Personal Development - Life Drawing 3

Todays bunch. It may be until Semester 2 for the next Life Drawing installment. I spent the 20 minute session drawing different body parts rather than settling on a single drawing :) It was pretty action packed today.

Michael & Gabriel

Concept art for 2 of the 5 "Swords and Shields" angels.

Both deemed as solders of war. Michael is an icon of battle and victory, and Gabriel is personified as an angel of divine forgiveness and mercy (and lesser used for icons/avatars in battle).

Personal Development - Life Drawing 2

Only one long pose today, of which I messed about with colours and trying to tackle the face...Which I failed at doing (digitally). There are afew analogue/sketchbook sketches too, which I'll scan in and update this post with in the next few days. :)

EDIT: Scans

Focus Group Discussion

Week 10, and in today’s lecture Lynn and Brian discussed a new method of collecting data; Focus group discussion. So for the class I played as the facilitator and governed a group of 5 girls, as we talked briefly about games (mainly, trying to pick a game they've all played to discuss it) and we settled on Pokemon.

I asked what they liked about Pokemon, and carefully listened into their conversation as they discussed various gameplay experiences. Used words: "All the same", game immersion, fun and challenging, everybody has a different connection/experience of game e.g. Judy talked about slot machine and gambling aspects, while others spoke of starter Pokemon and others about eggs/breeding. Everyone has a different story, Pokemon games allow this.

When asked what they liked about Pokemon games storyline, "meh" was an answer. It's not a focal point, and while objectives are there, it's not that clear, and the topic started to slide to jokes and the theme song. This shows me as the facilitator story is not an interesting talking point to them, and it's really hard to keep on topic with a group of friends! And not to get involved with discussion!

After generic questions were asked, I added my own, "How do you feel about original Pokemon, and how do you feel about all 649 them now?" And as always answers were varied.

Many pros and cons, a great learning experience, and I wonder if I'll use this method of info gathering in the future :)

Angel/Demon Hierarchy

Robin and Lynn had suggested at Crit Week that I look into and establish a hierarchy for my angels (and demons) in my fantasy world. I'm still waiting for my copy of Paradise Lost, but I'm going to power on through with my current set of angels.

I've looked extensively at different religious hierarchies and it's been the most useful on information. Of course from Holy book to Holy book and even website to website details vary, but I find this gives me the opportunity to take a grounded idea and turn it into something my own and new. I have however decided to keep the angels/demons holy names as to keep a level of familiarity.

Angel Hierarchy

Voice: Metatron, Seraphiel
Sword & Shield of Peace: Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Azrael
Gifted Virtues: Humility, Kindness, Patience, Diligence, Charity, Temperance, Chastity

Demon Hierarchy

Voice: Lucifer, Lilith
Sword & Sheilds of Chaos: Leviathan, Beelzebub, Mammon, Asmodaeus, Mammon, Belphegor
Poisonous Sins: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Lust

Angel Voices and Swords & Shields dwell in an unimaginable parallel plane to the world they watch over. The plane is referred to as the Higherworld by most species, while some disregard it's existence and some believe that is where paradise after death lies. The truth is no living creature outside angels have seen the Higherworld, there is no record of how it looks, and no souls but angels inhabit it. The very same truth goes for the Lowerworld, the inhabitants of demons. But instead of a paradise, it's seen as a place of fear and nightmare. 

Minus the Voices, angels and demons can be killed by one another. No species has the means to kill these creatures. When an angel or demon dies, it is replaced. Angels or demons cannot reproduce, and instead are spawned in their respective planes, but it is unsure how. In the space of a year they are full-grown and matured, ready to take on the role of the angel before them. It is extremely rare to see a child or teen angel on earth. Demonic children or teens are more common, and take three years to mature.

3rd class angels and demons (virtues/sins) exist for the world. The Virtues try to aid the beauty of the world while the Sins try to destroy it. They influence the world quietly. Different cultures/species believe they do this for different reasons. The world could continue to exist without angels and demons, as they only serve to influence the inhabitable, not the environment. 

In my research of demons, I've found there to be much less significant information available than of angels. While there is a set hierarchy with angels in Holy texts and various kinds of cherubs and seraphim, there is surprisingly only 7 Princes of Hell, Satan (who is a Prince of hell), and the 7 sins linked to them. I found this quite strange, and had to dig deeper into mythology (especially Christian mythology involving the story of Lilith, and finding out about fallen angels such as Naamah, an angel of prostitution) to fill holes in my lacking demons.

Visually I'm still taking elements from different angels, media and fashion, and applying them to sketches. I'm hoping my next blog post will be an update into different male/female hairstyles in the real world from different time periods translated into fantasy feathery angel hair for my characters :) I'm hoping that will create distinguishable and unique characters. After hair, I'll move to fashion and clothes, and will actively be practicing life drawing to match different body types. And soon after, fashion me some demons. :)

Personal Development - Life Drawing 1

13/11/2012 - I'm so rusty!

(I hope to attend life drawing weekly and will update my blog with progress posts. I will practise anatomy, and how to utilize digital sketching/shading while working from life.)

Personal Development - Grey to Colour

Commonly used way to colour in Photoshop by professionals; greyscale to colour. Pros: To get all the shade values and lighting correct on the final piece without having to worry about using the 'wrong colour' (or a colour palette that does not mix well) in the picture e.g. deep browns and oranges on skin as a tone. Every thing is constant.

Con: Personally found it hard to colour on top of grey even with layers. This might be my own technical skills being limited. When colouring on top, I wanted to go further, and instead of altering the grey I started trying to add different hues for skin (later deleted). Again, colouring hair was hard to differentiate from skin due to flat grey layers. I found it messy.

May produce more sketches or works like this in grey to colour to practise tone.

Tooth Fairy

A creature that won't be in my fantasy world or that I plan to draw but found very interesting was the Tooth Fairy. It is a very interesting mythological character, in that it doesn't have a particular set image like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. The reason I chose to do a quick research into it is genuine curiousness and the "Rise of the Guardians" (2012) film's fresh approach and unique portrayal of the Tooth Fairy.

Despite for the tooth fairy not having a set visual, a majority study on children vote that they picture it as a female, and as a small winged creature. A quick search on the Tooth Fairy will bring up many blonde young kids, with fairy wings wearing a pink dress. So the most opposite version to this is:

Dwayne Johnson's portrayal is the polar opposite everything we're used to. The only thing mildy resembalence (visually) is his wings, which even then are incorrect and resemble feathered angel wings as apposed to insect fairy wings. This was however, a negatively received character. Does this relate to how certain cliches must be in place to make the viewer familiarize with the fantasy character? Despite The Rise of the Guardians not being out yet, the films characters have been praised and a large fan base is growing online.

To make the Tooth Fairy half human half bird is interesting and unusual. It is a very unique design, and the colours used are not usually associated with Tooth Fairies. Her appearance however fits with her back story,  and her regal status is seen in the elegant design of a 'dress-like' feathers and royal tones. Her personality is of a kind bubbly girl, again fitting with the theme of a girly fairy. 

She doesn't look like the conventional Tooth Fairy, but has been re imagined and accepted, and is an incredibly cute and new out-look on a mythological character.

Just some fun research of my own :) Back to Proposaling!

Crit Week - Reflection

Week 8 marks Crit Week. I presented my recent media tests, results, and my exploration and portrayal of angels. I also briefly discussed how I wanted to go down the concept art route, my step back from in-depth story-telling, and what I plan to do next.

On the recommendation of Ryan, I've just ordered Paradise Lost by John Milton, looks like a fantastic read on angel-ness :)

Other feedback included was Lynn's concern for a missing link between my research and art. I need to demonstrate clearer my link between story and art. What is the connection?

I've decided to try start attending life drawing classes to improve my anatomy, as well as reading up in angels in the video game series Diablo.

Next on my blog will be a summery to my angel research, and how I might be able to place them in my Universe in the future. Things to think about are angels (and demons) hierarchy, powers, and how they'll be reacted to by my different species inhabitants.

Busy times ahead!