Popularity Plant Starts To Wilt...

Do celebrities get so engrossed in their lives and creating a 'soap' that their popularity can disintegrate to nothing?

After brainstorming about social morals amongst society nowadays, I decided to focus on the life of a Celebrity. I wanted to be specific and I thought I'd try and centre the attention of the disadvantages of their way of life.

There are many people in the spotlight at any one time, obviously for different reasons. I found some of forums helpful due to everyones different opinions collated on one page... http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091016065622AADDt6l

From the quick mind map above I decided to choose Katie Price. One of the most talked about celebrities at the moment has to be Katie Price (AKA Jordan) although what she brings to the world of entertainment still somewhat baffles me, every attempt to keep in the limelight recently sums up desperation...
She has had a none stop news feed in the press, some of which has been her own doings. To get a better idea of how people perceive her popularity rather than the sort of news which features her (as we're faced with stories none stop) I found looking at forums on the Internet was a good way of seeing a broad range of opinions compared to my own. A particular forum which Incorporated a more negative way of thinking could be found here... http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091007054912AAHzyf3

To start I researched related articles on the Internet as well as seeing for myself how much of the glossy mags were filled with this 'celebrity'.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/celebrities/katie-price/ - Looking at the gossip sites it reiterates the fact that the headlines that come from the alienated world of Katie Price just seem more and more puerile, and what importance are they to us?

I thought that these couple of stills from the ITV1 show Headcases, optitimised the public view of Katie Price... whether this is how she wants us to perceive her is another story, seems pretty realistic due to Pete being shunted to background, (obviously when they were 'in love')

From the research compiled, I liked the idea of portray her diminishing popularity over the latest story lines in the form of a rose. A rose can be a symbolic form of Love when in its prime... relate able to Katie Price at one time... She won over our hearts on a Reality TV show, but her desperate measures to gain public gratitude soon turned her appearance sour.

The quick sketch above shows how 'Katie Price' would be be to a rose to show her healthy stint within the spot light... or at her peak. The second sketch below depicts how when things turn sour the rose decomposes and wilts - when this situation arises, there's no reconciliation, peoples opinions are made up.



Having prepared a couple of sketches to enforce how I'd want the overall cartoon to appear... I located the image in which I wanted to use for the main structure of the cartoon.

The Caricature of Katie Price below creates a satirical edge as it accentuates her mouth (where she's had excessive procedures) as well as her breasts where she's had equally as many procedures.


After I had sourced the images I started the compile the cartoon. I initially thought that it would be easy to integrate the Katie Price image within the rose image but I actually found it really hard. The way in which i had to do it was to use a scalpel knife and ease sections away, this would be where the image of Katie would lay.

The first image where Katie would come across as a healthy figure in full stature wasn't too hard to compile, and when scanned as a whole image, the effect was really realistic. This is shown below...


In comparison this the next step was to create the similar image but to create the illusion of a crumbling/ decomposing affect... to reiterate the WILTING concept. Like the image before I think that the concept works well and as a pair they look realistic as an image for a magazine or newspaper.


Now I have the two images needed for the cartoon, I scanned them together which was essential for the end result. Side by side they looked asthetically strong and when the strap line/ caption had been added, Political Cartoon would be complete!


All that was need now was a strap line in order to sum up what my image was portraying. I really liked the way diminishing popularity was described as a 'wilting plant' therefore this is the impression my image took on... The symbolism of a rose was to connect to people through the means of something that you love and nurture although when it starts to die and wilt... no one really cares about it anymore, but the rose itself is persistent in its living.
I didn't like the to alter too much with the Contrast and Brightness, as I think the image itself speaks volumes without much editing. Although I experimented with a change of contrast I just didn't think it was right. These examples are shown below...

Although in a Glossy magazine these would be well matched, in a newspaper which is where they're most likely to be feature I think the colour should be slightly muted to keep in contrast with the rest of the articles and images.

Below is the final image of what I consider to to be a well compiled Cartoon. In case the text within the preview reads too small it reads 'Katie's popularity plant seemed to be rapidly wilting - Surely this wasn't an omen of what was to become of her...'
With the final image compiled it was time to place the image into a paper. Considering the concept and theme to the cartoon, it would not likely to be featured in a paper such as The Daily Express, or The Telegraph. Papers such as The Sun or Star which feature several celebrity related articles would be more appropriate.

It wasn't hard to find a page dedicated to Katie in The Star... I thought this would be fitting to insert my cartoon within the particular article.


Although not really the place I was hoping for, it relates to the article well. Out of the Newspaper the cartoon works well, the white balance is hard to get right especially with the type of paper and resolution of print in newspapers.