Development Sketches

Above are development sketches where I explored the creatures body shape further as well as its character and age. I wanted to develop how this creature would move and interact with others; I intend to have both male and female be able to grow these huge horns, they do however take many years for them to grow and the younger the horn, the more brittle it is.
I've not only create adult sketches, but babies too, to show the initial stages of the horn growth. It starts out a lot like a tooth, where a little edge of it appears. The base of it is growing from the back of the skull. It takes many years for this to grow to allow time for the creature to grow stronger to be able to cope with the weight.  
The solid tail would mostly be used for counter balance because of the huge weight of the horn, neck and back muscles. Very rarely would it be used as a weapon or defence.
There is also a protective growth on the creatures face to help project themselves when fighting and bashing their heads together. The growth would have a layer of enamel but soft tissue underneath that could be used as a shock absorber. Only when the creature is fully matured with this start to grow on their face.

Overall, I'm excited to develop this creature even further, do some detailed anatomy studies and more character development too with illustrative pieces.

DCA Exhibition: Drawn into Tomorrow

Today before I go home for the holidays, I went to an exhibition at the DCA. The exhibition was created by two Finnish artists Visa Suonää and Patrik Söderlund, together they are called IC-98. 

The artists used both hand drawn images with digital animation to create the intriguing visual displays. There was a 40min animation of a tree changing shape, which I found really interesting. The noises of the groaning tree and the visuals of insects and moths coming out of the tree were very creepy and off-putting. The tree appeared to be dying as it slowly disappeared and the scene of underground showing its roots swaying back and forth.

Some quick notes I wrote while at the exhibition:

 

•    Tree
•   3D
•   Horror
•   Black and White
•   Slow scene changes
•   Bugs/insects
•   Fish in water
•   Water boiling
•   Stars moving
•   Mist/fog
•   Everything slightly moving
•   Tree alive/dead
•   Roots of the tree
•   Creepy/harsh music
•   Music sounds like the groaning of trees

“The artists are fascinated with nature and culture, material and myth, and the individual and the collective. They are also interested in the idea of the Anthropocene, our current geological age and a period during which human activity has been a dominant and often negative influence on climate and the environment.”

Overall, this had been a very interesting experience and hopefully I can somehow apply what I have seen and experienced into my work and sketches for my project.

  

Charcoal Drawings

Here are some 30 second charcoal drawings to help me quickly get onto paper the ideas I had for the body of my creature. I used S shapes and tried different forms for the back; I knew because of the size of the horn that this creature would need a strong neck and back to be able to hold its heap up. I also thought about where the horn would grow our from, and I thought that the back of the skull would be the best as if it were on the top or temples like other creatures, then the weight and pressure could cause damage to their skull and even their brain. 

I didn't do a lot sketches because I knew that I wanted the creatures' body to resemble a Buffalo, Ox or Moose etc. These animals - especially the Ox - have a lot of references on their anatomy, making it easier to create a similar body for my creature. With my other designs, it'll get gradually harder to source certain animals so doing research on more domestic animals will help educate me and enable me to make informed decisions on more alien like creatures.    

Inkblot Creature Development

Here is the inkblot I have decided to start developing into a creature. I wanted to try something simpler rather than jumping into the deep end with one of the more complex inkblots. The shape of this inkblot already gave me ideas and hints of Earth animals such as a cow and deer, so that would be a good starting point for referencing animal anatomy further down production. I want to keep the structure of my inkblots and really turn them into creatures rather than using them as inspiration, I really do see a creature in this inkblot and I want to bring it out.

To start, I created some line art of the lnkblot and added in detail such as the second pair of horns and some light shading to indicate the shape of the horn on the top of the head. I wasn’t too happy with this first attempt as I thought it looked visually very busy with the horns and the animal could eventually become top heavy, leading to problems designing the anatomy in the future; as well as functional design within its environment. I can believe there being problems trying to justify the need of two sets of horns on one head for survival.  There would also be problems with its sight as the horns and ears are blocking its vision from behind, and because of the positioning of the eyes - very similar to prey animals - it would have a blind spot directly in front of its face. Therefore I decided that this design was not going to work. 

My second attempt, a more simpler one, I really liked. It looks similar to animals here on Earth but with added fantasy with the huge ears and solid horn. The huge ears would give the animal excellent hearing as well as being able to use them as a fan to help cool them down. The ears are fully flexible, much like horses ears to allow this creature to see behind it by laying the hear flat against its head. 

I’m really excited to explore and develop this creature further and designing its world and what kind of animal it would be. My next task is to create quick charcoal sketches of the body to help lay down their foundations, then go into more detailed digital sketches and explore the animal further, both head and body.   

Visual Diary

In the back of the book If it's Purple, someone's gonna die by Patti Bellantoni, there is an exercise of feeling your emotions at the time or in a specific memory and painting down the colours that you feel. I did this at the end of the day for about a week; I'll not go into too much detail as to what I was feeling but there was general anxiety of uni work, the excitement of going home for a break and general stress of working part time too. I really enjoyed this exercise and I'll hopefully have time to do this sort of experiment again.

Other notes and quotes from reading the book were the observation of the strength of colour.

"Studies show that the paler a colour is, the more powerless it is."

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's pale blue pinafore isn't a strong enough colour to help her through her journey. However, the ruby red shoes are. I found this really interesting and could possible use it for my creature designs. It will be the most useful during a plot rather than just character designs but it is something I can think about when designing my creatures.

Supervisor Meeting

This morning I had my final meeting with my supervisor before the holiday break. We discussed my next steps in my project and set out goals to be completed before the next semester.

The plan is to take 4-6 of the mirrored ink images and render them out into creature head studies. Once that is completed, start creating sketch concepts of the body by using the 30 second sketching I did for the animal drawings. Any of the head studies that didn’t work out too well, will be redrawn as a different part of the body, rather than the head. If it works out, move onto the 30 second sketch stage like the others. In the end I should have a small collection of creature head figures with basic body concepts.

Other things to work on during the holidays are keeping on top of my blog, completing the ethics form and reading some books on film and creature design. I have ordered Terryl Whitlatch’s two new books, Principles of Creature Design: Creating Imaginary Animals and Science of Creature design: Understanding Animal Anatomy. Another book I’ve ordered is Evolution in Action: Natural History through Spectacular Skeletons by Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu. I will be reading these books, taking notes and quotes on what I find interesting or important to my project.     

Overall, I have a lot of work to complete over the holidays, but I am excited to get back into drawing after all the written work on the other parts of my coursework. 

Weta Digital’s 3D Horse creation

Weta Digital is a visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand. They are known for developing innovative technology.

Weta Digital’s Tissue physically-based framework has won a scientific and engineering award for its software which is able to build muscles, fat and skin for creatures and characters for film. This software has been used in films such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Avatar, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Prometheus. 

From the videos linked below, it shows the process of taking a horse skeleton, adding in the muscles, fat and then showing the final product of a very realistic horse galloping. It shows the importance of anatomy and how it can be used for 3D models within video games and film.

In-depth knowledge of animal anatomy is key for creature design and by creating illustrations of the creature’s skeleton and muscles, it allows the riggers to see where the joints are and helps guide them within the 3D process.  

During the production of Avatar, motion caption was used to create the movement of the characters. Using Weta Digital’s tissue physically-based framework helped by turning the human actors into real, living and moving alien species. Having the Na’vi people move and have appropriate anatomy, helped the audience suspend their disbelief and connect in the world that they are seeing.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VlthWa5pu8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ePvH5f2OdI