Dance move research

X-pole video. 

This is a video by the leading company for Pole dance products. This video shows so many beautiful moves that I can take inspiration from for my creatures. Right now I am researching dance a lot especially for The Guardians of the Eternals. 

The Eternal of Suffering

Here is the process of my Eternal of Suffering at its current stage, I have been focussing on the body for now as I have decided to change a few features of the piece. 

Here are some images from The Lords of Salem, a film by Rob Zombie. Like his other films this one is just as crazy and horrifying. I also loved this part of the film, it shows the burning of some witches, and in the scene one of them wears a crude iron maiden looking mask. 

I also want to adapt the idea of an Iron Maiden torture device to add to the theme of suffering.

I have also been looking at different variations of this. I have also been loping at Thir13en Ghosts and Bram Stokers Dracula, in both there are characters wearing cages on their heads.

Im going to go away and draw up some sketches of what ideas that I like for the rest of my creature.

Body pose

I have been looking at many sources for ideas on body poses, I have been researching both primary and secondary sources. One cool place for body poses and drawing tips and help with skills is http://artists.pixelovely.com. I also have found a lot of inspiration from people with weird distorted bodies, one example in particular is Iggy Pop.

I like the ideas of my characters being skinny and distorted and these pictures of Iggy are perfect to take inspiration from. You can see many of his bones and he flings his arms in the air and jumps about so this gives me a lot to work from and a wide range of poses. 

Here are some more sites I have been looking at for figure reference. 

http://www.quickposes.com

http://reference.sketchdaily.net

http://www.lovelifedrawing.com/category/lifedrawingtips/

Figure Drawing!

I've always had issues when drawing male characters so I have been doing a lot of practice and done a lot of research on techniques in preparation for my male Eternals. I have been looking back through my pieces and sketches and I have decided to revisit the Eternal of Suffering, I feel like I want the character to be a male torso and less human to create the clear idea that the creatures are not human.
I have found http://artists.pixelovely.com/muscle-tutorial-from-the-punchline-is-machismo/ to be a brilliant tutorial for drawing figures and muscles.

Here is my first version of The Eternal of Suffering. Since I have done more research in to creatures and monsters I have decided that I want them to have a few less human qualities about them. And also, as the story is that these creatures are God like beings that reside in a cave where they are trapped to as to not reek havoc on the world any longer, they have been in that cave for an unimaginable amount of time and also away from human society. Because of this I thought that these creatures would not have things such as barbed wire or metal meat hooks. So I want to make the chains and hooks and ect. look more natural, like they have been make from natural materials from The Keepers (The guards of the Eternals)  

Here is the second attempt of the Eternal of Suffering, I do like the face on this one a lot more, I thought that taking away the mouth would show more suffering, and I like the idea of it to be all weird gooey skin. I drew the hooks as if they were made from stone this time and i thought this worked a lot better, and I want the wire to be roots and thorns wound together for a thick rope holding the Eternal up in place. I am going to keep to the idea of The Eternal of Suffering to be just a torso, also I still like the idea of the guts still and I want to add thorns and roots growing through the intestines and such. 

Even though I like this one more than the first I think it could be improved with a few changes, for example I really want to change the pose of the body, I have drawn a small sketch of the pose I want in the bottom right corner of the second attempt. 

Pole Dance Positions

I take a lot of inspiration from the human form in motion of dance. The grace and beauty that the human body holds is endless so I am fascinated by dance and in particular Pole dance. Pole dance is a form of true athleticism, the opposite of the negative stigma that has been attached to it. 

In the last few years Pole Dance has become recognised a true form of beautiful and athletic dance. It needs years of practice and a body in peak condition to achieve the advanced results.

I have been attending Pole fitness for a few months now and I have developed a real love and obsession for it. The effort and love that I pour in to it helps me perfect skills, become stronger and it is also a huge place for inspiration when it comes to my work. 

I went to The Pole Dance Dictionary to look up some moves and shapes that I could use in my work.

Each position is beautiful and poised. I like to look at these and think about how the body works and what makes a graceful piece.

 

 
 
I want my creatures to have appropriate poses, I am going to do an hours session of Pole and take numerous videos of moves and holds to get and idea of what poses I would like to use.

The Eternal of Wrath

Here are a few scanned in images of my sketchbook on The Eternal of Wrath, I do like my sketches but I don't feel like she is angry enough, I need to capture a true presence of wrath and pure anger. I want to do some exploration of drawing faces with seething expressions. 

I also want to do a lot more thinking about what features I could add to make the atmosphere more fearful and sinister. Im also going to do a lot of life drawing to explore some twisted and almost inhuman looking positions to draw from. 

Evil Within: Monster research

I am also looking at a game similar to Silent Hill, it too is about a hellish place filled with monstrous creatures born from tragedy and madness. These creatures too have significant meanings behind each just like the creatures from Silent Hill. I love that each of them have a significant origin born from human emotion, this gives artists the power to personify the dark side of the human mind. 

This awesomely horrific creature is called Reborn Laura, quite like The Memory of Helen (Silent Hill) it is born from the memory of Laura Victoriano, Ruvik's sister who died in a horrific barn fire that Ruvik himself barley escaped from. The only thing that can scare her is an open flame, and as somebody who's played the game I can say she is terrifying.

This creature is the Amalgam Alpha, a manifestation of the consciousness of the final test subjects that were connected to the STEM, and they are forever fused in to one single sinister creature filled with rage and revenge. 

The Sadist.

"A creature born from the mind of a murderer merged with Ruvik's madness. He has lost himself to rage, becoming murderousness personified" -In game quote. 

This is The Keeper, this is a monstrous creature born from Ruvik's mind. He comes from memories of a safe that Ruvik kept his research and horrors, this combined with the atrocities that Ruvik has committed, the creature protects these by killing anyone that comes near. 

The Eternal Suffering

Here is a rough scan of an idea I have been working on for The Eternal of Suffering. I do like the outcome but I think it needs a lot of work, for example I don't think the wires look balanced so I would like to add more and maybe make the barbed wire travel up them, as if they are a part of her like other limbs crawling up the wires. 

The Eternal of Suffering is of my own creation, I wanted to create a being that embodied pure suffering personified in to a Titan like creature, All of the Eternals are kept in a cave to keep under control, but the cruelty still leaks out in to the world, but its under a form of control. When the end of the world comes The Eternals will rise up and take back their control, destroying the Earth by gorging on their wants of destruction (or opposite in the Good Eternals). I like the idea of the creature controlling the suffering, yearning for more so it inflicts more on itself. The barbed wire is an extension of the creature, it wraps it around itself and in and out of its flesh, adding more pain and living under its own self driven desire to suffer. 

I am going to take this piece away and finish thinking of its story, and also keep playing with the piece, adding more and I am also thinking of doing this piece in colour. When thinking of a colour palette I take a lot of inspiration from a lot of my favourite horror films and games and use a palette of dirty reds, oranges, burnt browns and deep black. Also, I think green works very well with horror, when in the right depth it can create an eerie atmosphere for the piece. 

Mythology research: The Fates

I want to look at old Mythology that hold a huge amount of representation and personify fate and destiny. I decided to research The Fates, they come up in many different places in their mythology.

The Three Moirai, Grave of Alexander Von Der Mark by Johann Gottfried Shador.
Old National Gallery, Berlin. 

In Greek mythology they are white roped incarnations of Destiny, known as The Moirai, named Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Clotho ("Spinner") is said to have spun the thread of life from her distaff to her spindle. Lachesis ("Allotter") measured the thread with her rod. And Atropos is the cutter of the thread, she is said to decide how the human dies, and when its their time, she cuts the thread with her "abhorred shears"

The Three Moirai, or The Triumph of Death, flemish tapestry 1520.
Victoria and Albert Museam, London. 

The Romans also have their version of The Fates called The Sparing ones, equivalent to Clotho is Nona, meaning ninth, who is called upon on the ninth month of pregnancy. Lachesis's equivalent is Decima, meaning the tenth and Atropos's is Morta, meaning 'The dead one'.

The Fates, Hercules, Disney.

In Germanic Mythology they are known as The Fata, in Roman they are The Parcae, in Slavic mythology they are The Sudice. In Czech and Slovak they are The Sudičky, the Polish called them Rodzanice, Narecznice or Sudiczki and the Slovenian called them Sojenice and Rojenice. 

In Slavic mythology The Fates are three old women who approach the cradle of every newborn baby and decide their fate. One has a huge foot from pedalling, one has a large bottom lip from constantly salivating the thread and the last has an inch wide thumb from drafting the fibre. 

Silent Hill: Monster research

Silent Hill is a brilliant place to research for monsters and creatures. As I like my creatures to be quite dark and sinister I wanted to look at monsters who also fit this. Silent Hill is a series of games and also two motion pictures, each film and game are equally packed with crazy monsters based on human emotion and evilness twisting out and giving birth to horrific creatures that haunt Silent Hill. I am going to research in to some of the weirdest monsters and what they are based on and portray through their sinister design. 

This creature is called a Mannequin, the creature represents James Sunderland's sexual frustration. Many of the creatures portray sexual connotations, each of them revealing and  haunting. I love how the artists think outside the box and dismiss things like a head or arms here and there, creating a creature not at all human but the projection of human emotion contorted and twisted out of shape. 

This horrifying creature is called Abstract Daddy. The creature is a creature given birth to by the guilt of Angela Orosco after she murdered him. Angela murdered her father in revenge after being molested by him as a child. The contorted monster embodies the destruction and devastation created by sexual assault, the twisting body shows full tilt pain, suffocation and restriction reeking of heavy and raw emotion. 

Once again this creature was given birth to through tragedy, Margaret Holloway, a member of The Order, choked her young child Nora to death as an act of tribute to a dark deity she worshipped. Out of this murder the Asphyxia was born, a horrific monster with hands wrapping around her body and choking her.
I absolutely love how this creature is built, the centipede effect of hands grasping and choking, the face is perfect, it shows such despair and very in a convincing way that draws in onlookers.  

The Bubble Headed Nurses are one of the most popular and well known creatures in Silent Hill, the beautiful bodies with disgusting faces that lurch and shudder towards you with pure rage. When James Sunderland’s wife Mary was diagnosed with a terminal illness, she spent the rest of her days in a hospital bed with James by her side. The Bubble Head Nurse symbolise James' torture at watching the woman once his lover wilt and die, the Nurse also represents his sexual frustration embodied in a terrifying and relentless disfigured creature with a beautiful body. 

This terrifying creature is called The Memory of Helen Grady. When Helen was alive she was a mental patient confined after an attempted murder-suicide on her son. The creature is a manifestation of the torture and confinement she suffered in life. A horrific creature that shows pain and suffering at the hands of mental illness. I love the design of this creature, the cage that wires through the body and pulls out the cheeks creates an intense atmosphere of fear.

This twisting figure is the Lying Figure, it represents the fear and torture that James' suffered while watching his wife dying in hospital. It shows restriction and suffocation under the weight of the pain he went through, thus creating this sinister creature. Above is a clip from Silent Hill (The first motion picture-one of my favourite films) of the Lying Figure, this is the first creature you see in the film and it is utterly terrifying as it struggles forward and shoots disgusting acid from its chest. The creature is truly claustrophobic to look at and clearly depicts the harsh emotion struggling under its own flesh, this is an honest and apparent embodiment of mental torture. 

This is the Needler, this gory and horrifying creature is based on child birth, it sits in the position of a woman giving birth with the head between its legs. This is truly disgusting in a wonderful way, more than anything it creates true fear within me about the ideas of giving childbirth, so I think the point has been made well and creates a heavy effect.

This creature is called Twin Victims, they are the souls of Billy and Miriam Locane, two innocent young twins who were brutally murdered by Walter Sullivan. The creature has two huge arms that act as legs, they stand and point in an eery and extremely creepy fashion. 

Ideas and concepts on The Eternals

I have written pages among pages of creature ideas, but I am finding it very hard to work out what creatures to start with. So I decided to start with my ideas for the godlike creatures that are the height of power, I was thinking along the lines of Titan like creatures that are trapped within the earth.
I want their to be Gods called Eternals, I have decided on Eternal because they will be the personification of raw emotion. I want to create two halves of Eternals, the first will embody good emotions and powers and the other half will embody evil.
I wanted to start with the evil Eternals first as I find myself more confident with drawing the weird and twisted creatures.

The evil Eternals that I have decided on creating so far are;
The Eternal of Suffering
The Eternal of Famine
The Eternal of Wrath
The Eternal of Envy
The Eternal of Plague
The Eternal of Greed

For the Good Eternals I have decided to create;
The Eternal of Peace
The Eternal of Beauty
The Eternal of Charity
The Eternal of Pride
The Eternal of Hope
The Eternal of Courage

The Mother Eternal will be The Eternal of Earth an embodiment of life, death, good, evil, destruction and fortune.

Brian Froud

Brian Froud is another artist that I have loved from a very young age, I first found his creations when I was around 8 years old and I was given a Labyrinth video tape. I think I watched it at least once or twice a day for years! I fell in love right away with the characters and how they looked, at the end of the tape there was a 'Making of' part that showed the process of Brian Froud drawing stacks of sketchbooks filled with amazing characters and how they were made in to puppets and costumes for the film. 

When I started going to college a tutor let me borrow Brian Froud's 'Good Fairy, Bad Fairy' book and I then had a chance to research his work properly and see his astounding creatures. 

One creature that always stood out to me was The Boon (above), this is a pure of heart creature that brings good dreams and takes bad ones. As soon as I saw the page with this creature on I was sucked in by the glowing colours and cute angelic face and interesting figure. 

Brian Froud has a real talent of creating very organic creations, you can spot the references to the natural world and you create an idea of where you would find such creatures. Like above, the skin and patterns in these creatures resample closely to woods and look as thought they would fit perfectly and be camouflaged in the local forest. 

When I was in my early teens I found a book in my school library called Knife and I fell in love with it, it was about a cool fairy who was a bit of a rebel and starts speaking to a human boy. I always tried to draw the cover and would look at it for ages until I printed it out so I would have a copy of it myself. And back then I had no idea it was Brian Froud, in fact, I have only recently found out it was one of Brian's creations. 

I absolutely love looking at Brian's art work created for Labyrinth! I love that each creature is very different and has distinct features of their own giving each a sense of individuality and personality. I think this adds to the magic of the artwork, and it shows such effort and love that he pours in to his creations. The pieces demand further inspection from onlookers and the more you look the more creatures and amazing details you seem to find. This is what I see as satisfying art work, it'd art work that you can spend hours looking at just to not miss the little creatures hidden in corners or peeking out from behind the surrounding details. 

Another thing that I love about Brian's work it the diversity, he can create hideous, evil creatures that portray feelings of sinister atmospheres and mischief, yet he can also create the cutest and most innocent of creatures that glow with sincerity and beauty. This makes each creature as interesting and enveloping as the last. 

I love the more mischievous of characters, above we can see a piece from the 'Bad Fairys' side of the 'Good Fairy, Bad Fairy' book. I love the hands, and the way Brian chose to position it in the middle of the piece, I think the composition of the piece makes the eyes travel around in a flowing manner. And the jagged and harshly shaped creature above the hair of the bad fairy, I love how the features fit so well and it fills me with inspiration to get drawing my own littler creations, as I have been by his work since I was 8. I loved sitting and watching Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal as I would try and draw my own figures, well now I have another 12 years of practice under my belt I hope I can put the years of research and love for weird creatures to good use and create my own interesting book of weird and wonderful creatures. 

Guillermo Del Toro

Guillermo Del Toro is an artist, director and producer. Guillermo Del Toro is one of my all time favourite artists that I have loved since I was a young teen and I first discovered his most popular film  Pans Labyrinth. Since then I have learned more and more about him and fallen for his art work, I love his sinister style and clever ways of creating terrifying and flawless creatures.

As I grew older I started to look more at his amazing sketchbooks, they are a piece of art in themselves. The balance of the writing that surrounds the illustrations looks awesome and so detailed and interesting. 

Guillermo has indisputable talent in creating monsters and creatures with great thought and detail 

Each monster has its own sense of individuality and personality that he carries through clever designing and a talent for features that work together. 

I have always taken huge inspiration from the creatures of Guillermo's creation. Each is powerful and striking and demands the attention and love or fear from onlookers. 

I love looking at Guillermo's sketchbook designs and how they translate when the costumes are created for films, for example above is a creature in Hell Boy 2. I love this creature and how Guillermo could mix a natural creature with buildings and make it look natural and well polished. The creature already just by looking at the design has a load of personality and creates a hunger to look further in to the creature at every cool detail he adds. 

Guillermo has an amazing understand of what collections of features impact an audience in a mind blowing way. Here for example is the Angel of Death from Hell Boy 2. This creature carries such perfect features that show his status and the fear the creature creates in the onlookers is just astounding. The head alone is pure genius, Guillermo has this amazing ability to think outside of the box when creating his creatures.