concept art module - fourth year mart animation

Introduction

For my Concept Art project I decided to focus on the era of the 1920’s and to design a female actress character from this era.

This required a significant amount of research into the fashions and beauty trends of the era. I also studied the design and layout of cinema posters from the 20’s so I could gain an idea of the type of fonts used, colour schemes etc. My annotated research follows on the next pages.

The Great Gatsby

The First idea I had to start my research was the novel “The Great Gatsby” and it’s movie adaptions. I looked at the costume design of the characters particularly the wealthy Daisy Buchanan for ideas on the costume of my character. This was because my main idea was to create a character who was wealthy due to her success in the film industy amd but also cold and calculating, someone who would do any-thing to secure and maintain her wealth.

Expression on her face very focused on the camera,. She seems completely in control. As my character is an actress, I needed to achieve this kind of poise and control in the expression on her face.

Baz Luhrmann is re-making the Great Gatsby film for release in late 2012. I decided to study some of the released press shots to under-stand a modern interpretation of 20’s style.

Short, structured bob hairstyle. Very sophisticated look. I liked this idea for my character.

Lots of Accessories

Definite consideration of the short, structured bob hairstyle. Cheekbone level with full fringe. Consid-ered side-parting and pin-curls, but I think the straight cut bob and fringe feels more iconic of the 20’s. Possibly consider adding accessories to the hair? headband or a decorative pin?

I also researched into the style of movie posters from the 20’s aswell as the most prominant art styles of era, Art Nouveau / Art Deco.

Decorative, floral borders. Stylised text, almost, illus-trated look. Would be nice to incor-porate concept de-sign into a poster?

Art deco style font. Consideration of the type of font I would use if I was to cre-ate a poster style design for my character would be very important for it to look authentic.

Would need to consider looking at some 20’s silent film/talkies movie posters!

These 20’s movie posters all show heavy influence from the Art Nou-vea/Deco move-ments. Curvinf, floral illustrative style and design, strong two-tone text with illustrative font. All of these ele-ments I would have to consider if I was to create my character concept as a poster design.

The ArtistMy research was also heavily in-fluenced by the film “The Artist” a silent movie released in January 2012. Set in the 20’s it tells the story of a si-lent movie actor faced with a ca-reer dilema on the introduction of the new “Talk-ie” generation of films. I was heavily inspired by the costume and production design.

Noted particularly the use of a Deco style city-scape in the back-ground of the poster. Maybe I could combine this with an Art Nouvea style border of some kind for my concept?

Once I had researched the kind of elements I wanted to include in my design, I then began to heavily research authentic fashion and fe-male beauty of the time. I did this through purchasing a magazine pub-lished by the “Daily Mail” called “What Every Woman Should Know - Life-style lessons from the 1920’s and 30’s”

In this publication I managed to locate great reference material for the costume design of my character and also for referencing a strong pose. I felt this would be the key to my image as she would be the center of attention within the poster if it were to be published in real life.

These authentic illustrations all have one particular ele-ment in common, - a strong pose. Arched back, elon-gated limbs, arms either relaxed or angled so they rest on the hips. Remniscent of modern fashion models and actresses?

Bob hairstyles and strong makeup.

lips - pouty?smoulderingeyes?

Poses - Always one arm angled and resting on the hip. Emphasises curves, womanly!

Although I had considered the “Flapper” look for my character, I felt that as a wealthy actress promoting herself on a poster, an evening gown would be more appropriate as the Flapper dress was more of a “day” look.

This image struck me in particular. VERY elegant and chic. The dress works well with the pose, elongates the body and legs and emphasises curves - Sexy, Womanly. while the arm resting on the hip adds interest.

For details I noted the way make-up was applied and used and which kind of accessories would be worn. I.e: dark lipstick and heavy eye-makeup. Lots of jewellery, beads, pins, necklaces etc.

I decided to use this image as the main reference im-age for my character pose. I felt that it was the most relevant for what I was trying to convey with my character and also incorporated all of the research I had done into what I thought would be an appropriate pose for my character. i.e; hand bal-anced on the hip, eyes to-wards the camera and head up. It is very glamourous, almost regal?

once I had conducted my research into the 1920’s and felt confident that I had decided on all the elements I wished to include into my character, I then began designing and devel-oping her. The images and skecthes I produced are on the following pages.

Working drawings testing hairstyles/colour on the character. I decided that the straight-cut bob would be more suitable for the glam-ourous look I wanted to achieve.

Possible clothing / outfit tests. Decided Flapper dress wasn’t formal enough, looked towards evening wear.

Liked the idea of something that would work and accentu-ate the figure of my character - fitting her character more.

Working “pose” tests based on my research.

Decided that a stand-ing pose would definitely be more suitable for a poster-type piece of concept art. More imposing

This was the final pose I decided on for my charac-ter. I felt it was imposing enough to be considered for a piece of advertising and also glamourous enough for the character I was trying to create. The sharp angle of the arm combined with elongated body and the flowing mate-rial for the dress would make an interesting image I felt.

Hairstyle is sculpt-ed so could pos-sibly be modelled as a shape rather than having to ap-ply hair texture?

Dress is very shiny, light passes very im-portant for textur-ing.

Dress Could be considered as one limb for modelling and rigging purposes?

Consideration would have to be made on the dy-namics and ani-mation of mate-rial on the dress? would cloth phys-ics work?

Dress has a slight train at the back, this could be rigged separately to the main body> (Secondary animation)

Closer details of the actual character design which I incorporated into the design of the final concept.