Photoshop Image

Sept 9, 2025

a. What gave you the idea for your project?
I wanted to do something silly and fun for this project. Since Critical Role had some announcements that were on my mind when we were told about this assignment, I had a couple of ideas involving them. After reviewing some set pictures, I discovered their Social Distance set and knew it would be the perfect background. I then had the idea to place popular characters that the voice actors play in their positions to create an anachronism.

b. Where did you find the images you used? (cite them if you can) what file types were they?
Social Distance Set
Matt: Cassidy
Travis: Thor
Laura: MJ
Liam: Doctor Strange
Sam: Scanlan
Marisha: Beau
Taliesin: Caduceus
Ashley: Ellie
Most of these were jpg and webp. I did have to copy and paste some of the webp images in order not to lose quality, but not all of them had that problem.

c. Explain why and how your arrangement of these elements communicates what it does.
The image acts as an anachronism. It takes a well-known, if niche, media reference of a popular D&D set and cast, and replaces the actors with popular characters they have voiced, as if the characters are at the table. In doing this, I wanted to show characters that the cast from Critical Role has voiced that are not only known by me and favorites of mine, but are also well-known characters, especially in video games. This emulates people learning about the characters that the cast has voiced and being pleasantly surprised to discover the voice actors of characters they know.

d. Challenges and Successes?
I had a good amount of trouble placing some of the images into Photoshop. When I tried to import those images, they didn’t retain their quality, coming out pixelated. I had to copy the images from the site and paste them into the document. I also didn’t do as well at making all the images look uniform, even though I tried to make the color and brightness match. The varying styles of the characters made it difficult. However, I think I did a good job placing them all and making them fit in each panel. I tried my best to select pictures that would work for sitting down at a desk and was able to make the table contents visible in front of each of them.