Archetypes, shapes, and cutouts

This Journal has been a bit too long in the making. It’s going to have a lot of photographs in it and I’m sorry if it’s a bit much. The event written down here started two weeks ago on this tuesday. It starts on Tuesday the 26th of February and ends today on the 11th of March. As I often say.It’s hard to work flatout and write at the same time.

I could just break this down into two separate journals, but I’d have to post them side-by-side anyway so I might as well make them one post as this is all part of the same project.

 

Shapes

 

After doing the archetype project I wrote about here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/02/27/the-archetype-project/ I had to start making siluhetted characters using two of the archetypes and the shapes I had assigned them. At least 12 of each before choosing one. I went with the Ruler and the Lover. Being a strong contrast to each-other. I got to work on designing some Ruler characters Just using shapes. Here is what I made

Among those present are

The Pope

A Judge

Moses

King Triton

Aslan

Princess Celestia

Tarzan

Barack Obama

And an actual ruler

My favourite was this fat old king I made.

 

And then I had to make some Lovers. Here is what I did

 

Present are…

A Princess

Eros (I seem to have a thing for him)

A Ballerina

Zeus in his swan form

A despairing poet

A child 

And The Wanderer

 

But the one that struck me as most interesting was the Amazon I felt I could make a very interesting character out of her.

 

I started playing with different Amazons. Everything from bikini clad barbarians to Burqa clad guardswomen

When I was done I put ticks next to the ones that had ideas I liked and began to refine them into a single character

I soon had a warrior woman with flowing hair, bare shoulders, a kind demeanor, and only a shield to defend herself with. For she needed no weapon to defend justice and love. My Shield Maiden.

 

Things seemed to be going well. Then I heard from one of my classmates my characters would have to interact at somepoint. None of my Rulers were really clicking with me. And I knew I didn’t want to do a scene with any of them and my amazon. So after weighing up the pros and cons I decided to junk the ruler and pick a new archetype. I went for The Creator. But damned if I was going to let myself make an artist! I swore long ago I’d never have an artist as a main character. It’s the height of laziness. (I only tolerant it in Stephen King)

It was Thursday evening by this point (We’d spent the day at an awesome lecture by animation legend Barry Purves) so I just went stream-of-consciousness and let myself draw whatever until the page was full (And yes. Several artists slipped in)

Here’s the piece

Present are…

A mother goddess

Buddha

A chef

An Arcangel

A father

An Exorcist

A Wizard

A Mad scientist

A One Armed artist

A sculpter

A robot

An Arcangel

Sisyphus

Several Lovecraftian monsters

And this guy

I have no idea how most of these relate to the creator type. I was letting my subconscious drive. But I did find one I liked. A fox with a mask I knew he was something special.

I began to refine him. Adding in bits of my wizard and monster designs

It wasn’t much But I had a character of sorts.

 

I wanted to draw both side by side.I started with basic shapes and built on top of them. 

My Shield maiden had a face, and my fox had a personality. He was the Mask Maker. A half-fox half-human freak who used a magical mask to look human.

 

This done I decided to finalise their designs. I think The result is one of the best pieces of illustration I have ever done

 

By this point the new week [Last week as of this writing] had rolled around. So I had to start making the Mattese-like collages I mentioned here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/03/05/a-bad-case-of-the-mondays/ But i continued working on some colour disigns in my downtime.

 

Cutouts

 

As Tuesday of this week arrived I found myself bit by the insane bug that bites me every two years and decided to make my first Mattese-alike using whole sheets of card for each piece. The result is a collage that is over 7 feet tall and pasted onto nine pieces of A2 paper that have been stapled together

It took 2 hours to make. At least it is Mattese scale. Plus I find art teachers will often mistake size for quality.

I had fun making this life-size Shield Maiden. I do think the piece does actually look good regardless of how big it is. But I decided to make the next one a lot smaller. Using scraps left over from the the first piece I made one for the Mask-Maker that fit onto a piece of paper only slightly larger than A4

It’s okay. I did start altering his design to make it more exaggerated and a bit mor fox-like (MacCory helped me there) and I like the changes. I asked Owen for an opinion. And her liked them But asked me to make my cutouts more exaggerated and to start adding detail into them. I had already started on a second Mask-Maker cutout. One that would be made of two colours only. I was loath to draw on it. But I did exaggerate the design a bit more. But I was tired so I went home. I think Tuesday was a rare good day where I got a lot done.

 

Wednesday was slow. I didn’t have much energy left. And I had to go home early. But I did make some progress with my design and animation work.

And at Least I cleaned my room when I got home.

 

On Thursday I did okay. I finished the second Mask-Maker cutout. Here it is

I like it. I think his design gets a little better each time. Plus the colours just look cool.

I felt lazy and apathetic through Thursday. It’s a problem I’ve been facing for a while. But that drive to just work flatout isn’t there anymore.

But I did finish the design I was making with coloured pencils 

 

I regret that the photos here and from here-onward are not very good I struggled keeping my shadow out of the shor. And the paper in some of these is crumpled. I hate photographing my work.

The Mask-Maker looks fantastic in colour. The sadness and fantastical side of his nature now really shine through. At Owen’s request I exaggerated his design a little more and I now think he could pass the silhouette test. I think this might be the best depiction of him I’ve done yet.

The Shield Maiden here isn’t so good. I’ve exaggerated her design too. And she is definitely more distinctive now. But I feel the charm and innocence of her character have been lost somewhere. I also wasn’t able to get the pink on her clothes right, Except for on her chest strangely. On her dress it came out so badly I tried to fix it with watercolours, which just crumpled the paper.

But in spite of that I had more fun working with the coloured pencils than I had had in weeks. For the first time in ages I found myself getting sucked into to the flow of my work. Should I have become an illustrator instead?

 

I also used Thursday to start writing the journal you are reading right now. And these take a long time to write let me tell you,

 

I spent most of Friday creating the photographs you have been looking at. It was pain. Getting everything in the shot. Keeping my shadow out Getting enough room to photograph the bigger pieces.And trying to get an at least decent composition. I feel sorry for people who do this for a living. I really don’t know how they do it and get nice results. Some of them were terrible. Look at at this Photograph 

This wasn’t the only one that came out the upsidedown or in its side either. Far from. Just didn’t correct this one to make a point. And about a quarter of the time I hit record instead of photograph, making worthless mini-movies 

If it seems like I’m talking more about the making processes here than on the actual artworks there’s two reasons. Firstly it was a lot harder.Secondly it’s a lot fresher in my memory. I guess this is why you should do these journals more often. You remember more and can be more reflective and critical.

 

With that done I just coasted through Friday. Reluctant to work but unwilling to go home. I may write more about this later. But  want to get that drive to work for hours at a time back. Until I do I’ll get by staying in late and working scrappily so I may get something done.

I made two simple version of my characters in watercolours. Working wet into wet. Sometimes not even mixing the colours! (I’m a rebel!)

The water was even still on the page when I photographed it.

I think it looks fine. I like working wet into wet. The colors pop and I feel the Mask Maker’s design looks better than ever. The Shield Maiden looks okay. I don’t know what inspired me to add the green streaks to her dress but I love it. 

Then I did a pic of the Shield Maiden using coloured pencils and water 

It looks alright. I like I’ve got her proportions a bit more in check. And I love the kinds of colours and patterns coloured pencils give you.

I also wrote up an animation journal, then did a tiny bit of animation. I tried making one last cutout, this time adding details with watercolour. I had handed the camera over to Owen by this point so there is no photograph of this one. It’s not much to look at.

But at this point my desire to work had dried up and I went home around Six. Feeling kinda rubbish.

 

Today I came in and Owen gave me the Photographs. Put everything into to finishing this journal. Meaning once again I wont be able to start the new task till Tuesday. At least I stayed in till [] today. Hopefully by bad case of the Mondays is over.

 

A full two hours and 20 minutes was given over to us showing each-other our work and asking questions about it. Only one student asked me about my stuff. I guess they didn’t like it. Oh well. At least it’s over.

I added the Photographs to this jornal (It takes a long time) and now my blog is totally up to date.

I wonder what the future holds for me?