Evaluation

I started this project with clear intentions of where i thought my ideas where going, and coincidentally they ended up becoming vastly different to what i had originally planned. I don't think this is necessarily a negative thing as through this project i have come to find what i enjoy doing as well as what i still need to improve upon in my personal work. I figured out different ways of working with colour that i had not previously tried and its still something i'm going to improve upon with my personal projects and professional work. I feel that i used a vast many sources for inspiration  for my work from films and games to more classical painters. I do feel that i have improved within my work from the first project submission and now to these pieces. Though i came into this project focusing heavily on character i have since found through this work that i actually quite enjoy doing more environment pieces which show the character/figure within this scene.

I am regretful that i could not spend more time working on monster/creature designs which was what i originally wanted to include in my final pieces, but due to having to take more work hours it left me a relatively smaller space of time in which i could put aside for university work, and i had to try and work around hours in which i could fit in more time to work on project work. One of the areas of my work which i wish i could have allocated more time towards was doing more work with Zbrush, which i haven't used nearly as much as i had hoped to, i would have liked to have incorporated a sculpt into my work for my final degree show. 

Overall i am pleased with my 2 final pieces and feel that they have a feeling of presence and they captured the tone and mood i was aiming to get. I do feel they are vastly different to what my previous work was like but i feel that this was a natural evolution towards this type of work. Working on this project has really helped me in developing a more personal style and allowed me to explore a theme in which i found both challenging and interesting to express visually. I have also  personally improved upon getting pieces completed. Too often i get half-way through a piece and over think it to the extent that i move on from it, leaving it unfinished. I hope to keep working on my personal work and to move towards building up a strong portfolio, i found through this project what i find both difficult and challenging as well as areas in which i need to improve upon my future work. 

Brain of yarn

So for another piece, which we will just call yarn brain, i wanted to get a more Giger(ish) feel to the piece. It didn't even occur to me that all my piece previously have shown a lone figure sat atop a perch, as if suddenly alone in this vast empty world they hoped to rule. Apt much? It certainly makes a change from the very omnipotent beings i portrayed in the previous project submission pieces.

The Lone Figure

So above is a piece which is quite simple in composition, i wanted it to be quite minimalist with the sole highlight being on the lone figure sat atop its throne, lording over this vast empty environment. I kept the running theme of string in here, to represent the string of life that the 3 fates control.

Arrival

So as you can probably guess, i watched Arrival. Can i just say, i love how when designing the language system the original idea behind it was from the rings left behind from a coffee mug, so simple yet so effective! Just goes to show ideas can come in any form and from anywhere. 

I was looking a lot into the work of one of the artists on the team, Peter Konig, and in his initial ideas he had some really interesting ideas about the aliens design. He looked into the form of the creatures and what if that form was not consistent, what if it was ever changing, constantly rippling and moving whilst still holding a solid shape. What would this look like, and why would it need to change its form? Its an interesting idea that i want to look more into, what if my god figure could change its appearance? it would certainly help when it encounters new inhabitants of planets, taking on a more recognisable form to suit its needs. 

Gods in motion

So i wanted to play around with using 3 figures (As i am doing the Moirai god's of fate, Atropus, Clotho, Lachesis) whereas i have previously been focusing on my 'version' being a collective of the 3, a singular almighty being. So for this piece i was looking a lot into Roberto Ferri and Luis Ricardo Falero, both for their use of female forms and expression in movement.

How colour affects mood

So i have been working on my use of colour in my paintings. In the above piece i wanted to focus a lot on showing light and darkness in the work. This is mostly just to be used as a mood piece in my project, using a simple colour gradient map.

Angelarium - Peter Mohrbacher

Peter Mohrbacher is one of my favourite artists when it comes to visualising the divine. His work has such a surreal quality to it with these huge looming god figures lording over all, it all has a very Sublime feel to it. Angelarium is his personal project, a book filled with paintings each exploring a certain god, above are 2 pieces from 'The Tree of Life' section. 

Environments?

So i was looking at various way to incorporate figures into architecture and what really helped with this was Giger's work. His use of figure to create these amazing pieces and landscapes just using the human form to create the shapes, which both look like their own entity as well as being part of a larger collective being or object. Above is a piece i worked on, i went through a few different colour iterations but these two where my favourite. 

One people, One mind, One Purpose?

So we all know of the strange religion that is explored in the Dead Space franchise, and in-between shooting my way through what seems like an unfair amount of Necromorphs i wanted to find out more about this strange religion the creators of the game had created. Seemingly its a religion based around humankind becoming one entity, one mind, with one purpose. I found the brief stages within the chapel areas realy interesting and would spend my time looking around at all the architecture of the scene and models, especially where they incorporated the religions origins in the foundations of the church architecture. 

For my god being i wanted to explore how humanity might worship such a being? would they immortalise this god like figure in architecture, this was something, design wise, i wanted to look into for my paintings.  

Scorn

So i have recently come across this current in production game called Scorn. It looks like Dead Space and H.R Giger had a love child and this was the outcome, a twisted world filled with hellish creatures and the landscape to boot, a horror first-person shooter where you encounter creatures that look like they just escaped from the dark fiery pits of the fleshy underworld. It came out to a bit of a rocky start having failed to raise the aimed funds from a kickstarter campaign but it still seems to be underway, with the first part (Its being released in 2 parts) demo apparently to be released sometime this year. Personally i cant wait to get my hands on this H.R Giger influenced adventure. Check it out for yourselves at their website at - http://scorn-game.com/

The beasts that lurk in my Sketchbook

So I've had to agree to more shifts at work, (Bill's wont pay themselves unfortunately) and working 4 full days a week whilst tying to complete project work is a bit hard to keep on top of, but i make the most of my rather mind-numbingly boring lunch breaks to have a quick doodle.

God's and the Almighty

So for my god designs i wanted to focus on showing this being in a more human form as opposed to a more 'alien' like form. This being because i feel that this omnipotent being, in order to be worshipped it would first have to appease the inhabitants of the planet and appeal to them in an empathetic way. People refer to Gods as being these almighty, perfected beings, it would be interesting to look at it from a point of view that these beings are just putting on a mask of perceived 'perfection' whilst hiding an underlying 'imperfection' in this case being a negative and selfish desire to rule, and what exactly is perfection? Whilst thinking along these lines i was looking a lot at the Character designs of the Engineers in Prometheus and how they were designed with the Greek statues in mind, this idea of a perfect physique. 

Colour studies

So from my previous series of sketches i worked on some colour study pieces, focusing on the light and shadow in the scene. Taking influence from prominent artists who use the style of Chiaroscuro in there work such as Caravaggio and Rembrandt. 

I was also taking inspiration from one of my favourite painters, Roberto Ferri, an Italian painter from Taranto. Who is inspired a lot by Baroque art, the old masters of the Romanticism and symbolism. I find his composition work absolutely beautiful as well as his masterful use of lighting, much like the artists of the Chiaroscuro style. 

I was also looking at artists who use religious symbolism in art. The below piece is by an artist call Mikhailovitch Vasnetsov

Horror Hotel concept (When bunnies attack)

So for the 'hotel corridor horror' brief, we had to create a scene in a hotel corridor in which its your first interaction with a mysterious being of some sort. I went with bunnies. Because why not; i wanted to do something fun for this project brief. Below are my initial sketches for hotel ideas, some more elaborate than others, i felt the simpler layouts would be easier to create a scene with, i liked the 'wonky' view point of the top right concept so that's what i went with. 

I kept with a monotone black and white image style as i wanted the red in the eyes to stand out more in contrast to the bleak environment.

God composition (4)

I really liked the concept that the gods are these manipulative 'puppeteers' of mankind like figures so this was the imagery I went with on this piece. My process with this shown below.

 Final piece

God composition (3)

Above is a really quick idea for a composition piece. As the gods i'm doing are the 3 fates, who in mythology deal a lot with the "threads of life" and yarn and weaving is featured heavily in the lore about these beings. I wanted the 3 golden strands to stand for each of the 3 fates, the hand being this big imposing puppeteer, of the fate of mankind.

God composition (2)

Below is a small aspect of my process, i started with a really simple and quick sketch out for how i wanted the composition and then i went straight in with colour to figure out where my light source would be. 

Above is the final piece. 

God conceptual piece (finished)

My finalised piece.  

Composition work

 Above is a set of composition sketches, through these i really wanted to portray a sense of majesty in the god figure. I was looking a lot into renaissance symbolism in paintings and looking at the works of surrealist artists like Dali, Andre Breton, Yves Tanguy and Beksinski. I will take these sketches further to produce some finished concepts.

Above is my personal work and progression into the final piece. For this I was heavily inspired by Beksinski's work, his use of colour to portray the mood of the piece and his dynamic composition.