Week 1
- Alisha Gupta
- Jun 12, 2022
- 6 min read
This unit we were given the opportunity to explore, creating the concept artwork for a space that had to be visualized from the emphasis in the distant future based on any material that inspired us from a book or movie. The second option for the brief, was to explore character design with the same context of visualizing it in the future by combining the elements of different creatures that exist or have existed in the past.
I was very intrigued initially by both options in the brief and it took me a while to select which one I wanted to expand on for these four weeks. I’ve always been drawn to environments for the potential they hold to expand on my imagination but after working in that area for the short film, I was a bit drained by the idea of once again constructing a set design and building models for it.
This was a small part of the reason I wanted to explore the Creature option for this unit. I find that as memorable you try and make an environment, its never truly as impactful as the character that brings it to life, because by default as people were connected to other life forms that exhibit traits we relate to and understand on a deeper level. Since this is a very short Unit I naturally couldn’t explore character design in detail because its an area that is packed with research and application that takes the time we don’t have, which is why I could only scrape the surface and focus on the final image because we were briefed on the importance of its aesthetic visually since our designs didn’t have to really function in any way.
When I started my research into the kinds of creatures in live action that inspired me, I looked into the biosphere of Pandora as brought to screen in Avatar by Production Designer, Rick Carter. I had written a research paper on his approach to his work during my foundation and that initial thought led me to this world of bioluminescent creatures. From there I read about the work done by Neville Page, who was the Lead Creature Designer on Avatar, and his process and research behind the iconic creatures seen in the film.
He explained the methodology behind crafting the direhorse, mountain banshee, great leonopteryx known as the ‘Toruk’ meaning last shadow in the film, among many other creatures. It was really interesting to understand how the anatomy of these concepts originated from a combination of pre-existing mammals or even birds. The amalgamation stretched all the way from the form and shape of manta rays to the patterns on a poison dart frog. This led me to read into the direction of aquatic species and the way they flowed and kept themselves disguised from prey. I was even inspired by the use of bioluminescence in living organisms and decided I wanted to incorporate that in my design and have that be a key lighting element to the scene.
Based on this, I took some time to self-reflect on a few important questions to ground me to the idea because I found myself getting derailed by the overconsumption of dystopian sci-fi images and media that flooded the internet, the moment I tried to look at futuristic concept artwork. I found that the undertone of such a dark and heavy connotation to futuristic design wasn’t something that motivated me and I didn’t want my creature to be based in a dystopia with heavy robotics controlling them and wires plugged into their head like a floating black hole in the sky or caged behind a screen like it was a threat.
The moment I realized what I didn’t want to invoke, I made note of what I did want to when people viewed this artwork; firstly I wanted it to have a positive impact or a neutral one. I wanted to try and make it memorable by having an element to it that was striking enough and carried a level of cultural significance to it, that drew one deeper to want to know more about it. I made note of how it could possibly provide safety or shelter to people and lay dormant or asleep in a way that at a distance it looked strange and mystical.
The first visual reference that came to mind was the silhouette of a swan, because I’d watched the way they stretch their wings behind their backs at Hyde Park and found that shape language very beautiful. I looked at the way it held its young safely in a cocoon on their backs, and from that point my research into the design of this creature began.
I remembered the way the famous character ‘King Louie’ from the live action remake of, ‘The Jungle Book’ was portrayed as this mammoth of an ape that sat within the ruins of an old building in a forest and from there wanted to base this creature within an environment that held a level of history and mythology tied to it.
It’s at this stage I dived into the temple of ‘Angkor Wat’ which is the largest religious monument in the world but its not the size that drew me to it. It’s the memory of it from when I had the experience of visiting it a few years ago. It’s a complex structure built over an elevated hill, surrounded by a moat. The interiors of the temple are divided into five separate structures that can only be accessed after climbing a series of steep stone stairs that have broken down with time. The five temples are interconnected by four corridors, all built in sandstone and covered in ornate carvings.
The mythology behind this is why its also known as the ‘temple mountain’ and is regarded as a miniature replica of Hindu cosmology and a model of – ‘the heavenly world, thus ensuring the intimate harmony between the earth and the heaven’ as depicted within the carvings inside the interior.
The animal that I ultimately settled for as my reference was the ‘komodo dragon’ also regarded as the living dinosaurs of the Jurassic period that still exist in Indonesia. They are native to only one island in the world and despite the smiling images below they are not to be mistaken as dosile; in reality they are huge and can grow up to 10 feet in length and weigh nearly a 100 kg. The aspect of these strange creatures that drew me in was the texture of their skin and the way their bodies were built. The leathery- scale texture to their skin made them seem prehistoric and at a distance could be perceived as a rock or in my ideation- an archaic ruin that was alive. Since the nature of these creatures was to lay fairly still most of the time unless they were hunting, I gathered references from different angles to understand the muscular structure and lizard-shaped head.
Since I wanted the komodo to be in the form of a floating island that carried the temple on its back, it needed to appear as though it were primarily an aquatic creature. I looked into the aquatic species of the Jurassic period and landed on the structure of the Mosasaurus and Pliosaurus. They both had large boat-shaped bodies, elongated heads and most importantly, fins that helped them navigate the ocean. I combined that aspect into the komodo on a proxy model in Blender to work on the basic structure of this creature including the layout of the temple upon its back.
For the proxy I focused on the silhouette of this creature that highlighted its upper body, since that would be the part above water, since its head is meant to be upright as that of a swan that gave the image of power and might. Since the creature wouldn’t perform anything and be an extension of the temple ruins, I wanted its texture to match that of the temple and have them both be rock.
I looked at references from films such as ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Atlantis: The Lost Empire’ for my inspiration on this concept of living objects taking the form of mountains and natural landscapes. I really loved the lighting used in these films, especially ‘Avatar’ that highlighted bioluminescent life forms and incorporated that in my sketches to have certain features such as the eyes, scales on its tail and fins on its head to glow in the dim space and reflect on the dark waters.
For the structure of the temple I began modelling it from the bottom up based on references from Angkor Wat. It was quite tricky since it was a mammoth of a temple in size and even though my focus was on sculpting the creature, I wanted to have the main ‘Gopuras’ which are the five main towers surrounding the temple as entrances. It was a complicated shape because of the fact it relied on step elevation and each base was stacked one above the other, which is how I modeled it, since the main feature of these towers was the height at which they stood.
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