Monday 9 November 2009

Titus Groan concept art – understanding the imagery and gaining inspiration

I have been presented with the task of creating concept art for three excerpts from the novel “Titus Groan”. Here I am going to talk about some different parts from the excerpt that I plan to create concept art from, that give me the strongest mental images. I am also going to talk about different sources that give me inspiration to go towards my artwork.

Inspirational sources

I have been on the lookout over the past few weeks for things which spark inspiration from other sources of artwork, be it book covers or scenes in films. Here I will name a few and mention in another blog about why they are so influential.



  • Lord of the Rings - Film and mainly Book cover artwork

  • Merlin - TV series run by the BBC

  • Rochester Castle

  • Tim Burton films, in particular the "Corpse Bride"


Excerpt 1: Hall of the bright carvings.




There are several key pieces of imagery that strongly come to mind from this excerpt. Here are the ones that took my attention most and what I will be using to work upon.
I found the description the power that the Castle has over everything else in the land the story is based in to be a really strong, intimidating presence. When I read a couple of lines based around the Castle, I could feel the sinking of my stomach as the image of a towering beast in front of a blood red sky empowers everything underneath its groaning slumber.

















As you can see below, I am constructing my conceptual sketches into digital paintings via photoshop. As I create them I will show the developmental stages to each pictures finished product.


Few hours later... ta da! Hall of Bright Carvings.




(LOTS more to be added to this... bear with me... blogspot has a passionate hate for me)

3 comments:

  1. Interim Online Review - Unit 2 : Space 10/11/09

    Hi Chris,

    Progress seems rather slow? It's reassuring to see some thumbnails arrive, but I'm not seeing any evidence of your developing skills with Photoshop and graphics tablet - are you making the most of your classes with Phill Hosking? You appear to be 'colouring in' some your thumbnails, when other students seem to be benefiting from taking Phill's advice and working more impressionistically - at least in the first instance. I don't see any evidence either of you working up many alternate views/compositions via quick, instinctive thumbnails?

    Experience suggests that you're not giving this your fullest attention; I direct you towards Ruben's blog, as that is a much better indication for me (in terms of assessment) of what I'd expect to see after 2 weeks... also, you appear to struggle with blogger - can I strongly suggest you engage with your classmates and suss out where you're going wrong in terms of file size/type etc. Other students seem to experience little or no difficulty, so get some advice and don't let it become an obstacle.

    We had a discussion re. the visual opportunities presented by Gormenghast - a rich, theatrical world of exaggeration and grotesques; you may already be familiar with the painting technique of chiaroscuro - see the paintings of Caravaggio for some deep and rich inspiration; you may also derive inspiration from the film, The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and her Lover, which we'll be watching together on Tuesday afternoon.

    More generally, I still want you to give more thought re. how you present your drawings etc. on the blog - photographing them just isn't doing you or your work any favours; take the time to scan them, tidy them and post them to their best advantage.

    See second post for general info re. written assignment.

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  2. Okay – just a few important reminders for week 10…

    1) !IMPORTANT! Hand-in for Perception essay is Monday 23rd November (Tomorrow!) between 10am and 12pm at the Design Office (Jackie’s office on Lower 4th – just up from the CG Arts Baseroom). Ensure you complete the plagiarism form; if you’ve misplaced it, ask Jackie for a new copy and attach to your essay.
    2) Your crit on Friday starts at 9am in Lecture Theatre 1; we will be reversing the register order – so we’ll be starting with Simon Watts, then Richard etc. There will be a named folder on the Lecture Theatre 1 computer: as soon as you arrive please copy your 3 finished scenes into the folder in readiness for your presentation.
    3) All Maya exercises should be completed for Friday morning so Alan can assess them while you are in your crit.
    4) Upload to your blogs your 3 final concept paintings plus a minimum of 5 preparatory studies for each painting that demonstrate clearly your comprehension of the source material and the representation of space. Your supporting research into source material and for written assignment. All drawings from life-drawing classes. Your modeling & UV layout tasks, lighting & rendering tasks, and first digital set as specified in your technical classes.
    5) Please can you ensure that you have a printed copy of your essay to submit in addition to the digital file on your submission disc.
    6) Also – please ensure you copy 3 scenes and essay file into named folder on computer in baseroom by the end of the submission day.
    7) Good luck! Have a great final week – work hard, be amazing, be successful! I genuinely look forward to seeing your work ☺

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  3. A clarification; Alan WON"T be looking at students' Maya work until Monday of next week, which means you have the weekend to complete your various exercises. I know Alan has spoken with the class about this already - so I'm just confirming it from an assessment point of view. I'll do my best to post this message on everyone's blog, but if you could spread the word, I'd be grateful. Cheers!

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