23/03/2016 - The Minotaur Experiment

Week 11

The Minotaur Experiment

The Minotaur

This is my Minotaur so far, I'm really not sure what I have been taking today to produce this...it has been an inspired piece done in a day. The colours might be a bit odd, but the line work is here to stay. I will either refine this version further (making it more "wacky"), or take the line work into a new file and re-colour him in a more gruesome fashion.

for the record...I do really like this version even though it is quite a bit different from my original intentions, but I suppose this is my creativity coming out in its own way...I have always stood by the "philosophy" of showing creativity through abstraction, I think I have achieved that today. I genuinely have no interest in trying to depict things realistically (not that I could...but the point is that I wouldn't anyway...), I prefer the expression that comes with the creativity. 

23/03/2016 - The Minotaur Refinement

Week 11

The Minotaur Refinement 

Over the past week I have been refining The Minotaur. Originally I continued on my theme of making him look horrible and in pain but that has slightly changed with my inspiration from Picasso and cubism.

Head Refinements

I wasn't joking when I said that I continued on the horrible looking theme...thankfully I altered this approach slightly and I have been approaching it with the same theme but in a Picasso/Cubist style. The bottom right image is my last design and is the one I favour the most.

Leg Refinement

The legs circled in green are older sets and the newest is the bottom right set (also circled in green). I gave him one bull's leg and one human leg with a hoof. I might not be a good thing that I have suddenly changed my approach to designing him but I see it as a change of heart towards The Minotaur and I believe that I could design him better using more cubist techniques to get a jarring design of half man/half bull.

Torso Refinements

I took the older design on the far right (under the hoofs) as a base for my newest design (circled in green). I like the posture which shows his bull like nature. I pointed the arms out of each end to give him a good silhouette since he is ultimately being designed as if he was going onto a vase. I also made one of his pectorals facing out towards the left and the other pointing the viewer. The main influence of cubism for me is the aspect of having parts of the person unfolded out so if they were obscured before, they are now fully flat and in view of the viewer.

Overall Development

My first image is my base torso from early last week, I then redrew it in a more stylistic way and then added in the head from earlier. I then added a few base colours to give a general idea of how he would look. I intend on mixing his skin with patches of fur.

Arm Change

Here I have played about with having a small arm that hasn't formed properly. This is an idea I have had throughout my development process for him and I think it could work. I experimented with having his right and his left arm being the small one but ultimately I prefer his left arm being the small one, it just seems to fit computationally.

Summary

The overall line work for The Minotaur is almost complete, I want to add a few scruffs of hair and perhaps adjust a few things before drawing up my final design for The Minotaur, after that I will add colour and I will also depict him on an actual vase.

16/03/2016 - Character Inspiration

Week 10

Character Inspiration 

Today I have had the idea (and necessity) to choose some form of an art mentor for each of my three characters. By this I mean I have chosen and artists or art movement for each of my characters that best reflects the style and/or feel I am aiming for.

The Minotaur

For The Minotaur I have chosen Pablo Picasso. I have chosen him (not surprisingly) for his cubist paintings. The main reason I chose him is because of his portraits. I believe that his depictions of people with his cubist fashion is quite similar to what I want to achieve with The Minotaur, I will of course be a little more constrained by proportions but in terms of how I have already been trying to draw The Minotaur's face, it seems like a perfect fit. Below are some paintings by Picasso that are the ones I fins most inspiring for my own character.

 Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937 by Pablo Picasso

 Portrait of Sabartes, 1939 by Pablo Picasso

                   Tete d'une Femme Lisant (Head of a Woman Reading), 1953 by Pablo Picasso

                Bather with Beach Ball, 1932 by Pablo Picasso

             Minotaur with Dead Mare in front of a Cave, 1936 by Pablo Picasso

As you can see, I have selected images that experiment with proportions the most. These images have good silhouettes and I think would look good on a vase in a Greek style. The way that he draws the faces flat in a lot of his paintings is a key element that I have been playing with for The Minotaur. I'm sure the influence of Picasso will be evident in my final designs. I only put the last image there because Picasso actually did his own versions of The Minotaur and was prolific with his works relating to him.

Hunger 

For Hunger I have chosen Anastasios Gionis as my inspiration for her.

I do not own any of these images below.

©2013-2016 Mavros-Thanatos

Birdman 

Cyclops 

Ghost Girl v2.0

Hanging

Painted Eyes

Quad Demon

I don't think I have to say much to relate the works above to my character of Hunger. I couldn't quite find an artist who creates images in the style that I have been doing for Hunger, so I have found an artists who creates disturbing characters to inspire my designs of Hunger...if i make any more drastic changes to her. It is worth noting though that I put this artists work on my blog in the form of a link earlier this semester, so I would say that his works have been in the back of my mind when I have been working on Hunger.

The Arch Rogue

Finally, for The Arch Rogue, I have decided upon Art Deco as my inspiration. This has worked out quite well because from the beginning of semester 2 I have been drawing him with bold shapes which is a key aspect of the Art Deco movement.

The historian Bevis Hillier described Art Deco  in his book (Art Deco of the 20's and 30's, 1968), "an assertively modern style ran to symmetry rather than asymmetry, and to the rectilinear rather than the curviliniear; it responded to the demands of the machine and of the new material the requirements of mass production".

 Rodolfo Reyes ©2009-2016 rodolforever

A tile for bathrooms

https://www.originalstyle.com/en/tiles/product?id=6480 

Michael Pacitti

Blue Hunter (Deviantart)

So you might be wondering why I have chosen Art Deco as my main influence for The Arch Rogue designs. If anything, it has been more of a coincidence, I started my refined designs using very triangular shapes to imply that the character was steady on his feet (since the triangles would make it seem like he is balancing on the tip). So it made sense for me to look into Art Deco, and since looking at it I have been wanting to implement it even more into my own character. I have the thought of taking my final character and doing an alternative design where I heavily use machines as my inspiration...Art Deco was based around machines mainly and The Arch Rogue is a German Tale...so it would fit the character as an alternative design.

Summary

Now that I have these key inspirations for each of my characters, I have a clearer vision than before for their direction. This especially goes for The Arch Rogue and The Minotaur. I feel a new breath of life has been injected into my designs for them with this new direction.

16/03/2016 - The Minotaur Inspiration

Week 10

The Minotaur Inspiration 

Below is a link to a blog where Leonard Greco has discussed works by Michael Ayrton. This is something I have come across in the past week.

http://boondocksbabylon.com/category/theseus-and-the-minotaur/ 

I am not going to write anything underneath each of these images but rather wait until the end of them to give a summary. I feel they should be viewed without interruption.

I do not own any of the images feature below.

Summary

These depictions of The Minotaur have been the closest thing to what I have imagined than anything I have found before. I think that the artists has managed to achieve a believable creature that looks as if it could exist. For me, The Minotaur still looks a bit too human, but, where Michael Ayrton has combined the proportions of a bull with a human seems to really work. You can almost feel the bull part of him almost bursting out from underneath his muscles, they just look unstable to the point of  bursting. to reiterate, these depictions of The Minotaur are the closest thing to how I have imagined him myself. He is still a bit too formidable for me though, and as you probably know by now, my version of The Minotaur is a creature of suffering. 

09/03/2016 - "Hunger" Refinements

"Hunger" Refinements 

Today I have been refining my current design for "Hunger". This first image below is the design that I have opened up today untouched, the following images after are with my refinements. 

Original "Hunger"

My first step today was to create a fresh, clean copy of "Hunger" so that I could confidently erase the problem areas needing work done to them...in this case, the head and the right leg and foot.

Erase The Bad Parts!

Right leg

It took me a few attempts before getting it looking right but here it is, that beautifully thick calf muscle, mmm. Later today I will add in the general shading so it matches the rest of the character.

Right Foot

...this is my right foot...not much to say about this. I have just redrawn it to look better.

Head Idea 01

These are my three new designs for the head, I have given myself three choices here for the head, I have tried experimenting more with the actual shape of her head. I have also experimented with her mouth and her nose. These three designs all have the sort of nose I originally intended (unlike my first design at the top of this page), that is they all have no cartilage in their nose, this is to imply that her body has eaten it for the energy. 

Head Idea 02

Head Idea 03

 Head Line Up

The final head I have chosen is the middle one. The reason I have chosen it is because I feel the head shape overall looks the most human, but still remaining monstrous, I think that by making her human-like, people can relate to her physical appearance as human and it will add a more eerie feeling to the whole thing as her appearance is that of a starved human/creature.

Heads Flipped 

(for your viewing pleasure)

I flipped them here because I found that they look a lot more terrifying this way up...and I wanted to share that with everyone.

Newest Refinement

This is my final design all blended together again to look like one whole character.

 Head Changes

Here I have circled the major changes in her head design. First off, I have changed the overall shape of her skull. I can't really explain my reasoning for this other than that of aesthetically pleasing choices.  

I have also circled the mouth, my original design just had dried up lips that were not very prominent in her design, this new design has also implemented teeth, which I have placed are varying angles because I know that people can be sensitive about teeth and seeing them in this way can make them feel uneasy.

The ear has also been circled. I had not put much thought into the ear before today but I have thought about how the cartilage in the ear might be shriveled up due to the hunger and how the skin around it might start to become loose and saggy. (I have come to interpret "Hunger" as a creature who was a woman once who got cursed because perhaps she was gluttonous, and that's how she became "Hunger")

I have also taken away the cartilage in her nose to create a more uneasy appearance. The reasoning again is that her body has somehow eaten away at it for any amount of energy it could get from it.

The last major change is the way I have drawn her eye, I have given her more pronounced eye-lids with more wrinkles around them, I took inspiration from the elderly to get the look.

Summary

I am happy with the direction of "Hunger" at this point in time. She is progressing well and in my opinion, looks good. I am not sure what else I can do to her but I will move my attention to my other characters at the moment and keep her ion the sidelines and possibly spend a bit more time on her later in the semester.

02/03/2016 - The Arch Rogue Colour Development

Week 08

The Arch Rogue Colour Development

Today I have been experimenting with the colour scheme of The Arch Rogue, the variation circled in red was an attempt to try out a different kind of cloak but I'm not too fond of it. It makes him look more devious than I intended, the current cloak/cape is more open and reveals his arms to be behind his back which, if anything, shows his confidence and ...

...the failed attempt conceals his arms making him more suspicious of hiding a weapon or some sort of stolen goods.