This story takes place in the Wild West...

Just felt like drawing a bunch of Western characters!

When in doubt....draw mermaids

2nd Term Helmet Project

I just finished my first year at Art Center and thought I would share what my big final project for my 2nd term. We had to make a life size helmet, of our own design, entirely out of clay and found objects. The story for my helmet is as follows:

“Long ago, the seven seas of the earth were ruled over by seven different kingdoms of merpeople. The seven kingdoms were constantly at war with each other, trying to expand their territory into the other’s sea with the goal of one day ruling the entire ocean waters.

The Kingdom of Atlantis ruled over the Atlantic ocean and was currently at war with the Indian ocean. One of the recruits was a young merman. Although very enthusiastic about supporting his kingdom, he lacked the skills to do so. During training he was the worst in his training class. He lacked grace in weilding the Atlantian spear, showed poor depth perception when launching and fleeing from underwater bombs, and was extremely clumsy when it came to sneaking and spying on enemy lines. He was recklessly picked on by his fellow soldiers and was nicknamed, “Bubble Head” because of his overly round helmet.

The helmets that the warriors of the Atlantian army wear varied depending on the fish tail they were born with. Some were born with the tails of sharks and were given fearsome helmets with jagged shark teeth, others were born with the tails of pufferfish and were given round helmets with spikes all around. The young merman was born with the tail of a dragon eyed goldfish and was given a helmet designed with their signature round eyes. The eyes of the helmet was designed to zoom in and out like a telescope with the added addition of night vision if a night attack should occur. A ventilator was placed on the helmet to filter the water in case the enemy should launch bombs that emit a toxic sludge that would kill anyone who breathes it in. 

The young merman was proud to be fighting for his kingdom, but scared he may not live to come home to it again. Unfortunately he was killed at the front lines, leaving behind his helmet.”

I also attached sketches of my character who would be wearing the helmet, as well as the initial ideation sketches of different areas I could go with the helmet. This was such a hard project for me, but I think I pulled it off pretty well and I’m proud of the finished product :)

Little Nemo in Slumberland

 

For my latest visual development project I chose to take the classic comic strip story "Little Nemo in Slumberland", written by Winsor McCay, and place it in India. Nemo is based in modern day India and taken to the magical world of Slumberland which is styled in the vein of the Arabian Nights. I chose to center on character development and costume design for this project.

The Hobo and the Blue Haired Babe

Just a couple of sketches from this week. Thought they turned out pretty cool!

Evil Drag Queen Final Design

Character Render: 3/4 Front and Back

Glitter Canon: Views and Call-Outs

Final Illustration

For this week’s homework in Design Process I was challenged by my teacher to take a more realistic approach to my Evil Drag Queen character design after seeing my sketches from last week. I definitely learned a lot about how to render human anatomy and fabric, and ended up with an illustration that is probably the best I’ve ever painted so far :)

The Evil Drag Queen

Character exploration for the young prince

Character exploration for the adult Evil Drag Queen

Character Exploration

Costume Exploration

Costume Exploration

Prop Exploration: The Evil Queen uses a canon to shoot a shower of glitter. If one is caught in the shower, their clothes turn to the opposite of their gender

Prop Exploration

For this week's homework for my Design Process 2 class, we were given a series of character types and told to create a character and a prop centered around that theme. One of the character types was "Evil Queen" and for some reason I kept imagining an Evil Drag Queen, so I just went with it!

The Story:

Once upon a time there lived a young prince who lived in a beautiful palace with his mother the queen and father the king. However unlike most princes, he didn’t enjoy dressing like a prince, and preferred to dress like a princess. One fateful day he was caught in the act of wearing one of his mother’s gowns and was severly punished by his father. The prince was told never to dress in gowns and crowns ever again and to act like the respectable prince he was expected to be.
Many years passed and the prince’s father grew ill and died. The prince, was crowned king, but instead made himself queen. Without the threat of his parents looming over his head, the prince, now queen, dressed in the most flamboyant of fashions. He made a decree that all men would now dress as woman, and all woman would dress as men. If these demands were not met, they would be punished by death. The queen wanted his subjects to feel the pain and frustration he felt all those years, being forced to act in a way that didn’t feel genuine.
Shortly into the reign of the new queen, the people of the kingdom revolted. They took over the castle and captured the queen. The queen was publically executed by guillotine, in the way his idol, Marie Antoinette, was killed. He didn’t mind, to him, that would be the most fabulous way to go.