It intrigues me the idea of an artist having a responsibility to create a design based on a piece of text. They also have to deal with fan-base expectations too, as well as production costs and of course their own creative licence. As a fan of certain books, for them then to be adapted into films, but the creatures not appear as imagined, it's always a let-down. This holds true of characters and environments as well, but of course here I am focusing on creatures. There's the concept of sticking 'true to the original text', but even so, one person's interpretation might be completely different to anothers and it might again be completely different to what the author of the book had in mind; I wonder how much input the original author has in the design of the creatures.
It's not just literature books to films though, there are also books to graphic novels in which an artist has of course put forward their interpretations of the creatures that reside in the text. The best example of this, for me, is the imagining of the Artemis Fowl series into graphic novel versions. Artemis Fowl, written by Eoin Colfer, is one of, if not my absolute favourite book series. The blurb on the first book gives an overview of the story: 'Twelve-year-old Artemis is a millionaire, a genius and above all, a criminal mastermind. But Artemis doesn't know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit. These aren't the fairies of the bedtime stories - they're dangerous!' Naturally the production of graphic novels of the books got me incredibly excited and so of course I bought them and eagerly anticipate the rest of them being brought out. Naturally though, I was somewhat disappointed by a few of the designs. I couldn't really complain though, the artist, Giovanni Rigano, had stuck to the text very closely, he had just interpreted the designs differently to what I had perceived them to be.
Here is a link to Giovanni Rigano's blog: http://riganogiovanni.blogspot.co.uk/
I think so often is the case that once we have an image in our heads of what we believe something to look like, any other version of it is wrong and just doesn't sit well, not to begin with at any rate. It's almost like a close family member suddenly looking very different, you know it's them, they say the same things and they perhaps act in the same way, but it just isn't quite what you know; it feels uncomfortable to look at.
Of course, this whole topic comes back to my designing of some of the creatures from the world of Harry Potter, based on the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book. That series was definitely one in which I feel resentment towards the film adaptations because of the creature design decisions. I find it interesting because in some cases they follow the books fairly well, though still don't achieve the image I have in my head, where as in others, they change the designs somewhat. It intrigues me that the film adaptation for the second book, 'the Chamber of Secrets', came out long before the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book, and yet the Basilisk creature in the film is designed differently to it's description in the latter. This is strange as it would maybe imply that the author, J.K. Rowling either had no say in the design for the film or wasn't bothered by it, and yet her description in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them suggest she had a clear idea of what she wanted the Basilisk to look like. This again relates to my thoughts on ownership and artistic licence; how much say does the original creator have over their artifact?
With these thoughts in mind, I set up a task for fellow students on the same course as myself to partake in; that of designing their own version of the Hungarian Horntail dragon from Harry Potter. I chose this as it would be interesting to see how people interpret it, given that it already has a couple of existing designs and is thoroughly described. I have provided the potential participants with the description from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (getting tired of typing that) book:
'Supposedly the most dangerous of all the dragon breeds, the Hungarian Horntail has black scales and is lizard-like in appearance. It has yellow eyes, bronze horns and similarly coloured spikes that protrude from its long tail. The Horntail has one of the longest fire-breathing ranges (up to fifty feet). Its eggs are cement-coloured and particularly hard-shelled; the young club their way out using their tails, whose spikes are well developed at birth. The Hungarian Horntail feeds on goats, sheep and, whenever possible, humans.'
I am hoping I will attain a number of examples which I can show which will hopefully assist in showing my point that everyone has their own ideas to what something should look like and it's therefor very hard as an artist to design a creature based on text and please the fan-base, whilst meeting their own wants and the needs of the client.
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| Hungarian Horntail by Caitlin Goodale |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Ryan Johnston |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Ellen Brown |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Jack Stollery |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Sophie Charlotte North |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Andrew McIntosh |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Carl Packer |
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| Hungarian Horntail by Gray Young |
There is also the part of the project where I wish to look at redesigning creatures, but I shall do that in more depth in another post, as I wish to make a small case-study using the example of Godzilla. Regardless of this, it still ties into my earlier points of the responsibilities of being an artist and designing something that has an established fan-base. Again, you are aiming to appease the fans, appease the client and over course, appease your own creativity.
When it comes down to it, I suppose my research topic and question, if you will, would be:
Can an artist design creatures based on existing media, producing what is expected from them by their clients and the intended target audience of said media, without losing their own creative stance?
With this in mind, I should start to find quotes and references to back up my thoughts and create a list of potential people that I can attempt to contact to pick their brains on the matter. Lo and behold, would you have it that the books I had ordered, 'Creative Essence: Creatures' and 'Godzilla: the Art of Destruction', arrived through the post today. The Godzilla one I shall return to in the next post with my case study; I will say that it looks to be a fantastic book from what I skimmed of it so far. The Creative Essence one however I shall spend some time reading and return to this post with additional information and hopefully some good quotes that I can utilise.
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