A Few More Designs

In this design I have added a walking stick/crutch in order to emphasize the fact that the characters deformities are a disability. 

This is a variation of the previous design. Here I have added Victorian era attire in order to add to the period setting.

Victorian Freak Show Posters

This is a small collection of freak/curiosity show posters I have found on the website bellow. For my final piece, Phil suggested that I depict myself as if on a ‘Freakshow’ poster in some lurid, but tragic attraction at a travelling carnival. I thought this was a fantastic idea so I plan on adopting it. My only problem is I am not yet very comfortable using Photoshop. So such a precise visual style might be hard for me to replicate accurately. Also I’m not certain if we are allowed to use any text in the final peace.

There is something disturbing about the way these posters are written in such an upbeat manna, but are so horrifically ignorant.     

http://www.bl.uk/learning/artimages/bodies/freak/gallery/freakgallery.html

More Photoshop

I have painted one of my designs in Photoshop. I did this using a drawing I did by hand and scanned into the computer. I was much more comfortable doing it this way than actually drawing the thing in Photoshop.  

 

This image needs a little more refinement, but it is much better that my previous efforts.

More Hybrid Drawings

In these sketches I have tried to contaminate the humanoid form itself by adding more insect like elements to it.  

This is a more freakish version of the hybrid. I wanted it to look delicate and vulnerable. Also I wanted it to seem virtually immobile because of its unnatural form. This is to add to the idea that this creature is oppressed by its deformities. 

In this wired spindly design I wanted to make the fingers look like extra legs. I think this creature is too tall and intimidating for what I am trying to do. 

   

I think this is my best looking design so far, but I'm not certain it shows the emotion I want it to. It looks to powerful and elegant.

I want to start incorporating Victorian era freak show/circus imagery into my design. I want it to have an almost steampunk feel to it. Like something from a H.G. Well's novel that never was. This will also further relate my design to the ordeals of Joseph Merrick.

Essay Question Proposal

I have been thinking about what to right about for my essay. I have decided to ask the question, how is metamorphism used in movies (and fiction in general) in the 21^st century? How does it compeer to how it was used in the past? What dose it say about the culture of the 21^st century?        

Maya 2: Pen and Magnifying Glass

The Company of Wolves (1984)

This movie directed by Neil Jordon is basically a reimaged version of the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale. A granny tells her granddaughter wired stories about hairy men who are really wolves inside.  All these stories (and the whole movie in fact) have got a strange not very subtle Freudian psychosexual undertone. The movie is set mainly inside the dream of a young girl so the movie is very surreal and not grounded in reality. Because of this we see a lot of impressive visuals and set pieces. My favourite is the scene when the main characters older sister is running from wolves in the forest. We see lots of weird things like giant dolls and teddies that are extremely creepy, it reminded me of a Salvador Dalí or Rene Magritte surrealist painting. There is also some very impressive practical effects including a very original take on the werewolf transformation scene. We literally see the wolf emerge from inside the man through his mouth.

To be honest I didn’t really like the films psychosexual undertones but I didn’t really know why. I wasn’t against the idea in principle I just wasn’t a fan of the unsubtle way it was handled. Luckily not long after watching this movie I just happened to watch an interview with Guillermo Del Toro the director of Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) who addressed the subject of the psychosexual aspects of fairy tells. He said, “They seem to have an agenda, they need to prove something, they need to prove a point.” referring to people who look for the Freudian aspects of fairytales (you can find this interview in the special features of the blu-ray for Pan’s Labyrinth). This I think is basically what my problem with the movie was I felt they were trying to hard to show the Freudian aspects of the Red Riding Hood fairytale, as appose to letting ideas come naturally (if that makes any sense).

To be fair I think this is probably a movie you need to see more than once to really understand and appreciate it. I think a lot of the more surreal types of movies are like that. I remember the first time I saw Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) I didn’t like it at all but now is one of my favourite movies.