Tutorial Task 02
Line work of Arthur Rackham Gustave Dore and Arthur
Rackham
Critical analysis
Gustave Dore
Perhaps one of the most successful illustrators of the 19th
century, Gustave Dore worked on a number of large commissions, working on the Rhyme
of the Ancient Mariner, Paradise Lost it is clear to see he was confident in
his approach, and used line beautifully in his illustrations.
Looking at one of the key illustrations from Don Quixote
the man of La Mancha, it isn’t initially obvious that this is in fact a cross
hatched drawing. We are confronted with Quixote saluting the moon in a night
time scene, and this is beautifully rendered, tonally we are confronted with a
full range Dore has controlled his line work and given the viewer an image that
is full tonally from the whitest highlights on the moon, to the darkest shadows
on some of the background buildings. He has built up the crosshatching to a
level where as a viewer we look past the delicate line work and believe in the roundness
of the scene.
The composition also adds to this, he skilfully leads the
eye around the compostaionfrom the moon down onto Quixote’s face and then
across his shield, Dore uses a beautiful arc to lead the viewer through the
drawing. But this isn’t detail for details sake and he gives us resting points
throughout the image,preveting the piece from being over busy. From looking at
the piece initially and maybes thinking it is quite complex it is clear to see
Dore has focused our view on the three key areas of the image, the moon Quixote
and his armour in all its splendour on the wall.
Arthur Rackham
Rackham’s line work is equally expressive, but in a very different
way to Dore`s, still tonally as strong as the work of Dore if we look at an
illustration form Alice in wonderland in which Alice is confronted by a deck of
cards mysteriously thrown into the air, the viewer again is given a tour of the
composition using a strong curve to bring the eye around the composition.
Initially looking at the piece it is almost like a photograph
form a slow motion sequence, the cards swirl around Alice in a playful way, but
Alice seems intimidated by this, on closer investigation we can see the
characters are coming of the cards and occupying the image plane, confusing the
visual story shown to the viewer.
Rackham’s line work is more playful, his line dances
around the composition in a more fluid motion, the dress feels alive as it
billows out. Then the line is intensified when he describes the hair, he uses a
consistent line to give volume to the hair, almost making it feel like it is
suspended in water.
Both of these pieces of work use line in different ways
successfully, they succeed in making what in essence is a number of equidistant
lines turn into beautiful images that are both controlled and confident in
their approach.
Working on the still life it became apparent certain technique’s
worked a lot better when trying to achieve the cross hatching for example. Blue
Biro gave a consistent line that was easily controllable ,felt comfortable to
work with and produced nice mid tone shading however this was limiting as once
the darkest hue of the ink had been achieved it was hard to push this any further.
From a drawing point of view it was also hard to maintain the hatching, and
make sure the work didn’t deteriorate into scribble. The line quality was consistent
with no real flex in the nib of the pen, so any pressure sensitivity did just
come down to the hatching of the lines.
The most successful piece was the Biro work, it had vitality
and was a medium the artist had over looked in the past as being a serious
drawing tool, more investigation into controlling the contrast of the drawings
and a possible use of different shades of pen might help to push the
development a lot further. Scale is also an issue as you are limited by the
line width, making it labour intensive to produce large scale works.
The success of the Biro drawing came from the ability to
build up subtle tones and overlap the crosshatching to give the drawing depth,
the choice of paper also had an effect on the final outcome, to heavy a tooth
and the drawing lost clarity, using a smoother super white paper did give a
finer detail and more consistent tonal range.
Tutorial Task 04
Synectic Triggers – how can this influence Creature
Creation?
How did you create your work?
A number of quick thumbnail sketches were created initially,
where the main focus was body structure and key parts of the individual
creature’s anatomy. It was massively important the creature had a good gait, and
felt like it was believable from a structural point of view. This was a key
factor in a number of the designs not making it past early thumbnail development
stage.
Three variations were developed, the quality of finish
and anatomy was pushed further before a decision was made about which creature
would be taken forward to final presentation.
The main issues that cause tow of the designs to be
rejected were the confidence of the artist to create convincing wings in the
time available on the project.
The final design was chosen because it used the key
Synectic triggers, Metamorphose, Combine and Superimpose. These were key in the
final design, and the main reason the final creature was chosen.
Where did you find your assets?
Using key Synectic triggers the artist wanted to blend
three very different animals to create the creature. The dog part of the animal
came from photographs of the family pet. Initial photography had been carried
out when the dog was a pup but this didn’t make it across into the final
drawing as it felt too cute and worked against the overall look for the creature.
This needed to be a solid well rounded animal that could exist in a fantasy
film or game. So more photographs were taken of a more mature dog.
The refecne for the bird came from a book of old
engravings from the early 19th century, and in a way this guided the
whole final presentation, the idea that this creature could exist in a journal
of extraordinary creature’s not seen before was one of the driving factors when
it came to putting the final piece together.
The Aye Aye had been seen on a BBC nature programme, and
there was no way the artist could get access to the actual animal, so the
internet had to be used. It was key from a development point of view that the
skeleton was looked at, because of the Aye Ayes extended index finger in order
to make sure the anatomical structure was correct. These skeleton images were
used to build the musculature on, and make the creature more believable.
How did you create your work?
Initial rough pencil sketches helped to get an overall
idea of how the creature may look, by using a thumb nailing technique it was
easy to go through a number of iterations before settling on a final design.
The only real issue this raised was making sure the silhouette for the creature
was consistent and felt believable.
It was important early on in the project the Creature
didn’t end up looking like a piece of bad taxidermy, so underlying anatomy and
an understanding of the creatures possible behaviour fed into this process.
This was a fine balance, key aspects were dropped because
of believability issues, and making sure the artist could deliver a creature
that could function in the real world. A lot of time was spent looking at the
transient between the fur on the body and the feathers, and how this would then
blend down onto the short fur of the torso.
Overall the creature does achieve the goals that were
initially set however more development work would be required to really push
the quality of the artwork, there are a few awkward transitions and certain
areas in the anatomy that need revisiting, for example the weight of the lower
arm is to constant with the front legs, there need to be more taper and focus
on the silhouette of the legs and feet.
How did you apply the Synectic Triggers?
The main Synectic triggers that were used to formulate
the design were, Combine bringing things together from very different creature’s
and combining them into a coherent and functional piece of work. Superimpose
was another key trigger that really described how the artist produced the work
by superimposing the key characters traits from the three animals and bringing
them all together in the final design.
The final trigger considered was Metamorphose, the idea
that the creature could be a mutation or indeed a biochemical change was
interesting, again this was just another level of believability in the creature’s
design. Using these triggers and constantly referring back to them helped to
stay focused with the project and guided some of the key design decisions,
these techniques had a major impact on the quality of the project and will be
an area that I developed more in the future.
Tutorial Task 05
1960s Character Design
Document how you created your work
Which life drawings did you base your poses on?
The life drawings that were picked for the final piece
were standing poses, these had been quick five minute poses but managed to have
a lot of attitude, and this really helped in the development of the female
character. This strong pose exuded strength and willingness to not back down,
this provided a perfect balance for the slightly comical almost pleading pose
of the male character.
What made you choose your concept?
Interviewing the artists father it became apparent to get
really close to the essence of the 60s in the North East you had to look
past classic films like Quadrophenia, as
these were created in homage to the era, and though really well observed lacked
a lot of the grit seen in personal photos of the period.
As a games artist it was important to avoid cliché and
push the normal stereotypes of character creation. This was achieved in a
number of ways, using a stronger female character that visually is very
different to the norm from the era. The male character also needed to break the
mould, so he needed to look almost pathetic next to his girlfriend, by doing
this the whole stereotype was turned on its head. This did however cause a number
of issues mainly relating to the size of the female character, so this did push
the believability of the character in relation to historical concept but this
was felt to be a risk worth taking.
How did you create your artwork?
A large number of refence photographs’ were looked through
and a pricoees of filtering the images was fundamental at the start of the project.
Once the overall look had been established for both of the characters
moodboards were produced showing key items of costume, hair and facial features.
A number of initial thumbnail sketches were produced to bring the designs
together quickly and concisely.
Once the initial thumbnail sketches had been produced,
turnaround sheets of the characters were created. This involved more photography,
to get the shape and weight right on the parka, and to make sure the details on
the fabrics were as accurate as possible. The drawings were produced with
pencil on layout paper to help maintain the volumes in the front back and side
drawings.
What do you think could be improved in your concept?
The male character achieves everything the artist set out
to at the start of the project, with the only aspect needing modification
possibly is the cut of the trousers and elongating the toes of the boot to tie
in with photographs found after the drawings were completed.
The female character needs more work, form an anatomy
point of view the shoulders fell to narrow and hunched, and there are also
issues with some of measurements of the legs, the thighs feel slightly long,
and the anatomy around the ankle feels odd, this isn’t to problematic as if the
character were to be produced, it is expected more principle photography would
be produced for the character.
A beach side scene was chosen to show of the characters
in an environment, but this was possibly to obvious, again more time would have
allowed greater research into the
culture in the North East and possibly a better environment could have been developed.
On the whole it was felt the main objectives had been achieved, the next stage
would have involved more research and a look at the feasibility of animating
the parka in a games engine.
Tutorial Task 06
Emotional response to poem
On reading the poem it feels sombre in mood and on the
whole feels grey 128,128,128.Poetry and the use of the “poem” to generate an
emotional response requires the reader to be inspired by the visual imagery
conjured up by the poets words. On reading the poem a number of times the main
emotions experienced are rage, venom and disillusion, the poem if looked at
literally is a series of snippets, small morsels of visual stimulation that
rarely work together to create a coherent discussion.
If we break down some of the key visual images and try to
work with them we encounter misery, depression and a disconnect when it comes to
creating artwork based on the poem.
To avoid this key phrases were picked the artist thought
he could work with, out of the whole poem this was limited to “sleep, old time,
Grecian Grandeur and the sick eagle. Looking at the experimental work that had
been produced it was clear in one painting that a landscape could be worked into
the pain work that had been produced using wallpaper paste and coloured inks.
Having to shoehorn characters into the drawing was problematic, however the
artist found a pose form the marbles and use this to create the foreground
character.
Visually to get the idea of “old time” across the artist
focused on using numerals from an old watch to blend over the top of the drawing.
The personal element investigated was related to sleep, and tying that together
with time, so the drawing shows a family group all asleep, but all connected
through sleep. The male character can be seen drifting comatose across the composition
holding a young child, this works on a number of levels by being asleep
everyone in the picture could be dreaming the image, but as a viewer the scene
feels intimate, but there is a disconnect, as to be part of it the viewer would
need to be asleep as well. The drawing was created on brown envelop with
coloured inks and has a jewel like quality to it.
The most important thing learnt from the task is the importance
of experimentation in order to come up with new and interesting compostions.The
surrealists used frottage to create amazing textured pieces of work, and it is
this looking for an image in seemingly random marks that really can be inspirational
when creating new work.
The ability to bring together and used different media is
another area that has helped to develop the work. Sadly one of the problems
with creating work in such a readymade way is you need to have access to large
scanners to do anything with the work created. This is problematic with the
majority of the machines only scanning to A3. This caused problems joining the
images together and maintaining continuity across two pieces.
