Semester 2 - Gallery visit

Juliet on the Balcony by Thomas Francais Dicksee, 1875.

First Impressions
Fantasy, Very detailed and well painted. The use of light, contrast and color caught my eye.

Description
A portrait of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. The painting shows Juliet gazing out from her balcony (a famous scene in the play). Uses Oil on canvas, smooth and detailed textures, unfortunately hard to see because the painting is far away. Uses saturated/light colors, which contrast with the background and edges of the composition which are dark. Juliet is mostly pale and has light from the moon cast on her, this brings the viewers attention to her.

Observation
The use of light and pale colors give the feeling of neutrally, cold and sadness. Her passive posture, face expression and hand position suggest sadness, passiveness and worried. Juliet is facing out from the balcony into the distance, the outside cool colors/light contrast with the warm colors from inside the house, which emphasize Juliet loneliness. Overall composition is built around Juliet.

Questions that i felt were asked:
-Why is she alone? -why is she standing in the balcony looking for something? -why is she sad/worried?

Critical View
-Use of light and color work well to convey the feelings of the subject.
-Light reflectively and the use of texture make the piece eye catching. I am impressed withe the detail overall.

-Could maybe use darker shadows around the edges to further bring attention to Juliet

Reflective View
Feels very fantasy inspired, the overall use of color, light, texture, composition is very impressive. reminds me of how turner uses light in his paintings.
I am planning to do a painting/concept art for this semester, I would like to continue to evaluate other artists work and use there techniques to improve my work.

Final Character Pose Sheet

Final character design.

Mixed Development

Here i have tried to mix aspects from all the characters so far, with the aim of creating a final character.

character development 'butcher'

These are some characters based on silhouettes that were liked by my peers and myself.

I have made them more aggressive to further fit with the aggressive Celtic warrior theme.

After reading some Celtic stories I Identified common characters in the Celtic culture. The above are some characters based on the Godess Morigan.

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Below is some of the back story research, a list of common Celtic characters that i have been taking influence from.

These stories take place in Eireann, an ancient, mythical version of Celtic Ireland.

Characters from Celtic stories:

Nemed the Great, the first ruler and ancestor for all the races in Eireann.

Taun: chieftain of the Cesair from the land Eireann, he was powerful and happy, so the gods allowed the wild to destroy his people, he was then tasked with recording history and was reborn many times as a stag, boar and eagle.

Gods:

Dagda: the god in human guise, strong, spiritual, oldest and wisest.

Ogma: the brother of Dagda: mind over strength, teacher and scholar, invented the Ogham script.

Manannan Mac Lir: god of the sea, commander of the De Danann fleet, magical air ships and named the Isle of Man.

Breas the beautiful: son of Elethan, king of the Fomor, champion in battle, brave but Arrogant and unforgiving.

Sisterhood of War Witches, the Badb: Macha, Morrigan and Nemain, shape shifters, beautiful one second and bloodthirsty harpies the next.

Morfhis the druid: ancient spells.

Dian-cecht: healer and god of medicine / his son Miach: hates the old ways of healing and uses magic(perhaps blood magic) to replace body parts and heal.

Donn: ruler of the dead and the otherworld.

Goibhnu, luchta and Creidne: craftsmen.

Races of people:

Cesair: Tauns people

Fir Bolg: the family of Nemed, the first high king Eochai, they divided Eireann into provinces.

Tuatha De: came to Eireann to share with the Fir Bolg but the Fir Bolg refused, and war ensued.

Story draft – reference from the stories on The Silver Arm

Nauda was a great Queen but, was betrayed by her companion Breas, who secretly poisoned Nauda in battle. Nauda lost her arm in the violent battle against the Fir Bolg and was believed to be dead. Her crown was given to Breas because Nauda was not whole of body therefore not strong enough to lead, as was tradition. Breas was chosen because of her beauty and strength in battle, she was a respected warrior, but was a weak leader.

Breas had been persuaded by the powerful wizard, Balor of the Evil Eye, that Nauda would be the downfall of the Tautha De. Balor had shown Nauda a false vision and used his evil magic to corrupt Breas. Breas went mad, because the realization that she had killed her Queen and the evil corruption from Balor.

At first Breas led well but taxed the people severely because she was being threatened by the Fomor she gave into their demands and allowed them to raid there lands.

Nauda survived the battle but had lost her arm and was weak from the poison. She lay in the forest by a stream bleeding and praying to the gods for strength. Nauda fell unconscious but awoke, a tent with her wounds bandaged.

Warrior Development

The first image has been posted before but I have brought the characters to a more finished state.

The characters are wearing armor and weapons that were commonly wore in Celtic times. For this idea I created a proud, veteran warrior.

These characters are also wearing some historical armor, but I've tired to make them look more menacing as the character is supposed to be the antagonist in the story.

Research Update

Here is a good chunk of the reference I have been using during the project. The top collection consists of:

- Athletes and modern fighters

-Stock photos that I felt show the attitude my character could have

-Pose reference, because I need to improve the variety of poses in my characters

This moodboard has examples of warrior characters from video games, films and TV, that have interesting traits my character may have.

I also have historical reference from the books I mentioned previously.