The Metropolis Review

Metropolis (1927)

Final Presentation

The Anatomy Presentation

CD Covers

CG Work

Some last minute screen shots of my maya work (:

Drawing Finale!!!

After countless sleepless hours, finally finished!!!

Written Assigment

Written Assigment

yayyy more photoshop

Right this is the point Im at now... Cant really figure how I shall add colours in though, want to keep it quite dark =S

the first stages of the photoshop painting (:

Starting off with the simple shape

Adding the outline...

 Shading...

 Texture, and more background

 Finally, adding some light....

So this is the stage I'm at now, more to come (:.....

Influence Map

I know this is a bit late, I've been referencing to these pictures throughout the project, only just now had the chance to put them onto the map, enjoy (:

Creepy Mermaid??

 This was the first initial 2D sketch. I tried to create something more original and different from my last design. As you can see I've kept the idea of a very enlarged neck and slim, eel shaped body. I also kept the idea of the half human/ half eel face. However I tried making it to look more like a half human, because it would be quite a comical picture to see a fish with legs... Considering a gulper eel is a deep sea creature I would imagine this sort of hybrid to have a creepy look, and if somehow the splice DID happen, and I'd end up with no legs but just a pair of arms, I'd end up having a very strong upper body if I had to drag and balance my whole body weight on my arms.

Here is some more initial sketches. I especially like the top one, where it looks as the eel is crawling out from behind a rock.  I need to look in more in how the upper body works and the muscles that attach the arms to your back. I noticed the way my hybrid moves resembles the ghosts from 'The Grudge'. which makes me think my hybrid would end up having quite a creepy look.

 http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/4973013534_bfd777d5a3.jpg

 http://th00.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2011/037/d/0/kayako_saeki_by_yashamaru666-d38xfid.jpg

 http://chrisrrau.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/monster-the-grudge.jpg

Adding my features to the splice

After having some practice with drawing my own face features i decided to do some experimental drawings to see if I could create a gulper eel that looks more like Alicia, but still keeps the key features of the creature.

By using the power if a layout pad Ive been able to create a drawing that sits between a human and an eel. As in the drawing above my hybrid already has bigger cheeks and similar eyes.

The 2 above sketches, are very similar to the last drawings i made (Eels head with my own body), the difference is that this time its not only JUST the eels head. But eel's head with more Alicia features. I especially like the top image as the posture flows together nicely. However, I noticed it looks a lot like something taken out of avatar... the bottom picture however looks too human...
As you can see I have also considered giving myself fish- like skin to add to the hybrid effect.

Self Portraits (Face Study)

I did a couple of self portraits by looking at some photographs on facebook. By doing this I found it easier to then transform my own head into an eel, this way it'll have more of my actual features. I noticed from the photographs that I have quite large cheeks, so it would make sense if my hybrid also has the same feature.
These are the original photographs that I made he drawings from:

I tried to mainly concentrate on the basic face features, and not pay much attention to detail so then its easier to see how the splice effect will end up like.

More photoshop (:

This is my second attempt at working with the graphics tablet. Was very happy with some of the shading in this picture, however as you can see there's still alot left to do here. I'm thinking to do bit more head designs (explore how my creature would look like with an open jaw, etc...), and try to add some more features resembling me in particular in them, considerinf the animal has been spliced with me it might of kept some of my characteristics or habits. I was thinking, when it comes to colouring my character in, to give it red hair to make it look more like me, as that's the colour I kept throughout the summer. I will either leave the eyes completely white, or use as I did in some of my previous drawings, give the character some glasses, just like they do in a lot of anime shows when the producers create a blind character, give it glasses to resemble it more.

More doodles (:

This is a drawing I created by using a layout pad, as you seen on the previous post, I've made a sketch of the spine and skull of my creature, looking from a side view. I traced the bone structure and then created the initial idea for the head and neck of my hybrid. The hair is supposed to have a sea weed- like texture, as this is a sea creature, it will be much easier to show what I want to represent using photoshop, so next up, photoshop paintings!

Creating the profile view was a bit more tricky. To make the work easier, first I drew a skull starting from simple circle (the first drawing), do understand more how a human skull is built on the inside. From that I copied it into a less detailed drawing, which then I transformed into a hybrid skull. After doing that I repeated exactly the same technique to create the actual view of my creature.

After figuring out how head is going to look like, time to move on to experiment with the rest of the body. My hybrid as you can see, looks more like a more creepy version of a mermaid. After my splice I've managed to keep the eel's tail, and just like a mermaid a human upper body. However, as you can see I decided to use the head I created after my previous drawings. The spots represent the glowy organs on my animal's body.

Last but not least, in this drawing I experimented with an idea for a different bottom part. here I decided to use a more feminine structure to the body. I like how the skirt gives the character a flawy kind of look, however I don't think I will expand on that idea very much, as I can't really see how I could attach the tail to this figure (which I think is one of the key features of my animal), I do like this figure more than the previous one though, its less dark and more feminine. I realised that the animal head reminds me of the Egyptian gods (very likely like anubis). I think it will be worth maybe expanding on that idea more. 

anatomy sketches

Because I've been having some issues with drawing hands, I decided to research some hand anatomy. I've had a look how the bones are structured which helped me with creating my own interpretation with how its built on the inside (on the top left drawing on the Figure above). This lets me create a stick drawing of the proportions, then afterwards I can draw the outline and worry about shading.

Because I'm getting spliced with a fish, I thought that it could be a good idea to give my character webbed hands (Figure below)

Gulper eel's special feature is the large 'pelican- like' jaw, what I did is drew and example of how eel's and human's skulls are built then tried to combine both of them to have a better picture of how my spliced outcome is going to look like.

Sketch 1 is the skull of a different kind of eel (which also has the ability to stretch its jaw), because the gulper eel is a deep sea creature, and there still haven't been a lot of research about it, I've had to depend on the structure of animals from the same family. Thats why sketch 2 shows my guess estimate of how the skull of a pelican eel COULD look like. 

Sketch 3, however shows a quick sketch of a human skull, and finally the last drawing is the skull of my spliced animal.

This is my initial idea sketch for the creatures head and neck. As you can see I used the skull from my previous drawing and splices human and eel spine. The bone structure when it comes to the spine is quite similar, because the eel has a similar structure to a snake (very long body, the stomach can stretch to consume larger prey), thats why I thought that I was ever spliced with any snake- like creature my neck would stretch out quite far. After creating this sketch I realised that the structure of it resembles some drawings of harpies.

http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=101268

Also because my animal is a deep sea creature, I've done some initial sketches for what kind of eyes my creature could have. I've looked up how fish eyes look like, however I came across an idea to make my monster blind, because used to living in complete darkness you don't really need good eye sight to survive (again a resemblance of a snake, which catches its prey and moves using mostly the sense of smell).

Inspiration Videos

Was just looking up some videos, I know they dont really link to this project, but they're awesome!

Elephant Man

 Director: David Lynch
Cast: Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Frederrick Treves), John Hurt (John Merrick), Anne Bancroft ( Mrs. Madge Kendal), John Gielgud (Carr Gomm), Hannah Gorgdon ( Mrs. Treves)

Elephant man is a touching story based on true facts about a disfigured Londoner, John Merrick. Throughout his whole life being treated like an animal, being part of a freak show, John gets rescued by Dr. Frederrick Trevers, who shows him the beauty of a normal life, friendship and freedom. 

This is a very touching film that reveals the intelligence and sensitivity behind the very physically disfigured John Merrick. John gets discovered by Dr. Treves at a local freak- show, where he's been treated worse than an animal, being beaten and kept in the basement. .

The scene that really got me in the film was when Dr. Treves goes down to the basement and is the only person to view John. Just after Gomm's introduction to the freak show after seeing Elephant man's face, you can see the tears slowely appearing on doctor's face, from that point we know that he feels sorrow for the disfigured human, and straight away we know he's a good character, even though still having small doubts after he examins him and presents him in front of his medical class. 

Tears going down Dr. Treves cheek after seeing John Merrick for the first time.

Just like in the fly, we dont get to see John's face till later on in the film, he just gets presented to the audience with a bag on his head, while heading up to the hospital. Gives us an impression that it's better to raise people's curiocity rather than show his actual face, which could cause panic or disgust. 

 'He's a clumsy soul, never looks where he's going. Good he's got me to look after him' said Carr Gomm to the Doctor to explain John's injuries right after beating him badly because he followed Treves to the hospital to be examined. Yet again this is a good example of how inhumanly people treat other humans, in this case because of disfiguration... 

All the way throughout the film we see the ammount of misery John has to go through, from being treated like a thing to being laughed at, and scared of. We can see clearly though that he's just as scared as the people running away from him screaming.'Its like talking to a brick wall. Obviously sir, what can you do for him?' People not only feel awkward by his appearance but also treat him like he can't understand what they're saying or feel the same emotions as they do, see him in a form of ' easy money' . 

We find out that John is able to speak, he's just frightened of people's reactions and noone in his life never asked him for his opinion on anything. All the decisions always have been made for him 'I want my man back' reffering to a human being like some sort of property or an investment. This is a film about someone that never in his life been treated like a human, someone that recognizes beauty, has feeling, person of a high intelligence that just had to bottle it down all his life. 'You just wanted a freak, so I gave you a freak. Now I want him back!'. Gomm is jugding people by his own level of his own selfishness....

As the audience we can sense the awkwardness created while the nurses enter John's room. They're afraid to talk or look at him, we can also see that all John wants is what any person desires which is acceptance and human contact.

 'His appearance is so terrible that women and nervous persons run off in terror...' 

Its not until Mrs. Treves, John never been able to speak to a woman. This was another scene that really caught my attention, as an audience we were prepared to see mrs Treves to react exactly the same as the other women that been in the film (scream and run). On the other hand though, she walks up to him, shakes his hand and welcomes John to their home. We can see in her eyes that she was shocked by the disfigurement but she managed to get over those emotions and accept him as a human being. Just like the audience, John is shocked and nearly breaks into tears 'I'm not used to be treated so well by such a beatifull woman' . We learn that John is a gentleman, which all he wants is acceptance. 

At this point of the film we learn John's love for beauty, nature and the poetry. At first I realized this at the beggining of the movie when we find him in doctor's office looking at the birds. Now we learn about his love to poetry and art. John likes showing people photographs of his mother, who also is a beatifull woman, he reffers to her that 'she has face of an angel'.

   John's only photograph of his mother. 

We learn about John's sensitive side. He loves art, human cmpany and acception. Throughout the film I've noticed the big resemblance to the 'La Belle et la Bete'. Both of thse characters may be deformed on the outside, frightening the public, but deep inside all they want is love and acception. In this film we learn the same message, which is that most people are more monstreous than any of these 'freaks' they're just able to disguise it on the inside.  Even Mrs. Madge Kendal says to John ''You're not an elephant man at all. You're Romeo'

After the creepy guard appears through the window we enter a similar scene to the one we see at the beginning of the film. 

Mrs Kendal and John Merrick, right before she kisses him on the cheek after reffering to him as Romeo

After the creepy guard appears through the window we enter another surreal scene, similar to the one we see at the beggining of the film. There are elephant noises in the background, laughter and panic. This resembles a lot a scene we see later on where the guard lets people into John's room when they all make fun of him, just like a part of a freak show. After John gets kidnapped by Carr Gomm to go back to his old life, just after he finally finds a new 'home'. As an explanation for the freak show the guard explain himself ''People pay money to see your monster, I collect it' doctor Treves reffers to him as the monster. Yet again we notice the theme that was in the Beauty and the Beast where a monster is not what we see, but what person feels on the inside. 

After we see John going back into the freak show, as the audience I noticed that he looses the will to live. People don't find him an exciting attraction anymore as they can see that he's in pain and in a verge of dying. He gets help from the other 'freaks' to get out of that hell. We get into another effective scene where after being chased by people at the tune, John gets cornered shouting 'I'n not an animal, I am a human being!!!!'

The film ends in a beatifull scene when John goes into the theatre for the first time. Beatifull editing done by the director, and at the end we see John stand up, and for the first time people are applausing for him, not at him....

 

Figure 1: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2583/3828012942_16cde1bbe9.jpg
Figure 2: http://content9.flixster.com/photo/62/65/08/6265083_gal.png
Figure 3: http://www.glogster.com/media/2/10/27/18/10271885.jpg
Figure 4: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzAvDFvfQ0bomBXUyvHEVRj1X4OxLFDz9YYFUxkthnG7ZgzuMZrdGIjdEnm_z6slJRMRMn7Dl1otozDxKL9okTWHxAiYusFkN9_AVXxjVGsMXmBnBwoHdSfh_p8w6-uj8rdXG8qvRZyId/s1600/The.Elephant.Man.1080p.HDDVD.x264-02.jpg
Figure 5: http://www.avforums.com/movies/images/showimage.php?image=/home/sites/avforums/public_html/movies/images/media/9889/news.jpg
Figure 6: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX2ofSHy6cksJOErCfwqygiGmO3F4gbpIc9MHv8EHpbI20N3UZaaQOFoskekjU-EnDS1_QeXYrHi8h5y1oM-83YkhCGDmUAfW0UJlC877cI17gaDgKJR1FZBD3w4GCCJbex0XcMhafLtZ/s1600/The.Elephant.Man.1080p.HDDVD.x264-31.jpg

More Eels...

To understand my animal more and figure out how my character is going to look, behave or what kind of enviroment it lives in, I did some research not only about the gulper eel, because there isnt much stuff on the web about it, but research what kind of skin, bone structure etc normal eel has. I was thinking to give my character skin that would resemble a fish (just like in Cronenberg's film 'The Fly' during Seth's transformation he starts to gain not only the characteristics of a fly  but also starts loosing body parts and his skin texture changes into a one of an insect). For example on the image above you can see the skin has very interesting grooves (Figure 1).

As you can see the electric eel is not that far off from the gulper eel with which I got spliced with. The only difference in them on the outside is the fact a pelican eel has a very weak yet large jaw that resembles a pelican (Figure 2)

The moray eel (Figure 3), was the closest skeleton to a gulper eel that I managed to get. Just like its brother it has a jaw that could open up very widely. By looking at this skeleton I can somehow imagine how would a gulper eel look like on the inside. Im thinking to give my character the abilities to unhinge their jaw so they could resemble a gulper eel??? 

Life Drawings

These are the drawing from the first life drawing lesson. I was very happy with the second outcome when we got to draw the nude model, I thought the shading ended up quite well, the feet aren't as good, however but that had a lot of to do with the position I was drawing from as I could't get my hand to the right angle when it came to drawing at the bottom of the page.. The last drawing was more of a quick sketch which I managed to finish quite early, so I decided to kill some time by adding some colour to the drawing and ended up looking not bad! When we first started making these and Simon was modelling for the first pose it got quite tricky because the shoes where much larger propotions than if he was standing bare feet so had to improvise a little bit with this one.

This was the first position we had to do during our second lesson. The lecturer told us to think of the body as a volume in space, so I decided to experiment with different shading on the body, which is what maked it stand out more and look more like a 3 Dimensional figure. As you can see from this, and the previous drawings Ive been having some issuea with drawing the hands so I've been practicing with the anatomy of human hands.

 These are the experiments where we werent meant to take the pencil off the paper to help us understand how the body was built. My drawings are usually quite sketchy as I use alot of lines to make one shape hence the first one looks very dark and sharp. The others dont because I decided to use a harder pencil to make the drawing easier to correct etc.. The middle picture was actually the last pose we did, which was the shortest one, in which I decided to draw it my own way and apply shading etc... sadly didnt get to finish it as it was already the end of class (sorry that the middle picture is the wrong way up, but blogger yet again decided to have the mind of its own and wont allow me to have it my way =/)