Treachery x Heresy 10/11.10.2015

I have progressed my design for the Treachery demon and started a new design for the Heresy demon.

This design was developed from my earlier dinosaur-fusing-with-environment sketches from earlier. Still much of the influence for Treachery is taken from Final Fantasy X’s Ifrit/Demonolith designs – with the focus on hunched over backs, big claws and horns. I drew inspiration from Alien’s Xenomorph (bottom left) and Scyther (bottom right) from Pokemon in creating a dinosaur that had insectoid elements, this mostly was to break down the body into segments. But after looking into God of War III concept art and seeing the Manticore (top) design pages I had to include elements directly from it. This explains the inclusion of the intimidating scorpion tail and the scaled “mane”.

Heresy, we decided, was to be based off of a Cat-Human fusion. Heresy is a sin associated with non-believers of the Judaeo-Christian God, which includes followers of other religions such as Pagans. Therefore the black cat was chosen, because of it’s cultural link to witchcraft, as the identity species of those cursed to the Heresy ring of Hell. There are a lot of Human-Cat characters in media, popularized by furries, which honestly not a road I particularly wanted to go down for reasons of my own sanity.

Final Fantasy X’s furry species “The Ronso” however made an inspirational contribution, but only because of sentimental attachment to these designs. I swear. I. Am. Not. A. Furry.

Onwards;

The idea was that the Cat’s head (referenced from a black panther) was a headdress fitted over the head of a regular human, except it’s not a headdress that can be removed. The idea behind this derived from the Forsworn armour design (bottom right) from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Other aspects from the Forsworn design such as the toothy necklace and belt of human skulls made it’s way into my design also. I have to cite Disney’s Hercules as a source of inspiration also because it was the first example I thought of when I was trying to think of a dead cat fitted over a face. Maybe an obscure scene to reference, but it’s what came to mind.

Life Drawing 2 9.10.2015

The second life drawing session chose to focus on the connection between shoulders, neck and the head. These were more 1 minute gesture drawings, and I focused on the study area rather than capturing the entire pose (which in a way I regret because I feel as if these drawings are only partially finished.) I started with some pencil and pen sketches of the female model, before being told I should switch to conte because I was drawing with my wrist rather than my arm.

Perhaps I haven’t trained my eye enough but I still personally prefer my pen drawings to those done with the conte stick, but I appreciate the change in drawing style as the lines flow more easily when I use my arm rather than my wrist as the centre point.

I followed this with more 1 minute drawings of the male model. At this stage I was told by the instructor that he couldn’t see any form in my drawings. He had intended for us to build up our models like what I can only describe as a mannequin, using basic shapes to mirror the image before us. I mustn’t have understood because I kept going on in my sketchy ways.

To the right is a three-four minute drawing of the female model, where I was told that I was doing the exercise wrong. I think I’ve got myself into such a blinkered version of what I think life drawing is that I fall into old drawing habits accidentally, and subsequently miss the purpose of the exercise. For instance the link between the shoulders in my drawing is so stiff compared to what it was in actuality.

These final two five minute drawings of the male model were my last attempt to complete the exercise correctly. It was frustrating because I could feel how slowly and stiffly I was drawing because I was anxious to get at least one correct drawing for the exercise. Had I been drawing in my own style I would have been able to communicate a lot more information about what I saw before me, but with this technique my pace is slowed. Hope to do better next week.

Harpy 09.2015

Been working on and off on this as side project outside of university. As an ethical vegan I have very negative feelings towards zoos and captive wild animals, especially those placed in inadequate enclosures (though this implies that any enclosure can simulate a wild habitat.) The planned narrative for this project was based upon a human/scenic perspective on the ethics of captivity/performance/entertainment in a fantasy setting.

I’ll keep information on the project on the down low in case it doesn’t go anywhere, but I’ll post my initial sketches and inspirations as an archive if anything for future projects.

Major inspiration for the direction of the narrative comes from the section of the story in “The Last Unicorn” based around Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival – where ordinary creatures are disguised as magical creatures for the entertainment of the public. With the exception of a Harpy, which eventually escapes and murders the sorceress in revenge for being held captive.

Fanart comic page left drawn by Renae De Liz.

I wanted to create very human-like Harpies, these are the sketches are the central character, she is based, surprisingly, off a Harpy Eagle primarily, but with other Raptor influences. There will be four Harpies, each based off a different species of Eagle/Bird of Prey.

Visual Inspiration contributing to the Harpy design; Forest Rogers, Venetian Harpy

Game of Thrones- Sons of the Harpy

Harpy – akreon