Research and things.

So we have to do a research powerpoint presentation for the Pre-Production project and show all our research. I have a lot of pictures so I shan't post them all on here because it'd take forever, but here's a select few plus some drawings I've done in the recent days.

My character ideas have changed a lot since talking to people a bit more about them. For one thing the feedback on the child was that he looked like a dwarf man. So I have re-constructed him with the help of others (In fact they even drew a few suggestions - see below, well, much below). Since I can't ask to draw people's children. Well I can, but the motheres don't seem to like it. After the second glare I gave up and went to google. So I have made his head much much bigger and his body much much smaller. The eyes are larger like South Park, and the ears are lower down. One thing I noticed more with toddlers is they have quite big foreheads and small button noses.

So Quentin Blake is influencing me a lot with drawing and watercolour on this. Mostly because he's so GOOD.

These are some face ideas for the crazy architect who builds the New Town (e.g. Milton Keynes) with his crazy garden city and looming skyscraper ideas. He is based largely on the character Maurice Moss in channel 4's The IT Crowd, portrayed by Richard Ayoade.

These are some new face ideas for the Mother.

And more again, this time combining Vidal Sassoon hairstyles and Bernard Buffet's drawing style.

This is some hair research. Can't see too clearly as the pencil is quite light but basically just drawing the shapes of the Bouffant (more commonly known as the Beehive I think) and the perm and other vintage 60's looks.

Toddler faces. I like the one of the boy chewing his foot. I am going to draw this into a concept piece.

Toddler face ideas based on the above picture.

This unremarkable picture of somewhere in Milton Keynes actually gave me the idea to make the building literally grow. If you look from the trees upwards it sort of looks like the Building is part of the foliage. This ties in with the Garden City idea (although in real life the concept was a 'city in a park' rather than planting buildings and growing them).
This is Milton Keynes from the air.
60's Art. Since the Major New Town Act was in the 60s I've chosen this decade for my project. So I have been looking at the art of this time. Although Pop Art was mostly a thing of the mid 50s, it still kicked about and was popular in the 60s, I think. Anyway, This is David Hockney, whilst I may not be inspired or directly use any of his work as a base for my style, it's still worth a look because you never know and I do really like his work all the same. I like how flat and nonchalant it is. The colours are also bright which is definitely something that characterizes with the idea of "the 60s".
This is Richard Ayoade as Maurice Moss.

Whilst looking at the 60s I've found there seems to be 4 main styles or sub-cultures. The Mods (short for Modern), the Skinheads (started in the late 60s unbeknownst to most people, including me, well until now), the Hippie Movement (although mostly American) and as seen below, the Rockers, or Greasers.

An example of the type of Animation character I've been looking at to help design the child character for my project. Boo!

Although Calvin is supposed to be around 6 years old, his proportions are worth a note when designing a toddler. I also like the fact that he has an incredibly sophisticated vocabulary, which is one idea I'm thinking of er...being influenced by. Bill Watterson (the creator of Calvin and Hobbes) also uses a lot of Watercolour and Ink washes when colouring. (In case you forgot, my style is 'watercolour' which is why that's relevant). Another thing I'm looking at is the relationship between Calvin and Hobbes, and how I can use that with the Baby Giant and the Child in my project. Should the Giant be an imaginary friend?

This is Twiggy, a popular and influential model from the 60s, and a key posterchild for the 'Mod' sub-culture.

Paddington Bear uses watercolour. I like this style too. Sort of Quentin Blake esq and very subtle.

This is what Open University used to look like on the TV. This is actually Hugh Laurie when he was in a comedy duo with Stephen Fry. The clip is on youtube somewhere but I don't know how to post it on here. Anyway this is my TV style that I have to use. So the idea is to somehow have the child , as he learns, to then teach it to the Baby Giant. In this kind of manner.

These are some artists I have been looking at.

This is Charles Bartlett from the Royal Watercolour Society.

This is Bernard Buffet (1928-1999), a Parisian Expressionist who was a member of the Anti-Abstract group "L'Homme Temoin" (The Witness-Man).

I think I've mentioned him before, this is Mike Bernard who taught my Gran. He's a member of the RI and uses mixed media and acrylic paints.

This is Charles Bartlett again.

I drew some of these, but I handed round the book to a few people to draw what they thought a toddler should look like. We all came up with the same basic ideas of big eyes, low ears and button nose with a massive head.

This is the start of a character page for the baby Giant.

This is my new cleanly drawn idea for the Child. Calvin and Hobbes fans (like me) will notice Calvin's striped t-shirt and messy hair.

Some character ideas for the Mother. I'm thinking she's now going to be a mutton-dressed-as-lamb type, trying to get back to the 'in' with the Mod Style. She's still immature in the way that she neglects her child and refuses to grow up with an 'infantism' desire. That idea is based a bit on the character 'Joanna' from Channel 4's Green Wing, and well...a lot of people's mums when I was at school, but I shan't name names. Let's just say there were a few too many yellow convertibles for that age group.

And finally, just trying out some more watercolour things. I've used hardly any paint in this, it's almost all water. For white though I am using acrylic paint as it has the bonus of being thicker. Watercolour white is kind of pointless because it just gets washed away.

Digitize.

Here 'tis, finished. I shall use this as my cover piece maybe.

So today and yesterday I've been doing this, practising some photoshop whilst I'm at it. I've drawn the characters and painted them (mostly - see above) on paper And then have added the rest in photoshop.

I quite like it. I'm slowly moving off the 'creature' idea and more towards a Giant Baby...or, well, a Baby Giant? A Newborn Giant, and going with a bit of a BFG feel.

I'm going to stick a lot with drawing and painting by hand as it's so much quicker for me, and easier. I'm also thinking of calling the project "Big" because I had this idea that the boy was mentally disabled and hadn't learnt to talk properly yet (I'm thinking he's about 3-4 years old but mentally is about 2 years behind) and he meets this Giant and out of that his first word is "Big" and so he calls the Giant, 'Big'.

I'm still keeping with the mum not wanting to grow up idea. Although I haven't started on her character yet. I'm also looking more into the setting and thought of adding a Crazy 60's Architect who built the "New Town" (on my reading of Milton Keynes it turns out there were a lot of wonderfully crazy ideas on building towns about this time). However that he built it using Giant-slave labour to create his wacky ideas and managed to work them all to death so this Giant is now the only one left and the little boy has to teach him the ways of the world.

I then thought somehow the mother and the architect could have a love interest. I'm not sure how it'd work. I'm still working with the 'something for everybody' In that the mother brings adult themes to the story, and the boy and the giant appeal to the children and the architect brings a bit of comic relief, although I might make him sinister. Anyways. All that to enjoy over the next week.

Stage 1

I think the perspective could be more extreme in this one. Although it's almost mostly accurate to the original photograph, in Animation exaggeration is the name of the game. Most of the time anyway.
So I got assigned to Jacob's 'Inbetween: A Fable' which was what I was hoping after seeing his pitch back during last term. I have been given the job of apprentice background-er layout and design drawer man thingy. Basically, some settings and layouts. Using digital painting. One of my main focus's will be drawing a lot of architecture, mainly Gothic. Which is great because I used to a load at school, particularly looking at Bernard Buffet and Dennis Creffield. So I went forth to google images and dug up a few pictures of Gothic architecture to re-live the good old days and did a few doodle/sketches (above). I used to be quite good at, particularly cathedrals, I spent a lot of time drawing St.Pauls once for some reason. So hopefully I can get the skill back fairly sharpish. As you will see the above's aren't perfect so that shall be my endeavour.

I also got assigned to the project 1/3 but am yet to hear anything from the group leader.

Before and After - Just getting back into a bit of photoshop, working on this for one of my concept pieces. Maybe even a 'wow' art piece? Not sure yet see how it goes.

The before was all done by hand, using dip-pen and ink, watercolour, crayon art sticks (I say art sticks so I don't appear to be a complete child) and a bit of the old loathed biro and fine liners.

More Pre-Production

Inception meets Bernard Buffet....sort of. This New Town is going to mess with your minddddsss!!

This one is going to painted. I got the idea from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

AAwwwlll the people! Oh so many people...Blur? anyone?

ANYWAY!

Actually that does have relevance. a) I'm a 90s kid. b) look! FACES!

I liked this Seminar. The one Kathy did....sorry Derrick but she won this week :P

She taught us a bit of face construction, and yeah you can read it in a book, (I already had, in fact I had taken out over the summer and last term the very book she had brought into the seminar) but it is always easier to learn from a person. A book, for all it's qualities can't come and look around at what you're doing and give you feedback.

So yeah these were my practice doodles from the seminar. I might use a couple actually. I like John Clease and Adolf Hitler's love child down in the bottom right.

It was useful anyway as I think I'm well on the way with my creature character,

and my next step is the child character. Who is...looking suspiciously like Russell from UP.

This first idea (doodled slyly in the break in the seminar I might add) is actually a product of several occurrences;

Firstly; I had previously the night before (last night) been watching the South Park episode 2018 - Prehistoric Man, in which Eric Cartman emulates the late Steve Irwin (who was finding angry animals and then "sticking my thumb up it's butt" to make them even angrier).

Secondly; Tom, who was wearing an Indiana Jones style hat mentioned the Rugrats.

Thirdly; Kathy just showed us some slides of concept art from the 2009 Disney Pixar film, UP.

This has all congealed together into Tommy (from the Rugrats) sort of face, Steve Irwin's / Crocodile Dundee's hat and clothing, and Russell's (from UP) podgey body and overall shape.

In a previously mentioned blog I said my setting was "new towns, e.g. Milton Keynes" and that I had found a couple of towns were 'garden cities' which is were I though maybe the child character could discover the creature character.

Can you guess what it is yet? (sorry...Australian mode)

CRIKEY! (double sorry)

Actually...you know what. sod you Australia we won the Ashes again...NER! NER! NER!

anyway.

This is why I think I shall be going down this route of apparel for the child. He's an adventurous little blighter and he likes to think he's Steve Irwin or Indian Jones. Also, Indiana Jones was a professor right? So that ties in with the Open University theme when the child comes to teach the creature in a loveable '2+2 is...uh?...' way.

This is just me trying to decide and sketching out 4-legged body ideas for the creature. They have a habit of looking like Pokemon for some reason?

Yeah I know....he's still stuck in his shell! N'AWWHHH! Chirp! Chirp! Or does he just look stupid?

Playing with some watercolour and gouche on...apparently, Charmander? (some pokemon character) or Spyro? (Some playstation dragon game) He's not either! he's...! well, I haven't named him yet. Or given him very distinctive arms...or any wings, should he have wings? I might give him some hair too. Anyway, this was more about seeing what the paint would do, especially since I invested in some high quality watercolours in tubes. FANCY. And don't worry Mum it only came to £30, and that included fine brushes.

Anyway I have to live up to the watercolour bit, as my Gran (my Mum's mother) was a keen watercolourist, and I think she was in the RWS (Royal Watercolour Society) but I'm not sure, but she defiantly learnt and was mentored a bit by Michael Bernard who was/is a member of the RWS and also quite a successful artist, and my Mum even has a few of his paintings so hopefully I can honour this rich watercolour family history with ... my... er...dragon...

No I actually will be doing some environments and setting designs soon. And the concept art a few weeks down the road so wait here to see something spectacular.

So on to life drawing. Not much to say except the floor was opened to discussion, which was good, it's a life drawing democracy! There was a lot of dispute as to do 20 minutes or 10 minutes for a pose. And I thought, well, why don't you do it for 20 minutes, then either draw 2...or 1? But the counter argument to this is a model can do more extravagant poses if he only has to hold them for 10 minutes, as opposed to 20. But to be perfectly honest I'll draw whatever for however long. It's all good practice.

This was 10 minutes; charcoal.

Also 10 minutes; Ink and black wax crayon.

5x 2 minutes; Blue wax crayon. Tried to draw them as a series, getting bigger then smaller again.

Same as above.

Again 5x 2minutes but this time, I just drew the hands. I usually do one series now were I only draw the hands, because, I'm not that great at hands, and I like hands, so I want to be good at drawing hands! Also hands are quite important to Animation. Gesture and all that.

I think the morning's seminar was still rich in my mind. This was 10 minutes with graphite stick.

Reaaaach for the sky! This was one of the 40 second ones. Messed around a bit with the perspective.

The 40 second page. nneeooowww.

Another 40 second one, accidently made it quite convincing.

Another experiment! Has it worked? I quite like it, but then again, it was my idea. So, feel free to judge it on your own terms. I drew purely the tone (because obviously his legs and left arm don't look like that)

10 minutes - graphite stick and eraser.

Piccies! Yay! Life Drawing and Animals

So this is Amy, the Adult Baby. As you can see, she's quite sexy (well I tried to draw her sexy but there's no accounting for taste) apart from the whole, Diaper business. These are just a couple of first idea sketches, I'm going to colour them. I'm thinking she'll be an Innocent looking Princess type, but sort of like, a fallen princess.

The first character that I'm properly thinking about is "the creature" I'm trying to be quite systematic as research is heavily keyed into the brief. This little guy below is my favourite so far. I like his hair. (I took the hair idea and big eyes from teenage female Manga characters)

This is what a few pages of my book is looking like at the minute.

The great debate of making your creature walk erect, or on all 4's or....like a chicken.

(I've gone for 4 legged, and also in the above picture I know his legs are wrong.) What I've been doing is looking at certain animals, both reptile and mammal and drawing them and trying to figure out where their leg power comes from, what their movement is like and so on just from the picture. I think this will help when designing the character because it will need to be obvious how it moves from visual description alone.

However I might experiment more with the classic two legged dragon body, with more human shaped arms, but huge thighs and feet, with a more upright torso and spine.

I've ruled out walking erect like a humanoid because I think it feels too human, and suggests too much intelligence, not that the creature is particularly dim I just want to give it a more pet and animal like quality and the first and most obvious way to do that is to make it walk and move like an animal.

As for the face I'm leaning towards either a dragon like character as seen directly above, or the Lion character with flopsy dopsy hair.

I quite like how the Komodo Dragon looks like a sloth in terms of speed, but is actually a very fast sprinter in the way it scurries. It's legs stick out and flail all over the place in a Bridget Jones manner but it seems to work for it.

For drawing it I tried employing some methods Kathy mentioned in life drawing, such as the hatching rather than line, for the form (see front foreground leg)

These are my Life Drawings from Thursday's session. (3 hours)

(this one above was 30 minutes)

For some poses I focused just on hands and arms because they interested me at that moment. Also the poses the model where making were very much about the arm and hand movement so I felt that captured the essence best. All of these were 2-5 minutes unless otherwise mentioned.

This one below was 20-30 minutes using watered down Ink and brown/red pastel.

Adult Babies.

I have chosen the "Pre Production" project.

In this we have been given 4 cards. One is a Character, one is a TV Show style, one is an Artistic style and the other is a setting. Mine are;

Character; Babies

TV; Open University

Art Style; Watercolour

Setting New Town (e.g. Milton Keynes)

These can be interpreted anyway we like. So the first obvious idea is Professor/Student Babies. Which is, to me, boring. I did some mind maps and reading, and well Babies encompasses a lot of things; Humans and Animals infants, immaturity, pet name for a boy/girlfriend, an inanimate object that someone is fond of (i.e. That sports car is my 'baby) Or, as I recently found out, Paraphilic Infantism.

In other words, the sexual fetish known as Adult Baby.

I wish to stress at this point that I don't in anyway find this sexually attractive or a turn on so don't be sending me no huggies.

Also if you ARE an Adult Baby then don't feel ashamed, each to their own, it's a free country.

Anyway I did some reading on it and some themes are quite interesting;

Infantism is the desire to be young or a baby, they act and dress as such.

However it often gets confused with paedophilia which is obviously the desire to engage in sexual intercourse with pre-pubescent children.

As opposed to Infantism which is just the desire to act like a child.

Anyway I found this theme quite interesting.

Another one that peeked my interest was Mental Retardation (which is just the generalized name for mental disorders I'm assured so that shouldn't be offensive to anyone, and if it is then well sorry, but that's just what it's called).

This got me thinking to Forest Gump and Leonardo Di Caprio's character, Arnie, in What's Eating Gilbert's Grape? Because Mental Disorders are often mistaken for immaturity, such as Aspergers Syndrome because the sufferer, due to the condition, does not know how behave acceptably in a social and public environment.

The same is common with Down's Syndrome where the sufferer typically has an IQ of about 50, as opposed to the average of 90-100 for children of the same age.

Anyway then I thought why not combine the two? So here's one of my idea's anyway for the characters;

Amy; is a Paraphilic Infant or Adult Baby. She longs to be a child and refuses to grow up. Unfortunately for her, her sexual exploits have resulted in an unwanted child who further has 'a mental disorder' (not decided yet). She neglects the child and consistently takes preference to her sexual life.

Mike; Amy's son who suffers from a mental disorder. He is introvert, lonely, and due to Amy's neglect is leaving him to fend for himself. However due to his disorder he doesn't know any better and still has a love for life and the world despite spending all his time on his own.

So I thought the story would be a journey of self discovery for Amy.

I'm also toying with the idea of introducing a third main character. Which would be a baby Animal or Monster or Alien, that Mike discovers the creature and nurses it which in turn affects Amy and encourages her to grow up when she sees how Mike cares for the creature.

I haven't completely figured out how to encorperate the Open University yet, except in how Mike teaches the creature. (which is why is thinking of Aspergers syndrome because the sufferers tend to obsess about a particular subject)

Anyway so that's what I'm down to. I'm at the minute drawing a sexy Amy in nappies. I'll put the pictures up tomorrow probably.

Life drawing was good too, I'll put them up soon too.