BA6: Specialism

Our last project of the year lets us specialise into the area of game art and design we wish to pursue further. We also set the project ourself, as in what the final outcome will be.

This is from my project brief: Here we give you the opportunity to focus and hone the area of expertise most applicable to your aspirations, furthering potential for employability and academic study. ‘Specialism’ encourages you to choose a single area of study to excel in. You may choose to work as a team for this project taking a specific role that will help you to increase your knowledge and expertise. You have been introduced to multifarious areas of work in games, and related industries. Whether concept art, modelling, sculpting, texturing, game design, or alternative.

This project is extremely exciting to me as it will allow me to expand my knowledge and skill in the field I have chosen which is 2D Character design

This is my proposal for the project: I will be doing 2D Concept art focusing on Character design

I want to explore the manifestations of fear and desires and how that can decay someone’s mind. With my character becoming the embodiment of that mania.

Through the use of iteration of silhouettes, value studies, face iterations and colour studies I will produce a triptych portraying the metamorphism of the character taking inspiration from Silent Hill, Francis Bacon and others.

My final work will be 3 images that create a triptych.

Research / Image Gathering

Silent Hill 2:

I first looked at the Silent hill games as their creatures are not only visually haunting their design shows what they represent and symbolise which I think is an extremely effective way of telling a story through characters and their design.

The town of Silent Hill is a place where a person's guilt becomes the embodiment of these creatures which each represent a different one and each have strong symbolism within their designs. Silent Hill 2 most of the creatures embody the protagonists sexual frustrations towards his ill wife and the guilt of suffocating her with a pillow (even though she wanted the pain to end)

This character is a very iconic one from the franchise 'The Nurse' in this case is from Silent Hill 2 and is called Bubble Head Nurse. The nurses may be manifested by the mind of James Sunderland (Protagonist), combining his anxieties surrounding his wife's terminal illness and the sexual deprivation that came with it, hence the risqué clothing worn by them. People also speculate that their faces are  representative of suffocation. This references the events when James killed his wife Mary by suffocating her with a pillow; hence, the reason why their heads convulse violently like somebody trying to break free from being suffocated. 

(Parts taken from: http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Bubble_Head_Nurse)

Another character from Silent Hill 2 'The Abstract Daddy' has some quite dark reasoning behind its design. The Abstract Daddy resembles two figures under a mass of muscle, the lower one struggling to get away from the dominant one on top. People speculate that this creature  'represents Angela's (A character you meet) father, Thomas Orosco, and/or brother, hanging over her on a bed. This is highly suggestive of the abuse she took from them. It is also noted that the figure beneath screams in torment, which is likely another representation of Angela's abuse, while their "mouths" resemble a vaginal orifice, further implying sexual abuse.' (http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Abstract_Daddy)

Also the reason the main character James Sunderland can also see this monster because, 'Another possible theory is that it represents abusive masculinity, in that James suffocated his wife, Mary Shepherd-Sunderland, while she was in bed. This may be why both Angela and James can see the monster, as they are both involved with the mentality at hand.'  (http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Abstract_Daddy)

This creature is called 'Mannequin' and sticks with the strong themes of sexual frustration in Silent Hill 2, 'The Mannequin is a manifestation of James's natural urges and inclinations. The creature is likely manifested because of his sexual frustration with his wife's ailment.

Pyramid Head's introductory cut-scene has him abusing two Mannequins (Image above). Because of this, it's possible that the Mannequin may also be an image of innocence and helplessness being misused or otherwise destroyed by an oppressive, masculine force.' (http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Mannequin)

Pyramid Head is maybe Silent Hill's most iconic character. There is a lot of symbolism behind the design of this character, such as his sword called 'The Great Knife' which could be the heavy burden that James carries for killing his wife. Infact Pyramid Head himself could be seen as the embodiment of James' guilt, 'The Pyramid Heads serve as a manifestation of James's unfulfilled desire for punishment for Mary Shepherd-Sunderland's death. They could also represent the darker part of James's personality. Pyramid Head shows this by committing brutal acts that James has done or has thought about doing, such as murder, and his constant twitching could symbolize James's needs, emotions, and fears...The reason why the Pyramid Heads murder Maria (Silent Hill's representation of what they think James wants in a woman)  is to remind James that he killed Mary; James is in denial, and Maria is a distraction to keep James away from Mary. When James finally accepts what he's done, after Maria is killed the third time, the Pyramid Heads attack him and eventually impale themselves on their own spears because they have finally fulfilled their purpose.' (http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Pyramid_Head)

In this video you will see how much thought goes into every aspect of the game from the environment, level design and most importantly the character design:

Here are some quotes from the video;

'I wanted to create something that really disturb the game players whilst attracting them something with an aura of mystery' Masahi Tsuboyama - Art Director - 

'The triangle has right angles and acute edges, their sharpness suggests the possibility of pain' Ito Masahiro - Monster Designer - 

'In Silent Hill 2, fear could be defined in terms of what you don't see makes you feel afraid' Imamura Akihiro - Producer - 

In this monster designer Ito Masahiro says that he drew alot of inspiration from his favoirte artist Francis Bacon


Francis Bacon:

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, emotionally charged and raw imagery.  His breakthrough came with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon_%28artist%29)

In this article it discusses Bacon's influence on Silent Hill:

FEAR FOR THE FLESH: FRANCIS BACON’S INFLUENCE ON SILENT HILL

The Silent Hill series draws upon a vast range of artists and media for the inspiration behind its macabre setting, its disturbing and suggestive monsters, and its unsettling stories; the work of David Lynch (especially Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive), Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder, Stephen King’s “The Mist”, and many more. Of particular importance is Francis Bacon (1909 – 1992), a gay Irish/English figurative painter whose artwork frequently explores themes of dread, violence, sexuality and the human condition – there are strong parallels between Francis Bacon’s work and the monsters, environments and themes of Silent Hill – violence, punishment, redemption, sexuality, death and humanity.

A repeated motif of Bacon’s were the use of lines and bars to demarcate space in his paintings – which had the added effect of making it seem like his subjects were seated inside frames, boxes, cages or prisons, such as Triptych Inspired by the Orestia of Aeschlyus, or his “screaming popes”, a number of paintings he modelled after Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X. A number of Silent Hill’s monsters share this characteristic of being trapped in a cage, albeit in three-dimensions, such as Silent Hill 2‘s final bossand the Flesh Lips, Silent Hill 3‘s Glutton, and Silent Hill Origins‘ Sad Daddy.

 Some of the creatures of Silent Hill bear uncanny similarities to the subjects and themes of Bacon’s paintings. For example, the poses of the subjects in Two Figures (1953) calls to mind Two-Back from Silent Hill Origins, which takes the form of two distorted human figures fused together in what appears to be a sexual act. These elements recur in a slightly different way in the monster Gum Head, from Silent Hill: The Room, with two heads melted together. The “Lying Figure” of Silent Hill 2 may even have its origin in some of Bacon’s works that include the phrase “lying figure”, a convention used to denote the type of pose that is held by the subject of the work. The entity in Lying Figure in a Mirror (1971) (above), with its mottled, warped skin, easy calls the monster to mind.

Full Article (http://gaygamer.net/2013/05/fear-for-the-flesh-francis-bacons-influence-on-silent-hill/)


These are some of Bacon's work that stands out the most to me

This painting called 'Head' painted in 1948 is very unsettling to me. I think its the way Bacon has deformed the face in such a way that it is unrecognisable as a face yet there are still elements which we relate to the face such as the ear and mouth. The mouth itself is quite unsettling as to me it seems like it's crying out for help. The unnerving head is further amplified with the choice of colour, this washed out purple grey with flesh tones around the mouth creates this beautifully morbid skin tone.

This painting called 'Head IV' again is another piece which stuck out to me due to the bold brush strokes and colours. The face is the most unsettling part due to the scream and the lack of emotion as the only facial feature visible is the the mouth. The colours he uses are also quite striking with the purple robe standing out against the contrasting yellow and black background, as well as the sickly pale and cold skin.

This painting called 'Study (Imaginary Portrait of Pope Pius XII)' to me this seem almost ethereal due to the faint white over the dark background just gives it this essence of the paranormal. But the thing that find most unsettling much like the last two is the face and the lack of relatable features it has creating this sense of ambiguity and the unknown.

To me I think a faceless person or someone hiding their whether it be with a cloak or mask is creepy. its that sense of the unknown and not wanting to know what is beneath the mask. In this video below called 'Why are things creepy' by Vsauce he goes into deeper into why I and other people find that creepy why ambiguity can creep people out

Quotes from the Video :

'What about fear when there is no clear and obvious danger.'

'No obvious threat such as a gun or a falling rock, yet they still insight fear because they are creepy.'

'Psychologist James Grier developed the fear survey schedule II which he used to find out what scared us the most, combined with the results of a more recent Gallup poll these are things that scare most of us.' (Image below) 

Article about clowns he was talking about: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/2011/10/31/cant-sleepclown-will-eat-me-why-are-we-afraid-of-clowns/

The quote from Stephen King he was talking about; 

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...” - Stephen King -

'Part of the reason even a neutral or happy mask can be creepy may have to do with ambiguity.'

'A mask hides the true emotions and intentions of the person underneath, I don't know if the person wearing that mask is a threat or not.'

'Vagueness is creepy when it comes to the human form, this is the famous Uncanny Valley.'

'On a chart of humaneness there's a zone where something can be almost entirely human but off by just a little, not so wrong that it's clearly fake or funny, or so good that it's indistinguishable. Instead it's just troubling.' (Image below)

'Francis T. McAndrew and Sara S. Koehnke describe being creeped out as an adaptive human response to the ambigity of threats from others.' (Image below)

'Creepy things are kind of a threat maybe but they're also kind of not, so our brains don't know what to do. Some parts responded with fear while other parts don't and they don't know why.'

Why zombies, robots, clowns freak us out

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

Updated 2151 GMT (0451 HKT) September 27, 2012

The uncanny valley is the idea that as a robot's appearance becomes more and more humanlike, we don't always respond to it more positively. Rather, there's a point on the scale between robot and human where we are repulsed. If it's mechanical but not entirely human, a robot seems disturbing.

But on a graph showing that relationship, there's a "valley" where this familiarity dips down into creepiness, and then comes back up again with more human characteristics.

The uncanny valley effect could have to do with uncertainty about whether a robotic character is truly alive or dead, and even play into our deep-seated fears of death. Alternatively, it may be part of cognitive dissonance, which happens when a person's beliefs are not in line with their behaviors -- for instance, a smoker who berates other smokers.

From an evolutionary perspective, humans have developed an aversion to sickness, and a creepy-looking almost-human might tap into our internal system that warns us against sources of disease. In relation, we evolved to choose mates who are healthy, and weird robots may set off the same warning bells that told our ancestors to stay away from unfit sexual partners.

Full Article - (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/11/health/uncanny-valley-robots)

This artist drew a self portrait of himself using several different drugs an intoxicants, it shows the effect it can have on someone's mind and how someone can change their perception on what they see and what they look like

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self.  So I devised another experiment where everyday I took a different drug or intoxicant and drew myself under the influence.  Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage that fortunately wasn't irreparable.  I am still conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time and I only take drugs that are given to me. 

1 sm Glass of Absinth

Alcohol

10mg Ambien

Bath Salts

1/2 gram Cocaine

Taken from (http://bryanlewissaunders.org/drugs/)

Moodboards:

I took out 2 artbooks from the library one of them being The art of Darksiders 2 and the other being the art of Dark souls. The reason I took these books out was because both have quite visually stunning monsters and creatures and I wanted to get some insight of what their concepting looked like for them:

The Art of Darksiders 2:

Dark Souls Design Works:

 I went to Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts to go to the Francis Bacon and the Masters exhibition. It was extremely inspirational seeing Bacon's work in person as well as the other master's. Unfortunately I was unable to take any photo's in the exhibition but elsewhere in the gallery there was also some quite beautiful and inspirational pieces which are the images below.

FRANCIS BACON AND THE MASTERS

18 April - 26 July 2015

Francis Bacon and the Masters is a groundbreaking exhibition bringing together over 100 major works, by Francis Bacon with old and modern masters including Velázquez, Rembrandt, Titian, Michelangelo, Rodin, Van Gogh, Picasso and Matisse.

The Sisters

by F.E McWilliam

Luminous Figure on Dark Ground

by Zoran Music

Kneeling Figure

by F.E McWilliam

Head-Shaped section of a Jar

Japan, Northern Honshu

circa 1000 - 300 BC

Head

Mexico, Veracruz

circa 600 - 900 AD

Head

Mexico, Veracruz

circa 600 - 900 AD

Head

Mexico, Veracruz

circa 600 - 900 AD

Hiroshima, Mon Amour

by Antonio Saura

Imaginary Portrait of Phillip II

by Antonio Saura

Little Prince

by John Davies

Mask 

Alaska, Point Hope

Late 19th Century

Wolf Mask and Walrus Mask

Alaska, Northern Sound

Late !9th Century

Wolf Mask and Walrus Mask

Alaska, Northern Sound

Late !9th Century

Group of Shelterers 

by Henry Moore

Diego Seated

by Alberto Giacometti

Head of Gerda Boehm

by Frank Auerbach

Head of Gerda Boehm

by Frank Auerbach

I used alchemy and Photoshop to create a number of silhouettes to try and create some base concepts for the first stage of my character and the beginning of their transformation. With the Alchemy ones (white background) they are very angular and sharp which was extremely helpful portraying spindly, eerie figures. With the photoshop ones (cream background) I wanted to try and create a more traditional feeling with them and were greatly influenced by Bacon's loose figure sketches (seen below with photoshop images)

These are the Bacon pieces I mentioned above

Nude Reading (ink and pencil on white wove paper)

by Francis Bacon

circa 1957 - 61

Seated Woman (Pencil on white wove paper)

by Francis Bacon

circa 1957 - 61

 

During my group tutorial on the 21/04/15 my tutor told me that these loose photoshop silhouettes reminded him of the figures and sculptures done by the artist Alberto Giacometti seen below:

Standing Woman

The Cage

Tall Figure II and Tall Figure III

Arm

I'm quite glad my tutor told me about this artist as his work like Bacon's has the creepy, eerie feeling to it which is exactly the feeling I'm trying to achieve with my character. The thing I like most about his work is the unnatural proportions of the figure yet it still looks human like which is very unsettling as well as the sporadic and distorted brush strokes. The sculpts especially the arm is very unsettling due to the length of the fingers and the proportions of the arms and how skinny it is. Giacometti will definitely influence some of the design of my character.

Using two of my silhouttes I decided to do some artist studies one in the style of Francis Bacon and the other in the style of Jason Shawn Alexander (featured on my moodboard). I did these styles just to practice conveying mood and get an idea of who my character will be:

This one is in the style of Francis Bacon

and this one is in the style of Jason Shawn Alexander

One of my tutors brought in a very inspirational book featuring incredible artists called 'The Art of Sketch Theatre Vol 1' I looked through it and picked out some of the artists who's work stood out to me and had somewhat creepy imagery.

  
Michael Hussar:

Jon Beinart:

 

Dave Hill:

Chet Zar:

Brian Smith:

As I was struggling to visualise creepy faces my tutor helped me out by suggesting photobashing normal faces to make them more creepy either in a subtle way or in a more extreme way, I used the liqifiy tool to warp areas of the face and added various things such as scars and stitches:

I then took these images and drew from them changes areas slightly which I felt added to the characters

After that I tried creating some characters with masks, The ones at the top were me trying to figure out how the mask would transition through each of the phases

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

This movie was suggested to me by my tutor so I watched it and it was indeed creepy well the first half was whilst they were still in the castle. The make-up and prosthetics on Dracula were amazing and gave him an extremely eerie and creepy feel and look.

I have been doing some variants for my Phase 1 character. With this stage I wanted the body to be human but with some of the proportions off to help create an unnatural look

Once I picked the variant I liked I did some colour variants to see what worked best:

With my chosen variant I decided to do some style studies with it to see the outcome of using various styles:

This is in the style of Jason Shawn Alexander

And this one is in the style of Francis Bacon

Here I experimented and tried a mixture of both styles with the figure being that of Alexander and the background in the style of Bacon. I feel that it does work but in the end is not as strong as the ones that just stick to one style.

After talking with my tutor, he felt that this style is acceptable for the final triptych, but I just had to refine a couple of areas. So I made the hand on the left more readable as a hand and tried to create a more unified feel to the dress. I'm really enjoying this style but I may try an add some aspect of Bacon's style into it such as some vertical lines or a box to symbolise this feeling of being trapped and claustrophobic. Also for my first section of the triptych I will use a different pose that will allow better flow of movement between the two phases of the transformation.

This image shows what material each item of clothing is with these square swatches, so it makes it a bit clearer as to what everything is.

I also created a very short animation to give a feeling of how the character moves and as this is my first time doing animation I think I did a decent job of portraying this characters creepiness through the irregular movements

After talking with my tutor he advised me to smoothen out some sections of the animation so the jerkyness looks deliberate and not just look like poor animation so I did

Final piece for the first phase of my triptych, I did a few variations just to see what worked best:

I initially stated with this pose but it just felt off too me and not intimidating or creepy enough so I changed it up to the pose below as I feel like that pose creates the look of the character slowly coming towards you.

Final Phase 1 Piece:

This sketch is me trying to visualise how the triptych will look and a basic concept of the next 2 stages and how the character will transform:

My idea for the triptych came from the self portaits of the  'Artist William Utermohlen (1933 – 2007) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1995. In a gripping series of self-portrait paintings, we see Utermohlen’s battle with Alzheimer’s documented through his evocative artwork.' 

(http://twistedsifter.com/2014/08/artists-battle-with-alzheimers-documented-through-self-portraits/)

Here are the self portraits and the year they were made:

1967

1996

1996

1997

1997

1998

1999

2000

These images are equally beautiful and haunting, the main thing I took away from this that I decided to incorporate into my triptych and final pieces is that initially his pieces were quite bright, colourful and easily identifiable as a face but as his condition got worse the paintings loss colour and became extremely ambiguous as to what it is depicting and that is why in my triptych each piece will become less saturated and more distorted as my character descends further into madness.

My Phase 2 Silhouettes:

Here is the silhouette I chose for my first phase of the character and with my 2nd phase I decided to take this silhouette and morph it for my the next phase as I felt it would be better to edit the original to make the second part of the transformation as the character is already undergoing it in silhouette form.

- Phase 1 Silhouette -

Just did a couple quick value studies of the 2 silhouettes I liked the most out of these 8

A variant leading up to the final one I changed the box from the first phase but it didn't feel different enough so I started to erase sections as well as adding more distortion to the background

So for the final one I added more 'Baconesque' lines starting to spew out of the box showing the character descending deeper into madness and the evil taking more control over her.

Final Phase 2:

After a feedback with my tutor I decided to change it up slightly to see if it would create a better feeling and be more impactful:

I feel that the fact the hood is completely hiding her face lends itself well to the second phase of the triptych as it carries on the mystery of the transformation until the next phase which is the reveal

Phase 3 Silhouettes:

I took the top left silhouette and used it for my value study just to create some sense of the silhouette

I then used this Silhouette as the base for my final phase of the character below is the final image as I just went straight into it as from doing this I had quite a clear idea of what I wanted

From that I started on the final piece that would then be implemented into the triptych as the final phase:

Once this part was done I could do the triptych. I tried to make each stage feel more chaotic than the last one as the character is going through a transformation. I also lower the saturation and brightness of the of the pictures as I wanted to relate it to the loss of someones mind (much like  Utermohlen’s self portraits)

After some feedback with my tutor regarding the last two characters I decided to change them up a bit. For the phase 3 character we completely changed up the ribs so it felt a lot more natural as well as tweaking some shading and elongating the upper body so the final character towered above the rest and really emphasising a transformation

I also decided to some close ups of the face of the last character as well as variants of the face as well

After another feedback session with my tutor, we messed around with the final phase character just to see if we could make it pop some more this is what we ended up with, slightly more arched back but i'm not sure how I feel about it so I tried tweaking some parts of the version before this

This is the version I tweaked and prefer as its not as extreme as the last yet everything feels a bit more intimidating than the first one I did of this phase

Once I tweaked the things I needed to I put them back into the triptych to create the final one and hopefully creating a better overall feel and look

Life Drawing from this term: