Life Drawing 3 – 15.10.2015

For this week’s life drawing we were told to focus on perspective drawing. This began with us drawing shapes of the pile of objects in order to understand shape and size. Of course I’m up to my old tricks drawing the objects with too much focus on the lines rather than form. We were supposed to put an emphasis on a “viewfinder” type illustration, by using the frame the broad composition was narrowed down so we could focus on a particular section of the objects.

We then moved on into the life room where the focus was to draw the male model posed on top of a chair. I feel like I was making mistakes in getting the perspective right, and Mike had to take me aside to tell me that I was focusing too heavily on line drawing. I understand where he is coming from though, and things made a lot more sense (in my head at least) after he redlined a drawing of the male model and made a cube to use as a perspective reference. It makes more sense theoretically, we will have to see next week if I can actually apply this method of perspective drawing to my work.

After class, Sinead and I went back into the object room, me partially because I was determined to have something worthwhile to show from the session. I focused on the bicycle and took photos to draw from at home. Mike however told me not to because it was using the same approach that I take to drawing – that is, as if I’m drawing straight from a photograph. The conversation though has helped put things into perspective (pun not intended) in that I need to begin looking at objects as a whole rather than a once sided photograph when drawing.

Though I find life drawing challenging I’m actually not feeling that negative about yesterday’s session even though I was more heavily critiqued. I appreciate that I have a lot to learn, onwards!

“Create A Look” World Research 14.10.15

So our group has switched again and we have been asked to develop a “look” (tonal scenes and depictions of environments in black and white) for a world to fit characters designed by a previous group. We were given the world which combines a raindrop with a Dyson sphere – the world is a water based structure built around a “sun” which we have decided is a dying star. The heat source for this world is internal, and it is a world that is permanently lit and constant in it’s seasons because it does not rotate around a light/heat source like Earth would.

Therefore, the planet structure compared to Earth is reversed, the inhabitants live on the external sections of the planet, closest to the atmosphere and farthest from the heat source. In this habitable zone we have brainstormed ice based structures, aquatic plants turned full ecosystem and air bubbles that house floating rocks and provide the amphibious inhabitants with pockets of air. We have to build our planet around the “mechanical ecosystem” left in the previous character designs; we have explained this with the planet suffering frequent meteor showers, and in these meteors there is the presence of alien metals.

Currently I am gaining inspiration from looking at underwater photography. Above is a “Continental Trench” in Iceland, taken by photographer Magnus Lundgren – I am picturing structures housing the underwater ecosystem, built from ice and crystalline formations. The coral formation to the bottom left in “Women Profile” by Adriano Morettin is a reference for perhaps a seaweed or coral based ‘jungle’ we could design.. The bottom right photograph shows how the atmosphere (which from an outside perspective is made up on glacial peaks and expanses of water) works with the world. It is Jonas Hormer’s “Leopard on Ice.”

To the left and centre are images of crashed Allied aircrafts from World War II (images from the Daily Mail) and how they had become embedded in the sea itself, and how the ecosystems are forming over them. We have already played with ideas of alien metals crashing into the world, it is another concept that could be worked with that remnants of other civilisations are present in the setting of our world.

I began painting scenes in frames to try and piece my ideas together. My underwater settings focus heavily on ice/rock formations, and I want to create some more based on organic plant life, the civilisation/habitat and the mechanical elements of the world. I like the grandiose undersea structures, as gravitational pressure lowers underwater the possibility of great swooping rock formations is made more believable. We have brainstormed as a group that these rock formations have been introduced to the world due to it’s high likelihood of meteor showers.

Here is the selection of scenes, painted with ink. For my next series I hope to use my gray pro markers to experiment with media;

I’m also looking at work from environmental concept artists in order to develop more of an understanding of how other artists tackle representing these fantastical elements. The pieces below are from Jakub Rozalski, a concept artist and illustrator, who draws a reimagining of post-revolution Communist Russia only with the presence of gigantic mechas. His style of painting is beautiful and the concepts behind the drawings are so fascinating. I’m using these as a reference for how we’re going to add the “mechanical ecosystem” to our world…

 

This artwork from freelance concept artist Dmitry Vishnevsky  below is similar to how I imagine our world as a whole interacts with meteor showers and the galaxy around it. Because it is water based the surface is delicate compared to Earth.

And finally, below is a scene from fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, which depicts the lost “Fountain of Youth” – I want to try something vine and similar for our plant based environments…we can work with seaweed and create interesting plant based settings out of underwater flora. All the possibilities!