Prometheus Model Update

Leading on from last terms work, I pulled up the turnaround to consider what the best way of turning this character into a model could be.
As this character has a very bulky shape but moves in a fluid and liquid motion, I feel that making this a non-moving maquette would be the best approach, especially if I'm figuring out how to make the bird puppets move; I have the opportunity to experiment through mobility with those characters.

The purpose of this maquette is to experiment with materials, sculpting and characterisation. I want the cloak especially to look as if it were moving, made from shadows with an ethereal feel about it.
The kind of materials I'll be using consist of chicken wire, modrock, tissue paper, fabric, plastic etc. What I want to avoid is accidentally making it look patchwork and messy; there should definitely be a flow to this piece,
Below I've begun to plan out the structure of the piece. At the moment this is just an idea and I've yet to take measurements, I'm currently just figuring out a way to uphold structure through a support system.

This would be created out of chicken wire (the grey area) and a wooden base with a metal pole supporting it.

Prometheus Development: FMP

Another character I'd like to develop into such a stage where I could finalise it as a model or sculpture is Prometheus. I've already experimented with this character and its form a little when I tested out the tin foil and chavant process. The left image shows a quick refreshed doodle of the hands and mask, then to the right is a potential design for a maquette featuring a more humanoid appearance. I also moved that cloak back to the shoulders here, as opposed to having the full body masked by it.
Which shape I decide to take forward I'm not so sure yet; neither am I certain whether I should focus on the move-ability of the puppets or the sculpted structure of them instead, but with these two designs, either is possible.

Masked Bird Characters.

These were a set of characters that I didn't get the chance to experiment with during my last project, but I feel have quite a striking presence and strong look about them. As part of this model making project I'd like to take the opportunity to develop these further. I've begun by experimenting with different breeds of birds and therefore varying the mask shapes and overall designs.
Creating these as plush, soft sculpted pieces with either small leather masks or cast resin ones will be an interesting route to take, as I could also test out wire skeletons in order to make these pose-able pieces, which could then be used for small experiment animation pieces. This would also require multiple making processes; sewing, pattern making, potentially casting and mould making too, as well as sculpting. Overall I would be honing skills I already have, as well as trying out new things.

Caricature Doodles

After researching caricatures and focusing on Donald Trump as a hint of real world influence, I doodled out some expressions and styles for the Hoopoe: One more realistic with his beak wide open in an interrupting and baffled shout, the other simplistic line art of the whole figure. These were fun and quick to do, and let me explore the character a little further through this expressionistic art form.

Character Concepts: Sketchbook

After a tutorial of looking through all the work I had so far, both myself and the tutor agreed that although I enjoy creating digital work, I should branch out and create a few of my final pieces using traditional media. The pencil sketches and watercolor had a lot more life and character to them, and the digital painting was making the design look too flat and lifeless.
Because of this, I've decided to draw the final three designs depicting the Hoopoe at the beginning, middle and end of the play by hand. This could be pencil, but I may also experiment with charcoal or paints too! However, if there's a character or scene that I feel would suit digital work better then I will still use Photoshop to complete this.
Below are a few photos I took from my sketchbook, showing a few of my favourite hand drawn drawn concepts, as well some designs for the characters of Euelpides and Pisthetairus; names now shortened to Yool and Ty, to make them easier to remember and pronounce. 

The Hoopoe: Beginning of the film

Developed mask designs for the Hoopoe. He uses this is keep himself from physically falling apart in an attempt to maintain dignity. It eventually does the opposite and just makes him appear more pathetic. 

Beginning and Middle sketches for the Hoopoe.

Developed designs for 'Yool' and 'Ty'. I considered what they may look like before and after eating the root and growing wings. 

Miranda and Prospero Final Designs.

Costume Details:

Miranda has a blue painted on Earth symbol on her shoulder plate, that she painted on there when bored one day. Shows she’s creatively minded, curious of her home planet, proud of heritage.

Miranda has a better suit than Prospero, as he gives her the better things, and repairs his own with patches. 

The waist armor Prospero has is assembled from broke ship parts. 

Miranda always carries a medical kit, as her dad demand she be ready at all times in case she gets hurt. Shows protective tendencies from father. 

They have similar chest pieces but Prospero’s contains his badges from career. 

Circular patches on knees are elbows designed to cushion, protect and lengthen life of fabric in these wear and tear areas. 

Miranda’s suit is green to show her trainee status. Prospero’s is navy to show higher ranking. 

Suit and Ship Concept Art

This design concentrated on expressing personality through formation of posing the character, as well as developing aspects of costume, e.g. the suit, breathing system and helmet. At this point in the project I reaffirmed with myself that making each of these costume aspects in the designated time period was slightly unrealistic, and setting goals of priority was necessary. These ordered as: 1) Designing, sewing and completed the jumpsuit. 2) Sourcing, designing and restyling a helmet. 3) Potential armor pieces, or sections of costume that weren't to be crafted from fabric through sewing. 

Another potential space craft design, inspired by the bio-luminescent mushrooms being researched as part of the eco-system for the environment of the planet. 

Temper05 Spacecraft Design

Original design for scouting spacecraft used in my transposal of 'The Tempest.' Supposedly a small scouting vehicle, built for two people with a small amount of emergency supplies. Incapable of space travel, designed to roam and explore planet surfaces.

Specialist Pathway: Environment concept art.

Two pieces of concept art done in order to explore the environment of the planet I was creating as a set for my interpretation of 'The Tempest.' Looking at both the planet as a whole and the climate on land itself.
The image on top was drawn with reference to other artists work through research of planet surfaces.

Specialist Pathway: Costume Bible Sheet/ Orthographic Full Outfit

Final outfit with accessories over the top of the jumpsuit. New features include helmet, chest piece, shoulder pad, gloves and boots.

Character Concept Art; The Tempest.

Ariel concept art for interpretation of 'The Tempest' from the project I've just completes at university. 

Thought it a good time to begin getting into regular blog updates again, as blogging will be a part of the module next term, there's no time like the present to attempt turning it into a regular habit! 

My idea for Ariel was that instead of being a fantasy based ethereal spirit or fairy, instead they're a piece of non-physical software or interface, that can be seen to the audience and characters as a hologram. 

Caliban concept art.
After being referred too as 'moon-calf' from one of the other characters, I decided to incorporate bovine features into my interpretation of the monster Caliban. 
The symbols seen are representative of the planets Earth and Saturn, which are the planets I drew inspiration from during the design period of this project. Having tattoos or brand marks also show ownership to Prospero, who calls to him as his slave. The scythe is used to both defend from unknown monsters on the planet, and harvest food for the humans Caliban serves. No breathing apparatus is needed for this character as he is native to the planet. 

Specialist Pathway: Costume Bible Sheet and Orthographic.

Front, side, back and side arm view of costume concept for current university project: Transposing Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' into my chosen theme of 50's retro futurism.

Life Drawing; Mark

I was looking back through last years portfolio work and came across these life drawing pieces I forgot about. These where drawn during college and where the last time I was able to take life drawing classes. They where such great practise for the human figure, I'd like to see if I there are any classes at uni I can join, as my course doesn't have this class currently.

I seem to remember this guys name being Mark? I always found it nice to chat to the life models before I drew them, as for the more emotive pieces, incorporating the models personality was a challenge, but definitely interesting and often added to the drawing, in my opinion.

This was the third drawing from this class, which was based around movement. We drew one pose, photographed it, then erased it, changed position around the model and redrew the same pose from a different perspective. This was one of my favourite drawings from the session, as I'm happy with the proportions and fluidity of the body movement.

This was the final drawing of four. It is unfortunately one of my least favourites, as the style is a lot more square and scribbly, which sometimes works but I don't think it does what I wanted here. The angle of the model was quite boxy, which is probably why I went for a sketchier style, but through all the drawings I do prefer the more fluid charcoal marks,

This again, was not one of my favourites, down to the proportions. Reviewing my own work, the hips are too low and shallow, and the head looks slightly too small in comparison to the shoulders. However, I do like the side profile of the face, and the over stylised, stumpy fingers.

This was the very first picture I drew of the session! Mark was told to create a particularly uncomfortable pose to hold for 20 minute intervals, so here I wanted to create a more expressionistic drawing, of thick and thin lines and exaggerated shapes. I think the end of the spine, the neck and the fingers particularly show this contorted position.

Digital Art; Master Studies.

Lesson 4, Term 2 of Concept art. 

Taking a break from our main project of adapting the opera 'Bluebeard's Castle,' we began concentrating on master studies; analysing the work of master artists. In this case, John Singer Sargent, William Merritt and Rembrandt. 

Through different pieces, we were challenged in a variety of ways to explore colour and composition, either through taking away usage of the colour picker tool or solely focusing on working in black and white. 

The piece pictured here is a self portrait by William Merritt, (top left) that I chose to study for both the colour and the consistency of the brushstrokes; a sketchy/ impressionistic style I really liked. 

The techniques I learnt in this lesson that helped me to attain a good interpretation where:

1) Flipping the image vertically. This took focus away from what the piece was supposed to look like, (a portrait) and made me look at form and placement instead. This was very effective for me, as I no longer viewed it as a face but as shapes to concentrate on. When re-flipped, I could then adjust and neaten, then flip back to the upside down position and carry on. 

2) Black and white filter. This took concentration away from tone and meant I was able to focus on shading, whether something needed to be lighter or darker, and again drew more attention to shape and composition than drawing in colour would have done. 

The finished piece; I'm really pleased with how the tones came out seeing as I didn't use the colour picker for this piece. The only thing I would change is the angle of the head, and maybe thinning the face out a bit too. Overall, I'm happy with this outcome as it's also one of the first portrait pieces I've copied rather than drawn over/ traced a base shape from, so in practise of composition I feel this exercise was very valuable.

Digital Art; Drawing from Photos

As a change from drawing still life objects, we were challenged in class to draw a still form a film or movie. I chose an image from one of my favourite TV shows, 'Hannibal' as I liked the shapes seen here, and wanted to concentrate on form and composition. Because of this I think choosing a scenery to draw instead of a face worked better for what I wanted to practise.  

 I began my sketch by planning out the basic shapes, and using the colour picker to select key tones. At the beginning, I wanted to include the specific shapes of the horns and further in I realised how many beams there are! However, as I drew more of the picture I realised how difficult and time consuming adding all these little details in would be, especially for a simple sketch.

 Finished drawing: I found out that by concentrating on the shapes instead of counting the details, I was able to create a much more effective sketch a lot quicker. Even though the antlers aren't obviously antlers, it's the form; sharp, spiky, spread out fingers across the image. This created a much more stylised piece, but still conveyed the space and dark mood of the room.

As my first scenery styled drawing, I'm happy with the outcome, and I learnt a new way of drawing to create the scope of space.

Digital Art; Life Drawing, Pears.

In order to get a better understanding of digital art, we had a class on life drawing. This helped with both getting to grips with different elements of Photoshop, and also allowed me to look into techniques of shadows and highlights. Above is the original image I started from.

 By switching into a black and white filter, I was able to pick out shadows and different tones through the image a lot more accurately than when it was colour.

Finished drawing: As a first piece of life drawing I'm pleased with how it came out. I think the shapes and colouring where the aspects that turned out best, but I should have looked deeper into the composition of the original photo, as the pears don't quite line up in the same way. Overall though, I'm happy with the drawing, and  I can see where I need to improve in the future.