Crit Post 11/05/17

Whatever Happened to Olga Mesmer? - Face Shapes

So again, going off of the back of the face sketch I produced previously, I began to try to work out other potential shapes, as well as trying to resolve the head shape in 3D, Below is a selection of that process, until I actually started to find a shape that was pleasing enough, and looked convincing to me. 

Where I really started to understand what I needed from the character was a little later on, particularly in the middle thumbnails below, where I also began to experiment with expressions to imbue her with a bit of sass and a certain air of the 'sardonic'.

Moving on from this though, I'll be detailing some further concept art I've produced of Olga, as well as posting some costume experimentation, replete with influence maps for the clothing choice. 

Whatever Happened to Olga Mesmer? - Developing Olga's physicality.

Based on the thumbnail I got quite enthused about last time, I set about developing shapes for the entire body. I knew, based on Olga's character, and also from her original appearance that there were a few signposts I had to adhere to. 

Namely, that Olga should still be rather spritely, despite her age. (She's immortal you know). So with that, a determined factor of 'athleticism'. I also wanted to grasp at a more naturalistic form of physical appeal. For, Olga's character came from the pages of 'Spicy Stories', I wanted to eschew her origins as a character purely for the fantasies of men, and endow her with more realistic proportions. Initially this resulted in the almost 'chibi' designs you see immediately below...

Though I came out of this as I sketched, going for a little more realistic tone in both the shapes and the features. I also had a little play-around with costumes, the one below being inspired by a few choice pieces of Norma Desmond's (see: Sunset Boulevard) wardrobe.

Ultimately this is where I'm sitting with her shape. As she's a faded starlet, I've been experimenting with different poses to try to achieve not only her weariness (from living for so long) but also that brief spark of what made her so popular in her adventures through the years (1920's-Now). The current design I'm focusing on will be how she appeared as a Heroine before she disappeared.

Whatever Happened to Olga Mesmer? - Olga face development

Whilst thumbnailing sort of aimlessly for a while, seeing what I could come up with whilst looking at Olga's original appearance and thinking back to what sort of complexity I wish to see from the model, I drew something that instantly called to me. 

After this, I took another look at the hair thumbnails I produced earlier on the weekend and applied them to this newer version of Olga. I'm veering towards #2, #10 & #11.

Whatever Happened to Olga Mesmer? - Logo design

I wanted to re-brand the project after, what I perceive to be my poor attempt at it in the interim crit. So I went back to those old pulp covers and tried to recreate their aesthetic in their logo. 

This comprised of - 

Graphical Text (sometimes with a kind of 'cut out' effect). 

Slightly washed out colours. 

Fading. 

I think I've definitely achieved that 'pulpy' look I wanted to exploit, whilst also keeping things simple and graphical. Of course, I seem incapable of creating a logo without spheres featuring prominently, but here, I at least feel it is justified, as Olga is a child of two planets. And roughly, these planets represent Earth & Venus.

Adaptation B - Reflection and Ideation.

After having a chat with Alan last week, I've realigned my goals for this project into something more realistically achieved. 

This all starts with nailing the design for Olga, and below is my brief notation on where I would like to go with that. As well as some preliminary sketches. 

Interim Crit reflection 23/03/17

"To infinity, and beyond!" - Buzz Lightyear.

Thinking back to yesterday's crit, and moving past my natural instinct to wince, I feel that I got the comments I deserved, both good and bad. Initially, I had wanted this project to be a character design process, and since I have been advised to go back to that, I can't help but feel relief. Though, I feel as though I've let myself down purely in time wasted (for whatever reason). I do find myself coming out of yesterday with a certain degree of calm. 

I am, at least, glad that my 'idea' was liked and well thought of. But now I want to prove that I'm not just an ideas man.

Moving forward, I'll be designing Olga and completing the pipeline. If it's also a prudent idea in laying the groundwork for this being a Year 3 project to finish, I'll also look at completing the animatic and writing process for the short. Proving to myself that I can do those things.

Hopefully I can get a chat in with Alan next week to get a greater sense of what I now need to do.  

No time for moping, because I'm excited to design Olga, since it's not everyday you get the opportunity to design a superhero and it not be an entirely cheesy process. 

Interim Crit Presentation 23/03/17

Adaptation B - Mood Board

In order to be further prepared for the interim pitch, I've generated a small mood board that I hope, encapsulates the general tone I want to capture in my project.

From left to right is, Watchmen, Princess Bride, Logan, Sunset Boulevard & Birdman. All of which share a context with my project.

I'll be writing a rough script tonight before bed, with a general sense of where I'm going.

Adaptation B - Preliminary thumbnails for Olga

At the moment I've done a few drawings purely for the purpose of ascertaining the basic shape breakdown of Olga, and throwing up any aesthetic quirks along the way. On the surface there isn't much to go from in the original outline for the character, as, honestly, she's quite generic, and wears next to nothing (thanks to the nature of the medium she's from). 

Keeping my spin on the character in mind, in that, she will be used in a subversive manner that both belays her original purpose (which was to entertain and titillate) into something much more positive. Therefore, I wanted to explore different shapes that one would normally expect from a superheroine, given that we're used to large breasted, svelte and admittedly - at times - muscular forms (Wonder Woman being the obvious comparison to draw here) I wanted to explore things much closer to 'normal', even mundane. Whilst not 100% there, I am moving closer to that within these exploratory thumbnails. 

TLDR - I'm thinking more 'Unbeatable Squirrel Girl' and less 'Power Girl' (though this could be subject to change).  

Adaptation B - Typography influences

Apart from noticing how totally misogynistic these covers are, I thought they would also provide invaluable information in terms of project branding, in particular with typography. So I've assembled a library together and taken note of the particular fonts I like most, and how they're all combined. 

I've also experimented a little with the logo for this project, and I'm leaning to want to at a little more colour here and there, so I'll be experimenting with that soon as I feel that there is more to get from these covers. I've been toying with the idea to utilise them in a much more meaningful way during the course of this project. 

Adaptation B - "Mommie Dearest" (1981) & "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) reaction.

With regards to my project, I was offered a few film suggestions that reflected the tone I wanted to evoke, that tragic, aged starlet, relevant at one point in time, and still relevant in their own heads, both of these films deal with a schism created by feeling irrelevant and the mythic tragedy this brings with it. 

Norma Desmond

So the challenge is transposing this, and adapting it into Olga. So after further reading into her character - of which very little exists, I've discovered - I found out that the character had effectively been shafted after a somewhat epic sounding story arc. In that arc, she fought in an interplanetary war, and married in order to stop it. Becoming the queen of Venus. Her past also bore interesting tidbits, something that I will focus on in a later post, but sufficed to say, she experienced a lot of abuse during her childhood, which I feel like will affect her outlook as an older person. 

So, in a discussion with Phil, he noted that the interesting part there was that she was shelved. Obsolete in some way, and that's what I should be focusing on. He recommended that I watch Sunset Boulevard, so I did. 

After viewing "Sunset Boulevard" I happened on the idea that my character - Olga Mesmer - the first female superhero in comics, would follow a similar path to Norma Desmond in terms of the 'aftermath' of her career. Would Olga experience the same maddening irrelevance as Norma? Indeed, it seemed as though she would. Living in a decrepit old mansion surrounded by heirlooms of her past, herself effectively living in the past, Norma lives in the waning light of her stardom. The ultimate gut punch being when we learn that her butler - a creepy almost omnipresent manservant - is actually one of her ex husbands. Himself, trapped in the faded stars enacting of the past. The whole film basks in this potent twilight, and you find yourself silently hoping that things could just go in Norma's favour. The ending almost paradoxically grants Norma her fame back, whilst also damning her to a life in prison for murdering Joe Gillis; the dual nature of this ending furthering the complexity of Norma's condition, for all at once she displays an awareness of her own irrelevance, whilst also displaying an uncanny ability to lie to herself about the nature of her reality. 

From this I took that I should focus on the twilight years, with an older Olga. Though I encountered a problem. After further research into Olga Mesmer, I had discovered that she had been granted 'unaging immortality' at the end of her original story. But again, after further talking with both Phil & Alan, it became clear to me that age can be more than just a physical attribute, age affects the mind. So again, I asked myself what would Olga be like in that circumstance? 

Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford

Phil had a few more film suggestions after that, One of which was "Mommie Dearest" - rudimentary docu-drama focusing on Joan Crawford, again, in her twilight years. Whilst the subject matter focused mainly on her fracture psyche caused by fame, and the subsequent abuse of her adopted daughter. So the threads of what I could use for Olga were less apparent here, but were certainly to be found, and find them I did. Again, this film demonstrated to me the self importance caused by fame, the sadness that hung around its subjects who were in it's light and falling out of it. All of these things helped me form a more cogent idea of what Olga would be like, say, 40-50 years down the line, regardless of physical condition. 

So, attitudinally, I have something to work on. There are a few things that Alan suggested in our last meeting regarding to format, and an extremely interesting suggestion that I look at the opening of Watchmen for inspiration. Especially as I had mentioned to him that I saw Olga as someone that could be a feminist icon in some kind of alt-world situation. I will follow that trail of thought up in another post though...

Adaptation B - Olga Mesmer Influence Map

Leading on from this morning's tutorial and a talk yesterday, I've chosen to focus my project on one of the three choices I had lined up for myself in previous Adaptation B posts. As such, I've chosen "Olga Mesmer" - a kind of Superman progenitor.

Here's a preliminary influence map, detailing her original appearance alongside some more contemporary visions of the 'faded starlet'. I'm going to be watching 'Sunset Boulevard' tonight, and I'll post my initial reaction soon after.

Adaptation B - Ideas/Tutorial Reflection

Preparation for today's tutorial. 

Last night I sat down, next to my bookcase, and began trying to solve the somewhat big question of "What do I like?" Apparently, the answer was - Too much. And I spent most of the evening trying to ascertain some manor of idea that wasn't simply "STAR WARS".

Understanding that the conceit behind the adaptation project is that the work should be personal in some way, I thought back to my father's old art books he had given me in a recent clear-out. Books that I had stared at as a child, by artists like Frank Frazetta, Chris Foss and Boris Vallejo. Understanding that "High Fantasy" was kind of a no-go for the adaptation project I tried to source the common thread in my interest.

"The fall of Babylon; Cyrus the Great defeating the Chaldean army" - John Martin

Quickly, I came upon the notion that I really enjoyed the simple set up of the books. The often vague title on the opposite page, or at the bottom of the piece. And in more simple terms, I liked the focus on a few subjects in a sort of 'diorama' set up.

This led me to thinking about the artist John Martin, who created large scale landscape paintings that contain various little stories within them, forming a larger narrative when considered as a whole. Traditionally, the viewer's gaze would be led by someone with an oil lantern as they would narrate the painting's events to them.

This bled into that sense of wanting to create a scene, or at the very least, a piece of work that had the story deeply baked into the entirety of it's artifice.

Alongside this, I was also trying to think of other things I enjoyed and how it could work sympathetically with the previously established wants from this project. I thought of what text I could adapt, coming to the conclusion that I am a big fan of 'Pulp'. Be that in it's more contemporary form as Comic books, and right back to the original stories dreamt up in the 20's, 30's from a slew of my favorite writers, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs etc.

Additionally, I knew that I wanted to incorporate some form of 3D printing into this project, perhaps having a 3D print of a model/series of models/scene etc. form the basis of a sort of 'final' element to the project.

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Following on from this morning's chat with Alan, I've come out of it with some form of direction to go in. Relaying everything discussed up top with him, I seem to have the methodology and pipeline in order, i.e. I want to create a character maquette or possibly an action figure or a scene, etc. It was agreed that I should go in to the Pulp aspect of my ideas, perhaps contextualizing them in another time period and imagining that particular permutation of that character. Alan said that there was another students work from previous years that did a similar thing with "Drive", placing it within the 1920's. It seems like in doing something like this, ideas will come naturally from that decision.

I have a particular interest in aligning the trappings of the setting with the adapted character, be that either an original creation of my own or something directly lifted from the text.

So we're happy with my own goals for the project, and all that's left to do is to find that piece of text, that pulp fiction, that I can use to springboard into the project. I'll aim to do this, realistically, by the end of the week, but hopefully as soon as possible so I can start generating more cogent ideas.