Week 5: Moodboard

As you can see from the various images, the colours often associated with horror seem to very dark and ominous. I feel the shape and the texture and the shape of the are quite rough and are limited when in comes to smooth edges other than skin, this suggest that the artists have used this to help reflect the style of horror. They also either have some spiritual style or a almost rooting the characters. This is something to I wish to implement into my work.   

Week 5: Research & Cultural Influences

Horror has always been a genre the thrives on playing with peoples fear, from pounding hearts to shaking hands that is what horror wish to achieve, that is what makes it significantly different to other genres. It has be come a key element to pop culture very recently due to development of the pop culture TV Series American Horror Story. The series follows iconic places in which the horror genre has taken place in iconic horror places with America, such as a asylum, a place that is normally thought of when it comes to horror. As you can see this regional identity has made the television series very popular. Thus showing the effect of cultural influences and how they have became something of the genre. This is why I plan to take inspiration from the locations used within my characters to represent the american culture. This could be the potions seller of a coven or the shopkeeper of a cafe in an asylum. Overall I feel this is really effective way to show cultural influences that a character has experienced.

                                                                                                 

In China spirits are often used as a form of the devil or bad luck, this in fact has became a key part to the horror culture represented by forms of ghost and supernatural appearances. This is something I would like to reflect in my characters. I could use the spirit as a way the shopkeeper carries the goods or as a bodyguard. This is a key element I want to distil from the Chinese culture as I feel it represents the ideology of the unknown and that itself is quite scary. I will also uses the Chinese oriental style to reflect there culture as I feel the designs really suit the spiritual Idea, such as the swirling patterns and plum reds. I feel with a dynamic pose of the character casting a spell with the spirit looming behind the character it will give it a very good looking effect. Overall I feel that looking into regional identity has really helped me with this weeks task and I will continue to develop in my last week of quick fire concepts.                                              

Week 5: Rules for Horror Shopkeeper!

Rules

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

1. MY EEYEEESS!: I want there eyes to be a key part to there identity as within horror they are normal used with in graphic cuts to create the idea of someone is watching you, such as in Halloween when the camera does a graphic cut through a jack o lanterns eye.
2. Odds and ends that sort of thing: What are they selling? I want this to be reflected in the way there posing, for example they might be nervous to show there selling something illegal.
3. Killed or Cured?: What happened to them to be of the 'horror' style, where they killed and have not completed there true meaning of life so they have return as a ghost? We don't know, the possibilities are endless, this is why it is one of my rules to represent this in there style.

Week 4: Final Concepts

Speech & Expressions

I want Yomur’s tone to be very low and calm, this is to reflect the fact that he is living in pure peace and clearly identifies him as a dream like concept instead of a nightmare. I want his pace to also be slow to enhance this effect. His pitch will also be quite low to give him the masculine tone. I will record this by recording myself on Audacity, one way I have of achieving these effects is talking at a lower volume therefore forcing me to go lower.

Here I have drawn different expressions for my character Yomur. From this process I have learnt the importance of eyes when it comes to expressions, this also gives me a skeleton or template to build me expressions from when it comes to the dialogue. He will be quite calm throughout it I want to either use the second expression or the 7^th to enhance his calming nature.

I also decided to draw phonetics that I think I would find difficulty with the give me a better knowledge of the movement. I did this by using a mirror and pronouncing these letters. I feel this method will help me have a greater understanding of the phonetics I am using within my dialogue, due to its primary evidence.  

Here I have decided to lay out the dialogue I am using and draw the different phonetics that are used to pronounce it. This I feel is going to help me a lot in the near future when it comes to animating me character, this is because I will be able to blend shape these individual phonetics in order to make the transition between each smoother. Overall doing this process has enabled to be clairvoyant in which phonetics I will actually use and which are the most common.  

Synopsis & Dialogue - The Elven Prince

The city of Alwen was like no other, the city itself was a forest guarded simply by the nature within it. The elven people respected this land by cherishing it sweet soil to grow the most beautiful fruit and vegetables the world has ever seen, the fruit itself was considered to be from the garden of Eden due to its sweet taste and beautiful growth. The Eleven people did not hunt the wildlife or abuse it in anyway because they believed it presences was a gift like no other. The land was practically untouched due to the elves respect for the land life wasn't more peaceful. Life was a dream for them but unfortunately this has not always been the case, the royal family (The Twilights) and many others were born into slavery. Until they were able to understand that there was more to life due to the dreams they dreamt at night. The Prince Yomur used to dream of the Alwen forest and its natural beauty thus giving him the strength and knowledge that this life of slavery was not all what was destined for his family. This is when he decided to share his dream to his family which gave them the courage to escape. After days of traveling they found the city, greeted by divine animals and the most exotic fruit. That is the reason they respect the land, for if it had not have shown itself in Yomur's dreams they would have lived a life of slavery. Yomur believes that dreams are merely goals that you want to reach or ideas of a better life. Due to his first hand experience of this Yomur always goes by the idea that 'Dreams are merely a different reality' that we want. This in fact is the reason as to why the Elves live in such peace, due to the fact they see there dreams a goals not impossible delusions.     

 

Eleven Moodboard

As you can see from collecting various representations of the Elven race there is various similarities. One of the key similarities is the colour scheme, the uses of natural browns and greens create a very peaceful atmosphere and highlights the importance of nature to the race. This also helps to highlight magic by using bright contrasted colours to the environment such as cyan. They also share the similarity of using traditional weapons such as swords and bows thus reflecting the middle earth style of the race. The one main similarity is there ears, this is a key element to the race which clearly identifies them, the pointed ears. These are all elements I want to bring to my model. I will bring the colour scheme by using the colours when texturing the colours. The weapons I feel is something I will be unable to represent but I do want to create a crown similar to the one in the image to the middle far left, this is to represent my characters status as a prince. The pointed ears I am going to model in mudbox to give them a really clear look like the images.