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 =/)

This was my first time using a graphics tablet and I was pretty happy with the outcome. Was a bit tricky to get used to using it at first but after getting a bit more practice with it, its pretty handy to use. 

Im planning to still do some more work to it and add some colours etc... and try to experiment with different colous schemes for the gulper eel as on some photographs that I've included in my research the fish isnt black but has a weird pinky/ skin like colour, which gives it a completely different look and even texture of the skin.

More Drawings (:

Here are some further experiment drawings, I decided to create a character with human intelligence (hence I decided to keep the glasses from the previous experiment drawings) and gulp eel abilities. I did these drawings to explore how the character will move, and stand like. I especially like the last drawing, as it shows a nice movement and a profile view of the creature. Because the pelican eel has light producing organs along the whole body. 

I found out from the further research that the eel has very small teeth which suggests that their diet does not consists of large fish. 

Sort of reminds me of an idea of a whale, which is the largest mammal with a huge jaw and stomach, but only feeds on plankton.

 

La Belle et la Bete

La Belle et La Bete is a story about a beautiful girl that gets tormented by her very materialistic and selfish sisters. In order to save her fathers life, Beauty decides to live with the beast. With the kindness and purity of her heart she manages to break the beasts curse and melt his heart. 

I like how in this film there's a very large contrast between some of the characters. Lets take for example the huge difference in behavior and clothing between Beauty and her sisters. The sisters behave very vein, thinking much more of themselves than they actually are, which highlights the Beauty of Belle, makes it more innocent and pure. Which most likely is the thing that at the end manages to break the Beasts curse.

This leads me to another example of clash between two different characters, which is between the merchant and the Beast, both which are trying to win Beauty's heart. The Beast may be ugly on the outside, but as the film goes on we learn that there's more to him than teeth and fur, and that deep inside the character is trying to desperately hide his animal instincts. Whereas the merchant however, handsome on the outside, plots to kill the Beast and steal his treasure. 

This leads on to a question, what separates a man and a beast? Is it the way you look, or is it the way you feel?

"Many men are more monstrous, but they disguise it"  Here the Beauty is saying that many people behave like complete animals, but they manage to hide it with the way they speak or dress. Whereas the Beast, even if it looks like a monster, shows much many more human feelings than most men alive. 

Throughout the progress of the film we see Beauty less scared of the Beast and she becomes more and more attached to it.  The only thing separating the both is the idea of being "human".

We follow the film till the end where finally The Beauty and The Beast unite together when Beasts curse gets broken. This could be reflection of domesticating the beast. We can see, however that the beast wants to be domesticated ( in other words, be "normal") throughout the beginning of the film. We can see that he's in pain, especially after he asks Beauty not to look into his eyes. "Do you mind if I watch you dine? You'll see me every evening at 7 o'clock." Animals never get to eat at the table, hence all the Beast can do is watching the Beauty eat, because this is the closest he can get to being civilized, its like he's following his instincts which don't allow him to eat at the table. Just like there's an example of the Beast trying to go against his instincts to try not to chase the deer. 

The Beauty and the Beast start spending more and more time together as the film develops. The set takes place at a beautiful  Le Chateau du Raray, and the producer uses very mellow lightning during most scenes, and very bright lighting back at Beauty's family home. The use of mellow light seems to give more character to the love story going on and gives it a dream- like mood. 

As you can see on the Figure above the house fitted perfectly for the set. As it's surrounded by sculptures of large animals which again add more character to the film.

Figure 1: http://www.organicmechanic.org/scratch/belleetbete.jpg

Figure 2: http://www.thirdwaymagazine.co.uk/photos/ReviewsOct08La-Belle-et-la-bete.jpg

Some of the experiment Drawings

For this project I decided to create a character that gains special skills from being spliced with a Pelican Eel.

Just like in the remake of the fly, when Seth becomes able to walk on the walls, and upside down on the ceiling, my character will be able to breathe and move underwater (hence the gills and webbed hands and feet). From my mood board I've been creating drawings which concentrate on the main features of the eel, which is mostly the tail and the head, because that's mostly what my creature consists of (drawing 2 shows an attempt of drawing a webbed hand, need to look more into the anatomy of a hand to really recreate the desired effect)

Most of the experiments so far been to do with the shape of the head, drawing 3 was one of the first attempts I did to create my own drawing of the eel from the profile view. As I noticed the eel has a very large bottom jaw, and its eyes are very small and close to the bottom of the head.

 

Just like on that picture above, the position of the eyes gives an impression that this is not a very intelligent creature. Seems like it doesn't have many other instincts other than devour anything that comes its way.

Because of this I decided to take the human intelligence and mix it with the eel's strange abilities (this is why in drawing 5 I decided to give my character glasses to hide the very low positioned eyes.).

I'm still in the process of creating the moodboard I shall post it soon (:

The Fly (1958)

Produced and written by:  Kurt Neumann

Screenplay by:                James Clavell

Cast:                             David Hedison (Andre), Patricia Owens (Helene), Vincent Price (Francois), 

                                    Herbert Marshall (Inspector Charas), Charles Herbert (Philippe), Charles 

                                    Tannen (Doctor), Betty Lou Gerson (Nurse)
 

One of the first things we find out in the film is when Helene (Patricia Owens) brutally kills her husband, crushing his head and arm under the printing press (twice). For the first couple of minutes the audience can't figure out why she would do this, as there is nothing anyone recalls being wrong with her marriage or family life. The confused family inspector (Herbert Marshall) and victims brother Francois (Vincent Price) are desperately trying to find out the reason, why a loving wife would kill her husband. 

"-You mean you put your husband
  under the press?
 -No, Inspector. He did that himself.

-He put his head and his arm
  under the press?

-Yes.
 -Why?
 -I cannot answer that question.
  Coffee, Inspector?"

Helene speaks of the murder as if there was nothing wrong with it, and she would not explain to anyone why she'd do such a thing. They assume she has become crazy, because neither Francois or the Inspector can think of any motive or reason except insanity.

In the scene when the Inspector and Francois walk into the laboratory we see lots of smashed up equipment and find out both Andre and Helene come from a very wealthy family, as Francois says, they "have more money than they know what to do with it." Also this is one of the scenes where the audience stumbles on the ironic plot of the film.

"-Did your brother
  ever experiment with animals?
 - Never.
 - Or insects?
 -Insects?
  No. Though that would be funny, if...
  No. Hélène and André
  believed in the sacredness of life.

They wouldn't harm anything.

Not even a fly."

This is quite funny, considering that later in the film we find out that Andre WAS having experiments with animals, and in the next scene the Fly yet again is mentioned when Helene ends up showing signs of insanity after the nurse tries killing a fly that she thinks is 'bothering' the patient. The buzzing of the fly first creates the tension in the scene, which soon enough is interrupted by the crazed widow. 

So far in the film none of the characters can understand the reasons of the insanity. It's not until the dinner when Philippe asks Francois a weird question, asking about how long do flies live... This made the brother of the victim curious about the fly, considering that it has played a big role in the case so far. 

"-Because I saw that fly
  Mummy was looking for again.
 - I didn't know she was looking for one.
 - Oh, yes, she was.
   It's grown quite a lot.
   But I recognised it all right.
 - Mm, this is good.
   How did you recognise it, Philippe?

- Its head is white instead of black
   and it has a funny sort of leg."

 It seems quite suspicious that the day Andre disappears the fly comes into the picture. Also it raised Francois's  suspicion because

 of the amount of times the insect was mentioned by others. To find out what really happened to his brother, he decided to pretend

 that he caught the fly to see what Helene will have to say in that case. As he enters her room, funnily enough she asks him the 

same question as Philippe, 

'How long do the flies live?'

Yet again Helene goes mad after hearing that the exact insect she was looking for is found.  After Francois described the insect, 

the woman demands he gives it to her. After hearing its safely locked away in his desk, she finally decides to tell the Inspector and

  her brother in law what really happened the day she murdered her husband. 

"-Although I killed my husband,
  I'm not a murderess.

I simply carried out his last wish."

This is the moment when the story goes into a flashback. 

The flashbacks shows a happy family, loving husband and caring wife. Nothing out of ordinary, until Andre Delambre insists for 

Helene to follow him to see the new project he has been working on. It turns out to be a matter transporter, which Andre called 

the disintegrator- integrator. What it did was, it disintegrated matter in one place, the inegrated it in another. Which worked

as a form of teleportation. Shocked Helene couldn't believe it and thought he husband was just making fun of her. However after 

proving it, we realize that the machine is not perfect yet and there's still some work to do on it. This is because after the china bowl

 comes out of the integrator, in the place where it's supposed to say 'Made in Japan', instead it came out in mirror- effect. After this 

incident Andre, the passionate scientist decides to hide himself in his laboratory to perfect his invention. He hides himself in the

 laboratory for two weeks. when Andre finally comes out of the basement he's got some terrific news for Helene. after a night out, he takes her

down to the laboratory to show her when the bowl comes out of the disintegrator with the writing being exactly the same as before.

After he tries to do the same with a guinea pig, Helene doesn't agree with the idea, however, the animals comes out unharmed. 

Unlike the Dandelo, the family cat which Andre tried disintegrating 2 weeks before this event...

"-She disintegrated perfectly but never
  reappeared. I don't know why, even now.
  I redesigned the projecting device,
  and now it's perfect.

 -Well, where's she gone?
 -Into space. A stream of cat atoms."

A very important bit of plot also gets mentioned in this scene. Helene is frightened by her husband's 

experiments and says that it's like 'Playing God', however Andre comforts her and says:

"-God gives us intelligence
  to uncover the wonders of nature."

Oh the irony! Obviously neither Andre or Helene have any realization what's about to happen next. Helene gets a bit worries about 

her husband, after he wont answer the door when she brings his brother to have a look at the invention. Thing that caught my

 attention in this scene was after Helene tells Francois that Andre has something exciting to show him replies 

"- Well, what is it? Flat screen?
 - It's better. No more questions. Come on."

This shows the cultural difference between 1958 and 2011, where a flat screen TV is just as ordinary and normal as water in our 

taps. Yet, in this film it would be viewed as a revolutionary invention. After Emma mentions that Andre didn't eat his dinner though,

 Helene gets even more worried and decides to check out the situation herself. After she does, to her surprise Andre wouldn't open

 the door, and she receives type- written instructions from Andre, asking her to bring bowl of milk laced with rum. After she does 

what Andre asks, he lets her to come into his room. what we see when she does is a man with a bag over his head. Its quite a 

comical sight, seeing a very intelligent, rich, family man with a bag over his head. 

Andre reassures his wife that he is not in danger, however it is a matter of life and death, and asks her to find a fly. A fly with a 

white head and arm...At this point Helene remembers that Philippe caught that exactly fly earlier on in the day.

"-I caught such a funny-looking fly.
  You want to see it?                 
  But this isn't like any other fly
  I've ever seen.
  It has a funny white head
  and sort of white leg."

At the point of the desperation to save her husband, Helene gets both Philippe and the family servant to look for the strange fly. 

After the countless attempts, there are changes that are starting to appear to Andre, he gains a more wild character and keeps 

loosing controlof his left arm. He asks Helene to destroy his laboratory and kill him, she refused and said that theresstill chance to

 cure Andre, and that he haven't been trying hard enough. To prove it Andre gets into his invention, and at this point it's the first 

time we finally get to see him without a blanketcovering his head.

Helene screams with fear after seeing her deformed husband. To my opinion this was one of the

most effective scenes in the film, when we see the monstrous creature that used to be Helene's husband curl in fear after he hears his wife's scream. we even get to see with the eyes of the

half fly, half man. We see the fright on Helene's face, and after she passes out we see Andre

picking her up and putting her on the bed. This gets us to question, whats the line between a monster and a human? A human with flies head still has feelings, even if they become weaker each day... Andre decides to destroy his laboratory while Helene is passed out, so no other person will make the same mistake as he did and tries to play God...

 

 

 

After Helene wakes up and sees the laboratory ruined she decides to follow her husbands orders (another reference to 1950s of the wife being loyal to her husband). She follows Andre to the factory. he willingly puts his head under the press and asks his wife to press the button to release it. Unfortunately due to Andre's wild instincts his arm gets out from beneath the press when Helene pressed the button, that's why she had to do it twice....

 

 

 So back to the reality...

Francois isn't sure whether or not to believe the story Helene just told. 

However, Inspector Charas is certain of her insanity and decides to phone up people to take her away. Desperate Helene asks Francois about the fly, thinking if she shows everyone the evidence of this surreal story they'll believe her. Unfortunately Francois just admitted that he lied about catching the fly so they could find out what actually went on in the past couple of days. 

Considering to the lack of evidence, the lack of the fly, no notes or writing on the blackboard, since it have all been destroyed, Inspector decided to just accept the fact that Helene became insane. 

It's not until Philippe runs up calling for his mother, when Francois finds out that he found the "Funny looking" fly.

Francois rushes off to show the Inspector the evidence. And its this moment, I'm sure a lot people would agree is the most dramatic, hilarious and yet creepy moment of the film.

"Help! Help! Help! Help!....."

 

  Creeped- out Inspector grabs a rock and squashes both, the spider and the "Fly" with a rock.

"-You've committed murder
  just as much as Hélène did.
  You killed a fly with a human head.
  She killed a human with a fly head."

This is the moment when both the Inspector and Francois decide to cover up Helene's murder.

Because no one would believe a story about a human with fly's head, they decided to tell the judge that Andre Delambre commited suicide. 

The story ends happily with Helene being not guilty for killing "The thing"

 

Funny fact about the last scene that I found out from Hal Erickson's review on Rotten Tomatoes: 

"If you're wondering why Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall do not look one another in the eye during the spider scene, it is because they couldn't deliver their dialogue without dissolving into laughter"

 

Quotes taken from: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/fly-script-transcript-vincent-price.html 

Figure 1 The Fly Poster : http://www12.speedyshare.com/search.php?im=http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/mtjdfj/433179_1020_A.jpg 
Figure 2 : http://www.actordatabase.com/davidhedison/images/hedison_005.jpghttp://www.actordatabase.com/davidhedison/images/hedison_005.jpg  
Figure 3: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggnCxJchkpuA_6CDhJMijnaJdcDk7k5OBQ5MWjPYN1Wbqp72Yix45fFwPQQj5di_asOJCJhj8DpV3WrcOGAMVVyWGnq_olnzkwj9ulw-agkq3_5DyFmM8pajbcrOx5uudX-Ks2LVQfQ/s640/the+fly+1958.jpg
Figure 4: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwhO5k7fUtLZqt_iqOSkjXuK0MXUggdLBairnECMRLWl8-BvDPgsAxAzsWksXB-1hENsH3fHxJ8WXVYCO78VRQclDS9zCmXXqoS17WaLTi7vQcv23i47Qwi33aK_S3_wwm0kCotzfa8k/s400/THEFLY1958.bmp
Figure 5: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhX-55P5kZCjhv0I-wuUVG4nC2YwAcBBj3FT50NmZdEpuY8qN2QTCjh7UOJFcYo_5KLHXysTsxtDuQUVa-5dbwrEpVMteHqRHbnnTDjurtOHR7Eai-uTKMfFzQZJqbFQZAM1Wb2P7zlf8/s1600/the+fly+1958+6.jpg
Figure 6: http://www.the-filmreel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/fly_02.jpg 
Figure 7: http://www.the-filmreel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/fly_02.jpg