Week 4: Research

Trolls are normally come across as very aggressive creatures within the media due to the fact of there large build and unappealing appearance, for example in the trilogy Lord of the Rings, a group of trolls they plan to eat the main protagonist. This act itself shows a very mean lifestyle for the creatures. I feel this is an element I will show in my concepts however I also plan to contrast this element by doing a friendly troll which I want to be inspired the BFG (The Big Friendly Giant). Though the BFG not being a troll I want to take elements from him to create a more friendly looking troll such as the crooked smile and the large eyes, elements that can be easily added to the creature.

I then went and thought about trolls within a culture and what as species would they be identified as. Maybe some unban cultures consider them a creature they can use as a form of transportation due to there large build whereas rural cultures may see them as a form of  godly creatures that should be celebrated. I also want to take into consideration the time era these trolls are from, for example if they were in the prehistoric era they might have a more natural appearance whereas if they were in modern day they may have modern enhancements such as metal arms or protective gear. This I feel is of importance for this will give a clear background to the identify of the trolls lifestyle.

   

Week 4: Mood Board

Here I have a selection of underwater/swamp trolls representations throughout media, as you can see they are normally suggested to be of the male origin and have elements of there environment growing on them. I aim to break the gender assignment with my characters as I feel they could just as easily be represented as female just as much as male. Whereas with the environment growing on the trolls I feel is a really effective element to create context for the creature or there origin, this is something I would like to implement into my work. I feel it is a really good way to represent the character, for example I could have the character covered/surrounded by happy looking fish giving the troll as very positive atmosphere to his appearance or I could the troll could be covered in moss suggesting he came from a swap.   

Week 4: Rules for Underwater Trolls!

Rules

The rules in which I have chosen for this week are listed below:

1. Unique Shape of Eyes: I want my trolls to have unique set of eyes when compared to the others, this I feel will give them an identity to where underwater they came from, for example if the troll was from a swamp I feel his eyes would be very murky or very black due to the water.
2. Troll-valuation!: Trolls normally do not originate from underwater so I feel there body would have been forced to adapt, such as having to growing gills or webbing there feet! This an element I feel is important to my concepts to show context as to how they became used to there environment.
3. Trolls can love too!: Through there appearance I want me trolls to represent there love for something, whether it be fish, toys or even seaweed! I think that emotions are something that are forgotten about trolls.

Primary Reasearch

 

I asked a group of ten people who've experienced Alice in Wonderland in various formats of media. I then asked them whether they consider a nightmare or a dream, six answered with dream and 4 answered with nightmare. As you can see the majority saw it as a dream however I believe that this is down to there personal experience of Wonderland. I believe this because of there replies as to why they thought it was a nightmare or dream.

When I asked why they thought it was a dream rather than a night mare they said that because it is presented as weird and wacky it makes it very appealing. This suggests that I should make my character aesthetically pleasing as have a unique quirk to reflect the dream element to my character.

In contrast the people who said that it was more a nightmare thought that this made the world very dangerous and threatening. They also said there was no control or consistency throughout the world which also scared them. Through this I learnt that there personal opinion on the world was dependant on there view of it for example, those you thought the world have no control or consistency feared it however those you thought it was a dream liked this whacky element. This I feel shows to me that when it comes to dream like environments it become very personal to the person. This is why I feel I should make the character very personal to me and my dream experiences to get the most effective representation.

  

Research into Dreams & Nightmares - Alice In Wonderland

Research

Dreams:
A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.


Within my dream sequence I want to create a surreal style like Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, by this I mean the way in which Lewis Carroll (the author) has taken elements of our life style such as animals and adapted them in an artist way. The reason as to why I feel this links into the dreams and nightmares style is the fact that Alice experience this world in which is considered very fiction, such as a talking rabbit with a waistcoat. This style also fits the description of a dream over than the fact she is not asleep however, the novel begins with her falling into a rabbit hole. When she falls she transitions into this world which suggests this is a metaphorical sensations of falling asleep or experiencing a dream like phase. Overall the style of this book is what I want to produce from my lip sync, the idea of another reality that has elements of are reality in it but are presented very differently.

I also want my face to have Elven elements to him as I feel this will clearly show a dream like style due to the fact Elves are fiction and often are a key element to fantasy. I also personally like the settings of the Elven race, often very peaceful creatures and like in wildlife reserve style places. I think this fits well with dreams as often good dreams are very peaceful and happy and you awaken feeling good, this is often the atmosphere and emotions presented around the Eleven race due to the fact they are quite peaceful. The colour scheme too is something that is quite relaxing due to the gentle colours used such as greens and calm yellows. This is the atmosphere I would like to produce from my lips sync. I feel I can achieve this by having my character take inspiration of the eleven style and have the talk in a very calming tone to relax the audience. 

 

Animation

 

 

 

I decided to look into animations of dream/nightmare sequences to see how the style and setting have been represented before. From this animation I discovered the movement often used within dream sequences. As you can see from the video the man is floating effortlessly and freely, idea of floating I feel definitely represents the feeling of dream in a visual manor. To distil this into my work I am going to animate my character with slow and relaxed movement to clear represent this style. To enhance the nightmarish effect the animator has used a dark red colour scheme, this suggests a form of danger or fear. From this I learn I should stay clear of these colours as I am trying to create a dream style lip sync therefore it should be the opposite if am I going to represent dreams instead of nightmares.   

 

 



Week 3: Final Concepts

Week 3: Moodboard

With my moodboard I wanted to show to the diversity of how witchcraft has been represented in media, I also looked into some elements of Steampunk like the witchdoctor style artwork. This backs up my research due to the fact of the similar colour scheme being used in the Steampunk images thus strengthening my idea to use the brown and grey style colour scheme.   

Week 3: Research

Witches are normally presented as a female when it normally comes to fiction however it has never been actually set as a requirement to be a witch. The role in fact is actually genderless, this is a element I will use through out my work. When it comes to how they are presented aesthetically it varies very wide as shown from the picture, on have been presented with a quite sinister style of unnatural green skin and a black colour scheme which is a very classical look for a witch. In contrast on the left shows a very different style of a bright colour scheme and very natural looking features. This shows how there is no singular style to a witch as such but has to have some form of magic or power. This I feel is really good for me as a concept artists and I am quite possibly limitless with this task. I feel I want to cover all of these various representations such as the classical style of a witch and the subverted style. I would also like to look into the Salem witch trails and how it would have been different as to if the steam punk element came into it.

When it comes to combining Witchcraft and Steampunk I feel I want to create a quite sinister look. This is because the Steampunk style uses a colour scheme of browns and greys, thus creating a very negative dark atmosphere I think combining this with witchcraft will create a style similar to Bloodborne, this is something I feel will really strengthen the tone of the character if I were to create a sinister look and could be very effective. I feel this will be really effective as long as I keep the key elements of machinery from the Steampunk genre.        

Week 3: Steam Punk Witch Silhouettes

Here I decided to do silhouettes for the steam punk witch concept, this enabled me to distil elements from each style, for example I wanted to take the machine element from steam punk and mix it with magic so I wanted the brush style to be very harsh to describe this clash. This in turn gave a very sinister look to the silhouettes and is something I would like to use in my concepts. Overall I feel this was a very effective way to brainstorm my ideas.  

Week 3: Rule For A Steampunk Witch!

Rules

The rules in which I have chosen for this week are listed below:

1. In Possession of A Pet/Familiar: During the Salem Witch Trails one of the factors they believed were to a witch was that they had a pet which was referred to as a familiar, this is an element I want to use to reflect the character being a Witch. I feel this will in some elements will also reflect the characters emotions, for example if there pet was a sly looking snake it would suggest the character to be quite cunning and mean.
2. Element of Magic: I think the Witch should show within the concept what actual powers they have, weather it be illusion or destruction spells I feel this is a key part to the character that should be used.
3. Possession of A Fog Watch: To reflect the steam punk element I want them to own a fog watch, this is similar to the bandanna due to the fact that I want to be very different as to where I place it, for example tied round the characters leg. This will to link my concepts.

Week 2: Final Concepts

Week 2: Digital Concept!

I decided to add colour to my concept art to see how it would reflect the style of music. I feel his bright hair represents a very upbeat style of music like pop, where as the blue represents a very chilled R&B still genre. Overall I wanted to represent the character as a AI radio for a spaceship so I wanted to cover most genres of music in the appearance of the character. One thing I would improve is the sound waves in the eye, I would improve them by adding a lot more detail to them only to define them more to the face. I also added the red bandana which having it as a head band I think gives a really fashionable look. 

Week 2: Research into Music & Spaceships

When it came to a spaceship musician I knew it would be a challenge, so I decided to look into representation within media of where these two things meet. Through this I found various different style in which it is represented, for example in Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned it is in the style of a classical orchestra and set in the style of the classic titanic, so it feels like a cruse liner in space. In contrast the film Guardians of the Galaxy Mixes 70's & 80's music with futuristic spacecraft brought a very unique style to the stage as normal it fit the retro style within media such as Fallout the video game and Alien know for it futuristic yet retro look. For me this has enabled me to see that I can go to different ends of the spectrum with the style of music as it seems to somehow oddly work I feel like this has shown how I could combine elements say like a cruse liner ship with say rock and roll. As long as it fit the style of the character or there context.

I also wanted to look into Spaceship AI's, They consists of a humanoid image in which is the embodiment of the ship controls. I feel this is a way I would like to present the musician as it has been used very frequently in the media, for example Cortana from the Halo series. They way I will present this character it by using certain elements from other concepts. For example Cortana as some form of circuitry running around her body. From this I distilled the idea of having the music waves flow around the characters body thus showing the style of music like the DJ Sona concepts in my mood board. Overall I think this is a really effective way of linking the two genres. I also have set the challenge of making the AI male as there has been limited representation within the media of a gender AI.

    

Week 2: Moodboard

Through my mood board I wanted to look into the style of spaceship and how music is drawn, for example what colour, lines and tones does an artist use to show a certain genre of music. I found that this is often through forms of waves and colour. For example a calm music is shown through the us of light colours such as purple and pink and the use of lines is very smooth and free moving where as for the more house and upbeat music very aggressive tones of red are used which looks a lot like fire, this reflects the music they are trying to present.

 

 

Week 2: Rules for Spaceship Musician!

Rules

The rules in which I have chosen for this week are listed below:

 

1. Representation of Genres: I want the character to clearly represent a singular genre of music thus forcing me develop very diverse characters.
2. Represent Class of Ship:  The characters should represent the class of there ship, for example if a ship is of high class the character show have a very posh/expensive design to represent this. This will give the character a background and context.
3. Wearing A Bandana: I feel bandanas are an item of clothing that can be changed to present itself in very different way yet will be able to somehow link the characters, for example it could be worn as a head cover or a bracelet. This can represent the character individual style and like I said give the characters a link to each other. 

 

 



Week 1: Fairy Tale Leader Concepts

Week 1: Regional Identity & Clothing Within Fairy Tales

I used mood boards to collaborate together how different countries develop traditional Fairy Tales. As you can see they all have a traditional elements and reflect their culture, for example the Japanese fairy tale has the women wearing kimonos which is very traditional within Japan. Disney also have shown an element of regional identity within each of there fairy tale princesses, for example Cinderella shows a very classical British style whereas Mulan reflects the Asian culture.

When looking into the clothing of fairy tale they too often has a very traditional element that represent there regional identity. I found that also long that there is a use of dream like elements also used within fairy tales to create a surreal style to the character, for example the character reading from moon light or the king that's cold has actually turned blue.

    

Week 1: Rules for Fair Tale Leader!

Rules

The rules in which I have chosen for this week are listed below:

1. Use of Crest Logo - This is to show the characters background and what kind of people they lead, for example if the logo were to be a butterfly it would suggest a nature style culture and peaceful due to the animal itself being of no harm and considered very elegant.
2. Some form of scepter or staff - This will show the status of the leader, for example if it were a scepter it would suggest some form of royalty but if it were a staff it could suggest a magical being.
3. Seasonal Styles - I feel having the characters in a seasonal style outfit will give context of what environment they face in there fairytale thus also giving the characters a unique style when compare to each other. This may also represent there regional identity as some country are known for certain weather, for example England is often know for it constant rain throughout the year.   

Quickfire Concepts - Week 1: Fairy Tale Leader

Fairy Tale

 

 

 
When looking into the Fairy Tale genre I found often they use various bright colours and are very childish. As you can see from the image to the right the landscape is very bright with a very vibrant colour scheme, this is from the anime Sword Art Online in which they experience this gaming environment which is a Fairy Tale Genre. This is the style I want to capture in my character in which I will reflect this peaceful atmosphere and bright colour scheme. I feel this will help easily identify the character as a from this environment. To help me develop this Idea I will be create a mood board of various environments I feel reflect this style in the genre.

 

 

Leader

 

Often when is comes to leadership there is some is normal a reason as to why they have the power over a group of people. Some it is monarchy system, money or wealth or some noble act in which benefited there people. For my character I want it to be a monarchy system as I feel it give a less aggressive tone to the character when compared to other reasons. For example the wealth could make the character come across as very greedy due to other representations within media. The noble act I feel that the ac it self would have to be a very upsetting or sacrificial  act which could cause the character some form of pain which in turn may reflect how they treat the people who they lead. I also feel that a leader normal has a very confident stance like the image to the left so reflect there status, this too is something I want to develop into my character.