Before reflection however, I would like to take this time to go through my presentation and discuss on here what I talked about in front of the class and lecturers.
Firstly I introduced myself and my project's overarching theme, 2D creature design before swiftly moving on to my main inspiration for the project:
Here I quoted Terryl Whitlatch and explained that I am not seeking to challenge her view or opinion, rather, I wish to explore it and understand it better, whilst also looking into the possibility of ideas that would go against the theories she has provided. As it stands though, I am on her side of the field, I just feel my project can advance more and shift and change by exploring, as opposed to sitting in one position.
I then put forward my first key question of my project and discussed as to whether believability of a creature and its appeal to an audience are separate or co-existing ideas. What I mean by that is, if the end goal of a design is to enthral an audience, is it possible to achieve said goal with only one of those factors, or are both required to be successful?
I moved on to discuss the fact that creature design is of course based on the genre it is placed in, for example, the Alien is designed to scare and I believe it to be a very successful design in that respect. Interestingly though, my lecturer Lynn said she wasn't keen on the Alien's design, which I was taken aback by, as I always just took it for granted that everyone thought it was good. This is something I will come back to discuss later.
I went on to ask another key question, which I immediately countered with a different question, 'Do creatures need to be believable to ensure their purpose?'. I took this forward and discussed it with an example:
I used Pacific Rim as my example, and in particular, the Kaiju monsters from the film. To me, the Kaiju, and the film as a whole, are pretty much just cool for coolness sake. The film was intended to just be an awesome monsters vs giant mechs fest and in that regard it was a massive success. But are the Kaiju in the film believable? Could you imagine one of them in real life? Part of me thinks no, but then, the designs just look right to the eye. It's hard to explain, as it's more of a feeling, but whilst I couldn't actually believe the Kaiju to exist, their design captured me whilst watching the film and I was enthralled as they were so successful in fulfilling their purpose of being awesome.
This led on to me coming up with a proposal statement of sorts; something which I could use as a base and expand and explore. The idea being that a creature design is based on its intended purpose; its purpose is based on the media that represents it. A designs success is not based on the representational media's success; its success is determined by its ability to fulfil its purpose. I went on to provide an example of this:
For me, Godzilla's design in the 2014 film was truly something to behold. He was massive and stuck to his original roots, whilst updating the design somewhat to bring more life and believability to the creature. However, the film in my opinion was incredibly boring. Godzilla was in fact only present for a total of approximately 8 minutes of screen time. Whilst I know this fits with the original Japanese films where Godzilla is not seen as the focus, I still can't help but feel that the rest of the film wasn't exciting enough to make it any good. Godzilla on the other hand, was truly awesome, the time that he was in the film was fantastic and I really just wanted more. He fulfilled his purpose, and for that, he was a successful design.
This then led me on to making an example of a quote from the film Monster's University. My point was that you can replace the word scary with any other sort of purpose; be it funny; cute; or whatever, and it still applies. A creature needs to be fit for purpose, and so, if a creature isn't fit for purpose, what's the point in the creature? This is what I plan to base my project on, and something which I shall come back later to discuss.
I also decided to put forth a little niggle I've had with the recent portrayal of dragons within media and make a point out of it. Now, for those not in the know, dragons bear four limbs and two wings, where as wyverns bear two limbs and two wings, then there are wyrms etc, but I'm not getting into all that just now.
My point is, that so many films and games have represented their 'dragons' as wyverns. Even when adapted from books, like Harry Potter and The Hobbit, which specifically say 'dragons', they seem to insist on designing them as wyverns instead. This doesn't stop their designs being really awesome, especially the dragons from Reign of Fire (pictured top right), which is one of my favourite films, but it always brings me out of the immersion for my mind to have a little grumble. My thought is however, is this something to do with limitations? Is it because six limbs is too much to handle? Or is it to help the dragons fulfil their purpose, for example, Smaug from the Hobbit looks very serpentine, intelligent and cruel, where as with 4 legs he might have looked ponderous. Interestingly, I looked up an article about the design decision of Smaug, as I had noticed that from part 1 of the films, to part 2, his design had changed. In the original screening of part 1 (the extended version fixes this 'error'), Smaug is clearly represented with four limbs and two wings as he pounds through the Dwarven fortress of Erebor; however in part 2 of the series, he has been changed to feature only two limbs and two wings.
Here is the article which explains the design change decision:
http://www.mtv.com/news/1719502/smaug-hobbit-fx-explained/
To conclude the article, it basically states that it was due to the motion capture used on the actor Benedict Cumberbatch who played Smaug, that meant the design had to be changed. Of course, this is because Mr Cumberbatch does not have six limbs, a very real and very clear limitation. Whether motion capture was really needed for this is another matter, but it still makes the point that as a creature designer I may have to work to restrictions and limitations, based on how my designs will be taken forward.
I then proceeded to show off the reference studies I had done from the books I had got, just as an example of the sort of thing I would be doing all year pretty much.
I then went on to show off some creature designs that I had been working on. Using the book 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them' by J.K.Rowling (which is essentially an encyclopedia of all the creatures from the world of Harry Potter, with only the occasional crude doodle to go beside each description), a took a number of the creature descriptions within and sketched out my own versions of them, ignoring any visual representations that I had seen before, e.g. the ones from the films. It was a great exercise and I really like the idea of continuing this on, advancing on concepts and refining them with more solid anatomy to really bring them to life. I'm especially keen on the bird-like creatures: the Augurey and Fwooper; as well as a couple of the dragons; namely the Norwegian Ridgeback, Peruvian Vipertooth and Swedish Shortsnout.
The final slide of my presentation just gave a few examples of the sorts of things I would be continuing to work on.
From my presentation, I was informed I should start to refine my project and hone it to something more focused. With this in mind, I have decided to create a sort of mini project proposal which I can use to refer to when I am feeling lost.
I seek to explore the appeal of creatures to their audience and how their purpose defines their design. This will involve being able to understand any given creature's purpose and evaluating its success through general opinion (questionnaires aimed at a variety of people). Personal opinion may be a part of this, though it should not be defining. A decent knowledge of animal and avian anatomy will help to provide realistic creature designs, however it shall also be explored as to how far anatomy can be pushed/altered before a creature design becomes unbelievable.
Furthermore, I would like to take creatures from literature and create designs for them, taking into account, but not copying any existing interpretations, whilst also aiming to choose those that exist only in written form.
The end product of this project will be a portfolio of anatomy drawings and creature designs that will be arranged into an art book.
As the slide of the creature designs from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book is rather small, here are the original versions:
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