Meeting with Lynn

Today I had a meeting with one of my lecturers, Lynn. We discussed everything I had done so far and what I wanted to continue on in this project. We talked about animals and their anatomy and the film industry and creatures/aliens roles within certain films. Below are bullet points on topics that we both discussed.

Films:

• Pacific Rim
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• District 9 
• Life of Pi
• Jurassic World

Animal studies:

• Animal documentaries
• Existent animals

Creatures:

• Look at modern designs
• Boundaries/creative license; do my creatures speak?
• Is the creature the antagonist?
• Is the creature in a role or just part of the ecosystem?
• Communicates to the audience
• The audience can connect to?
• Features for specific purposes?
• Planet boundaries, gravity, gasses in the air etc.

Overall, we discussed many things; we talked about my previous case studies on Avatar and Alien and how the Xenomorph was the antagonist of the film and designed to be so, whereas the creatures in Avatar were there to create a fuller environment and not take part in a very specific role.

In the films bullet points are a list of films I could take into my research and create case studies on, I’ve actually only seen Pacific Rim and District 9 out of these films which is shameful but will be interesting to watch them with my project in mind.

The animal studies bullet points are to study in animals that are existent such as dinosaurs and also to watch documentaries like Inside Natures Giants. We talked about what could affect the design of my creatures such as the boundaries of the planet such as gravity and how the audience would react to them. Will I design a creature that is reminiscent to something from earth so the audience feels connect to it? Or create something as new and unique as possible that is designed to its environment in such a way that the audience believes that this creature is possible.  

I’ll be taking everything me and Lynn talked about and incorporating it into my work and to try and create creatures that have specific boundaries within their world. 

30 Second Animal Sketches part 2

Here are some more quick animal sketches using charcoal, they are all 30 seconds each. As I’ve said before, this practice helps me get the basic shape and silhouette of the animal as quickly as possible. I need to focus on the form of the animal and by using S shapes to create form language helps me do that. There are some that are a bit messy but others I quite like such as the separate enlarged drawings.

My goal for each drawing was to create as quickly and as accurately each animal as I can. It’s also incredibly fun and relaxing to let your hand loose and make quick strokes with the charcoal. Doing this could improve my anxiety of creating and showing my work publicly as it helps me learn that it’s ok to make mistakes, just move on and keep drawing.

I hope to do another set or move onto another way of drawing to see what I come up with. But I really do like this method of getting a figure down very quickly, therefore I intend to use this method when I’m starting to create my own designs and creatures. I want to experiment more with creating shapes, so I plan on getting some ink and straws and using them to see what I create; I'm not looking for anything in particular and trying to specific draw anything, but I think it'll be a very fun and interesting experiment. 

My Thoughts and Questions

This week during Lynn’s class we were told to write down everything that we were thinking or had questions about our projects, the industry or even our own skills. This practice helped me a lot by clearly thinking about my ideas and my concerns about my project and putting it down onto paper.  

Below are the questions that I came up with:

Why do multiple people work on one character/creature design?

Does practical design have an affect on creativity?

What is happening in the film industry now?

Does practical design really matter?

Does everything have to be mo-capped now?

Is there no need for animators and character/creature concept artists?

Are films more about the technology used rather than storytelling and creative expression?

How does form language affect design?

Uncanny valley, how much of a problem is it?

How can I improve my digital painting skills?

A lot of my questions are on the industry itself, wondering why are films made the way they are and is that the best option. This is to be expected as of now I don’t work in the film industry, but I intend to try and answer these questions the best I can throughout my project by reading specific books on the subjects and possibly even getting a few interviews with industry professionals.   

Some of the more attainable questions that I have are to do with design, technology and creation. For example How can I improve my digital skills? I can start this exploration today by doing exercises such as watching art videos, reading art book and traditional painting as well as digital.

Over all, writing my thoughts down on a piece of paper has actually helped me flesh out what I really want to know and then I can plan on how to answer these questions. In future if I find that my thoughts are getting too much or I feel like I’m getting lost within my project, I think writing down all of my thoughts onto a piece of paper will be very beneficial for me.  

30 Second Animal Sketches part 1

Here are some quick animal sketches using charcoal, they are all 30 seconds each. This practice helps me get the basic shape and silhouette of the animal as quickly as possible. I need to focus on the form of the animal and by using S shapes to create form language helps me do that. There are some that are a bit messy but others I quite like such as the separate enlarged drawings. My goal for each drawing was to create as quickly and as accurately each animal as I can. It’s also incredibly fun and relaxing to let your hand loose and make quick strokes with the charcoal. Doing this could improve my anxiety of creating and showing my work publicly as it helps me learn that it’s ok to make mistakes, just move on and keep drawing.

I want to do this a couple more times as I believe that doing this will later help me when sketching out my creature designs by being able to quickly sketch down basic shapes and figures rather than mindlessly doodling. Also getting to know animals in their anatomy, movement, behavior and design will help and inspire my greatly for when I am creating my own creature designs.   

Below is a drawing that originally started out as a 10min sketch, but I wanted to continue on with it. I had fun with this and like the sketches above I tried to keep my hand loose and try not to worry about making mistakes. Doing this has made me more relaxed and less anxious while drawing, I can now take my time and really enjoy sketching again. I don’t intend to go too much into details when drawing real life animals as I want to keep them as an inspiration for when creating my own designs. I don’t want to create aliens that are mixed matched with earth animals; I want to create a whole new ecosystem. Studying real life animals such as this I believe will help me understand why animals evolve the way the have, how their behaviour has developed and how their bodies are perfect for what they do and where they live. Starting off with these quick sketches is the start of understanding them and their design, and I will continue on with these sketches and other more detailed practice before I feel like I have learnt and developed enough knowledge to move onto creating my own creature designs.     

All the references I used for these drawings were from this website: http://artists.pixelovely.com