One man's Hero / Another man's Oppressor

This piece depicts a Medieval crusader standing atop a pile of bodies, while showered with flowers and with a halo of golden sunlight behind them. it was made in Photoshop using royalty free images from Pixabay. it was made for my digital design class, and is probably the best thing I've made in photoshop so far.

Analysis:
Metaphor was the word of choice for this piece, and in the pursuit of a particularly punchy metaphor, I sought to represent the double sided nature of hero figures via a architypal historical hero, at least for those of us in the west; The Crusader. the piece itself outlines this dichotomy by showing the flowers of adoration piling up into a mound of corpses, upon which this seemingly heroic knight stands.

The roses, bodies, and sun all stand as the central details used to communicate the message of the piece, where the roses fall upon the ground, their color matching that of the bodies below, visually communicating the accumulation of bodies as praise continues to fall upon the hero. and the sun, which sits behind the knight, illuminating his heroism, but strangely seems not to illuminate the atrocities that lie below him.

The most difficult part of this project was the pile of bodies, as it was a relatively lower resolution image, and so making it fit into the image without obscuring its details, and still maintaining its punchy message. to this end, i sought to stylize, and posturize the image, enhancing the bloody, and violent nature of the image.

(All photos included were sourced from Pixabay.com)