Supervisor Meeting

Today I had a meeting with my supervisor Lynn, I showed her all the work I've done for my first two creatures. She brought up some good points such as the males of Creature 1, might have smaller horns because they do not do as much fighting as the females; and a side view of Creature 2, showing the difference in its brows between males and females etc.
We also discussed the lifestyle and habitat of Creature 2, as I have hit a wall of some sorts. Some of the features on the creature don't make entire sense. Mainly how the creature uses its lure to hunt in dark caves but it has also developed the black fur lining under its eyes to absorb the light rather than reflect it into its eyes. We discussed how it seemed odd that it developed traits to survive in both dark and light environments.

I need to do a lot of thinking about Creature 2 before starting a final piece. I thought that maybe this could be a new 'type' of amphibian, where a mammal has developed to live in both underground and above in bright sunlight environments. They cannot, however, live with one and not the other much like amphibians with land and water.
I have a progress presentation on the 2nd so hopefully I can get some good feedback on both of my creatures and my ideas for Creature 2.

Creature 2: Lure variations

These are different colours of what the lure could glow like. I'm only going to pick one of these for the final lure. All of these colours have been seen and discovered within real creatures that use Bioluminescence. I like all of these colours, but the ones that I like the best are blue and red.

Creature 2: male and female final turnaround

Here are the final turnaround sheets for both male and female. Female is at the top and male is at the bottom. The male is slightly bigger than the female and also has a bushier tail, for attracting the female. The colour of their fur is to help them blend in their environment of hot desert sand with their pale and speckled fur. When they are outside, it is when they are the most venerable from predators.

Creature 2: Fur Variations

Here are the fur variations, showing speckles, spots and markings for each colour scheme. I still want to think about which one I want for the final colour scheme for this creature as there are ones that I like and cant decide. There are some that I do not think will work, such as the 15th one, because it looks like a strawberry and I don't think it'll work in a desert type environment.

Creature 2: Colour Variations

Here are colour variations for creature 2, the female is on the left and the male is on the right. I wanted to keep in mind that they spend a lot of time underground and only sometimes come out onto a dry and extremely hot climate type of environment. The darker colours I thought would best suited for when they are in dark caves, but then these caves would barely have any light and some caves are so deep that there is no actual light in them at all. Therefore I thought that maybe a darker colour wouldn't really matter. I then thought about the time they spent outside, looking for these cave entrances, water sources etc. This is the time where they are most venerable from predators and even the sun itself. A lighter colour to blend in with the sand and to reflect the light off their body, to try and keep themselves cool in the sun.
I still have to creature fur patterns for each of these, until then, I'll make my decision of which colour scheme I think best suits this creature and its environment.

Creature 2: Male and Female turnaround

Here are the fully rendered turnaround sheets for both male and female. The difference between the two is subtle, the male is slightly bigger than the female and also has a bushier tail to make them appear ever bigger. The tail will also be a slightly different colour to the rest of their fur to attract females but not too much, because they usual mate for life with one female once they have set up their own family society, or gang. Young males usually leave their families to start their own family.

Creature 2: Skeleton and Muscles turnaround

Above is are the skeleton, muscles and fully rendered muscles turnaround sheets. With the front and back views of the creature, I didn't show the other half of it because when I tested it, it look very cluttered and also the information of the skeleton and muscles, wasn't very clear.
Overall, I'm warming to this little guy and can't wait to start developing its fur and colour scheme.

Creature 2: Animal Anatomy

Above are sketches of the skulls of a Rhesus Macaque (top left) and saimiri sciureus (other two) or other know as a Common Squirrel Monkey. The Rhesus Macaque has strong bone and large teeth for defence. The Squirrel Monkey has a smaller more fragile skull with small proportions apart from the eye sockets.

Above is a skeleton sketch of the Common Squirrel monkey and its hands. Its hard are made perfect for gripping onto branches. It has a long spine leading into its tail for balance as it is jumping from branch to branch.
 

This is the muscle structure of the Common Squirrel Monkey. It is a very nimble creature but still quite athletic for its day to day lifestyle.
I feel that a mixture of the Common Squirrel Monkey's body which is made for high amounts of climbing, jumping and leaping, mixed with the skull features of the Rhesus Macaque will be a good reference for my creature anatomy.

Animal Inspiration

Here is a mood board of different kinds of monkeys to help me for inspiration. Some of these are quite common like the Marmoset, and some are endangered such as the Snub Nosed Monkey. The list of different species in this mood board are:

• Rhesus Macaque 
• Francois Langur
• Saimiri Sciureus
• Common Marmoset 
• Snub Nosed Monkey 
• Emperor Tamarin 

The different shapes and colours of these monkeys I find really interesting. I actually had never heard of a Snub Nosed Monkey before and they are so unusual looking with their bring orange fur and blue faces. I also quite enjoy the long white beard of the Emperor Tamarin, it has a nice contrast to the rest of its black fur. 

Creature 2: Head Closeup

Here's the head closeup to show more detail of the creatures face. It has long hair and whiskers on its face to help guide it through dark tunnels. Long hair on the rest of its body helps to keep it warm in the caves and protect its skin from sunburn for the brief time its outside. Large ears, and a big snout to again, help guide it through cave systems. This creature is on its way to its favourite hunting spot.

Illustrative Pieces: Creature 2

Here are some illustrative pieces to help me visualise this creature in its natural habitat. Above is a relative of the baby, going into a cave to help teach it the best places to hunt. The baby is safe on its back and gets to learn by watching everything she does. As the baby gets older, it takes a more active approach of learning by killing and eating its first insects. Then onto harder prey such are lizards; all under the careful guidance of its mother, aunts and uncles as the community helps to raise its young rather than just the mother.




Here is an adult at the entrance to its home, making sure there is no danger before the young ones make their first adventure outside their burrow for the first time. The young must be babysat by members of the family, they all take it in turns to babysit, clean out the burrows, guard duty and go out hunting. The babies are taught everything by their older relatives

This is an adult hunting within a dark cave using its lure to attract its prey. The lure is full of bioluminescence which is a bacteria that emmets light. All this creature has to do is get into a good position, stay still and twitch its lure from time to time, and attract its prey.

Evolution in Action

“The result of natural selection will not be a species ever more powerful and prolific, but rather a continual adaptation to the changing conditions of life.” Page 97

Evolution takes many forms and affects different species in different ways. Every species is subjected to a number of constraints such as the change in climate or vegetation, or the migration of prey animals. Each of these factors affects every creature in some form, whether it is the change in their size, behaviour or even their diet. A Creature’s main goal within their lives is to reproduce and survive; in difficult situations this can cause an animal to take actions in which is not regular to them. Such as with the sudden early migration of prey animals because of extreme drought in Africa, left the Lions desperate for food. Resulting in them hunting and killing young elephants. This is not typical behaviour as it is extremely dangerous to separate a calf from the herd.

The delegate balance of routine in nature can be incorporated into creature design. The introduction to the main characters could have a dramatic affect on a creature’s behaviour, out of fear it could create aggression towards the characters.  

Parasitism is a behaviour developed by some animals, the definition of a parasitism animal, is an association of two species in which one exploits the other. For example, the Cuckoo bird lays its eggs within another bird’s nest. This other bird takes care of it until the cuckoo egg hatches. The chick then begins to push the other eggs out of the nest, leaving itself for the mother bird to give it undivided care. The host bird never notices the difference in eggs or even chicks as it raises another bird’s offspring. The benefit for the mother Cuckoo is that it does not have the responsibility of parenthood and can focus on its own survival as another bird raises its young.

The Skua is a sea bird that is also parasitic; they attack other sea birds when they have made a catch. Behaviour such as this is a survival tactic; it harasses other birds for their prey. By doing this, the Skua is saving energy by not hunting for its own food; the other bird has to work twice as hard to survive.

Alien creatures could show parasitism behaviour towards humans. Human characters within a film could be the host for the creature to reproduce or to protect them. If characters are busy killing an alien species that is the enemy of another alien, they will become docile for the time being towards humans. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Once humans have stopped being useful, the creatures could become hostile to them.

“For biologists, the word ‘evolved’ does not carry exactly the same meaning as in ordinary language. Evolution is not necessarily an improvement but simply a transformation.” Page 55

The mandrill’s skull has large fags, bigger than the average omnivores teeth. These massive fangs are not for killing or taking down prey, which is what you would first expect, but for more social reasons. Mandrills use their fangs for scaring off predators and establishing themselves within their social group. An animal may develop specific traits for not the obvious reason, such as these fangs. A creature that looks a certain way is not necessarily because of the obvious reason. A creature with a large collection of tusks and teeth is more likely for fighting each other, rather than taking down prey. For example, the Babirusa is a type of pig that grows two sets of tusks; one set from the mouth and the other on the bridge of the nose. The tusks are used for fighting each other and protecting their face, however if these tusks grow long enough, it will grow through the skull and into the brain, killing them.   

The larger the animal, the more difficult it is surviving, that is the problem with giants. They need large territories for their huge feeding needs and they tend to have structural problems due to their large frame. Large animals live longer but their reproduction rate is slower, and with the large territories, mates tend to be difficult to find. Elephants combat the weight of their huge skull by having many air filled cavities, which reduces its weight without diminishing its strength. This makes it easier to be the size they are by having its weight reduced.

A creature cannot be huge without have multiple structural problems, a large creature are not as agile or fast as one half its size. Even an Elephant cannot jump, at least tweet feet firmly on the ground to support itself.

All images and quotes in this blog post I have scanned/quoted myself from the referenced book below: 

Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu. And Gries P. 2011. Evolution in Action: Natural History through Spectacular Skeletons. Thames & Hudson.

Creature 2: Development Sketches

Here are development sketches of creature 2. I imagine this creature to be quite small, about the size of a domestic cat. They are nimble, light and live in a society similar to Meerkats. They live in large family groups with one dominant male and female who are the only ones who have the breeding rights. They live mostly underground to protect their young from other predators, and they hunt in dark underground tunnels and caves, using their lure to help them. They large fangs, like a lot of monkeys and apes, are used for show. They can bare their teeth at each other in aggression or defence.  
At first I thought that they would only live underground where there is no light, thus making them blind. They would use the long hairs on their face like cats whiskers to help them navigate through the cave. Then I began thinking that a mammal would find it almost impossible to survive and raise its young in this kind of environment.
I need to think about this creatures live style more in order to properly create a believable creature.

Charcoal Sketches: Creature 2

Here are some quick charcoal drawings, mostly figuring out the shape of the creatures head and snout. I'm thinking of a small to medium size monkey, not an ape. I'll be doing research into different kinds of monkeys as I don't know a lot about them let alone how they move and their anatomy. I'll be exploring and developing more in my sketches after doing the monkey research.

McManus Gallery

Today I went to the McManus gallery to do some sketching of their taxidermy animals. They had a skull of an extinct cow called Aurochs which was twice the size of a cow today. They also had animals like bears, wolves and birds. I did some sketches of the animals that I felt inspired by, I really liked studying the animals that had expressions such as the roaring bear and the howling wolf. I found it difficult to draw snouts like the one on the badger. I find it difficult to draw because snouts are straight and bent at the same time. Its hard to get the angle and perspective right for me. Obviously this is something that I need to commit time to studying and practicing. I do however, like the sketch I drew of the owl, its hard to get the detail and the body shape right for an animal thickly covered in feathers, but I think I did a good job.
Overall, I really enjoyed doing this and I wish I had more time to do this more often. I will try and make a habit of drawing from real life whether its from a taxidermy animal or a pet.
 

Inkblot Creature 2 Development

Here is the initial development for creature 2, the left is the inkblot and the right is my interpretation of it. To me the inkblot looks a lot like a monkey with lots of strands of fair. The top of the head could be a lure much like the lures of creatures in the deepest part of the sea. This creature is a bit more complicated than the last one, and I really have to think and develop it to justify every part of it's anatomy.    

Meeting with Simone

With my meeting with Simone, we discussed my work so far. She was happy with the work I was producing and gave me some advice on different places for inspiration which were the McManus Gallery, Camperdown Zoo and D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum.
We also discussed what I was going to produce for my showcase. My ideas are to have each of the final pieces of each creature printed out and have a book showing the development of each creature. We looked at different printing websites and the one I liked best was Blurb. The others were Moo and Vista Print.
Looking back to my research proposal, the question of "Does practical creature design have an affect on suspension of disbelief?" does not apply to my project as well. the term suspension of disbelief is quite broad, it included story, environment, characters etc. With my project, I only want to focus on the creature design. I need to rethink my question, to focus my project research further as to not get distracted by other aspects of film.

For the next group meeting next thursday, I need to create a new question that better fits my project and to start creating the questions for my interviews.

10 myths about the rule of thirds

Travis Leaf Glover has written a really interesting article on his thoughts about the rule of thirds and how it has impacted him as an artist. He believes that this rule has delayed his growth as an artist and encourages other artists to practice other rules.  

I've never been too sure about the rule of thirds myself, because I always thought your images would all end up looking the same with the character/focus point in the same third every time. However, I thought it was the right thing to do, so I tried to incorporate it into my paintings. Within this article, there mentioned a lot of other composition rules that I haven't even heard of.  

• Figure Ground Relationship 
• Law of Continuity 
• Greatest Area of Contrast 
• Dynamic Symmetry 
• Coincidence 
• Law of Symmetry
• Radiating Lines
• Ellipses 
• Enclosure 
• Law of Proximity 

All of these laws can help me create rhythm, unity, tension and have the viewers eyes move around my painting. I did notice that when creating my final piece for my first creature, by using the rule of thirds I kept getting unwanted negative space within my painting. Both creatures looked so far away from each other that they didn't look like they were interacting at all. I intend to go back on that painting and see what I can change composition wise using what I've learned through this article.  

All images used for this blog post are from the article. 

Link to the article: http://petapixel.com/2016/01/30/10-myths-about-the-rule-of-thirds/