piece of machinery but has such horrible consequences! I took my images from old fashioned ones and what would more likley be used in that age in Algeria when the book was sent to print. ( The author does not specify when the book is set so I went by the publishing date.)

This guillotine I hope, is rather intimidating as it's black, tall and up close to the viewer. I think this is what I wanted it to look like but to be honest I would have liked more time to adapt it and maybe get it looking better.

But on the whole, I am rather pleased with these images and how they have turned out.