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Believe In the Wonder
Wonder Woman has been an icon for women everywhere for over 80 years! She pioneered heroism, strength, courage, and truth in a world dominated by male superheroes since December 1941.
In Puerto Rico, La Mujer Maravilla was televised with Lynda Carter in the lead role and my mom was one of many who grew up watching her save the day with compassion and love. I took after my mom and fell in love with the character (she legit gave me the entire tv show collector’s edition DVD set for my 14th birthday) alongside Sailor Moon (she also had me watch the anime as a child) since lead female heroes were scarce during my childhood.
Given all of that history, of course, I wanted to help other people believe in the wonder through my art. It just wasn’t easy since I did not feel like I was good enough to draw or create anything based on her character. I was honestly in my head a bit too much.
Inspiration
When Patty Jenkins released her DC Live-Action film based on Wonder Woman, I was screaming. I mean I actually stood up in the theater and screamed “WONDER WOMAN!!!” during the big reveal scene at the crossing of No Man’s Land. When Steve Trevor explained that they could not save everyone, Diana simply replied, “No, but it’s what I’m going to do.” and I lost my marbles!
Anyways, don’t mind my fan-boy moment. Actually, this entire project is a fan-boy moment. However, instead of that landmark scene, I was more inspired by a subtle and emotional scene in the film when Diana escapes Themysicra with Steve Trevor in tow.
This scene is in my opinion one of the most important in regards to the development of Diana’s character as it correctly portrays one of Wonder Woman’s top qualities, her compassion and willingness to sacrifice. She fully knew that by leaving her home paradise island in order to save man’s world, she would let go of everything she ever knew and would never be allowed to return. This act is what separates Wonder Woman from her contemporaries, in that she did not choose to be a hero because of a tragedy she suffered, loss, or any other outside influence that could have driven her. She did it because it was the right thing to do. As she stated when her mother said that she may never return,
“Who will I be if I stay”.
Reference
I chose the exact scene when Diana escapes the island in the clip listed above. As for the color, there were a lot of blue-filtered scenes throughout the film, especially in the scene I chose. This gave me a good foundation for the color palette, along with the gold highlights from Wonder Woman’s iconic armor design.
The island background also provided a great soundscape to work off of as I utilized the sounds of the tide coming in to connect to the character’s departure to sea.
As for the font, Trajan was an appropriate choice designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe and based on Roman square capitals. Given the more Greek influence of the mythology behind the heroine’s character origins, I wanted to touch on some of this without being too on the nose, hence the Roman font rather than a direct connection to Greece.
Process
I had to choose which moments to emphasize, like when Queen Hippolyta states, “They do not deserve you.” Given that the conversation was brief, I had to highlight the impact of what was said and how some of it would return at later parts of the film.
After a lot of back and fourth, I was happy with what phrases I chose and sketched out my ideas. I also included that water ripple effect I mentioned earlier at the very end. The effect was tempting to use more than once, but again this scene is subtle and elegant and the design should emulate that feeling while expanding on the weight of the conversation. This ideology informed my choice to use the water ripple effect at the end of the conversation upon Diana’s departure.
Develpoment
ESCAPE Kinetic Typography Video