Aimee PoPeindePendAnt PrActice

Hidden Worlds

“There’s no real objection to escapism, in the right places… We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality… It’s a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can’t think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.”

– Arthur C Clarke

I am currently exploring the field of hidden worlds; the mysterious and curiosity that these hidden places present. I have looked at other productions such as Primeval, the Chronicles of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland thus far to see how they have looked into their worlds and the mysteries they give to us. It all presents the question of why we create these fantasy worlds. Do we create them because we have a fundamental need to escape our present lives and ways of living even if there is nothing wrong with what life has actually given us?

What is a hidden world? Is it something that you enter through a wardrobe or down a rab-bit hole? Or is something you go via the Stargate or the Enterprise? It is literal or non lit-eral and can it even be set within our current time period on our own planet? Or is set into our past or even our future? I find this is not just restricted to films, T.V dramas or books, but also in video gaming. More and more of us use a computer/console and the games we can play on them allow us to feel like we’re actually in the scene. We’re the character that the story is about, not some non-playable character we have no control over.

Can it be wondered if visiting such a place or realm gives us a certain kind of rush like the one we might feel when riding on a roller-coaster? I personally love most of the hidden worlds that current productions such as Cameron’s Avatar give us. I want to go to Pandora and see the Home Tree. Is it wrong to want the same sort of adventure as Jake Sully had or any other character in many of these portraits and landscapes of these worlds?

I have created my own race of bipedal canines who have their own language and way of life. I have looked into what they wear, what their vessels may look like and etc. I’m also going to look into what their planet, Nolfia, looks like and the animals that live there. This is something I think I would really like to push and challenge myself with.

Through exploring these hidden worlds of folklore and fantasy, I have a few ideas on how to put direction to my two to three years work for my Nolfian race. It would include a lot of concept art, research and possibly even story boarding for a fantasy game or some other kind of interac-tive program.

After discussiing it further with Mark and Simon, I have changed course slightly and I hope to inlcude a 2D/3D animation short using the creatures and characters I have created for my im-agined world. Mark showed me a music video for the Ravonettes and the imagery they did for it. I was really interested by the processes of how it was made and look to creating something along the same lines with my creatures. That will have to be storyboarded so I know how I want it to progress. I have also toyed with animating my characters through a program called An-imeStudio, which is akin to what Monty Python use, and am going to make my character move with it. It’s really stepping into the unknown with me since I normally stick to what I know practice wise and I won’t know how the end result will turn out.

indepence PracticeProject Proposal

I have written up all there is to know about Nolfians and their society as to how I have it imagined inside my mind. I feel it puts context and enables me a structure to work from to continue with the creation and evolution of my Nolfian race.

As what I have written is too extensive to be placed here, please refer to my blog post at ;

http://kathleen-pope.livejournal.com/3617.html

It is under the name of, ‘Nolfian statistics and other general information’.

(above)General Kunamacharacter PageA detailed depiction

of the General.

(right)General Kunamacharacter PageA depiction of

Kunama in old military uniform

(above and right)Male poses (reference)By BarbiePlastico (DevianArt.com)

I wanted to see what positions I could draw my Nolfians in when drawing what clothes they would possibly wear in my mind and I used these for reference. I used it both with male and with female poses.

Various types of Nolfian GarbIncluding what the Nolfian Guard wear.

(from left to right)Wedding or fancy evening dres, old style military uniform, present unform, youngster space-type casual wear.

More casual wear for the younger generations

Mood board for James Cameron’sAVAtAr

Mood board forDisney’s NARNIA:The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince caspian

Mood board forLewis Carrol’s and Disney’sAlice in Wonderland

(above)Possible varieties of Nolfian signs for both pedestrians and drivers.

(right)A try-out in Illistrator but I do not personally like it. I feel it lacks a personal touch that most of my drawings tend to show.

i began to look into what animals would exist on Nolfia and many have been in my mind for a long time before being shown on paper..

On the left stands a Rok’sa, a herbivorous creature often used for plough work, carriages and other heavy duty work.

On the bottom left, is the head of a Tosk-ra, a carnivorous relative of the Rok’sa and is much more aggressive. As such, they remain mostly wild

Below, is a Strix. These speedy creatures are desert animals and very hard to catch.

The above two creatures are called Kutsahn.

I think this creature is one of my favourites of what I’ve imagined and based on Earthen creatures, and I love how they came out.

Above, stands an Aht, a dog come hyena like creature that are vrey playful and range in size.

On the left, is a Monaht, a monkey-like creatures that bears traits of both reptiles and mammals. Are often used to reach hard to reach fruits, mainly gathering Affet beans.

On the left is what I have called a Juari, a small bird that has a loud voice, and can make itself heard. They are typical blue, red or a green but can range from any colour variety.

Below is a Xentari, a sea creature that can range from being very small and a Nolfian delicacy to gigantic proportions. They can live for half as long as most Nolfians.

I really like how the Juari and the Xentari came out. When you think giant sea crea-ture, you normally assume some squid, whale or even the Kraken.

Having a crustacean fill that role for a change is refreshing.

Here is a Hukra, an antlered deer’like creature that stands as tall as a Earthen horse and is often used as the Guard’s cavalry.

I really love how this came out with and without the tack added. I had to take into consdieration with the saddle since Nolfians have tails, a high rise on the back of the saddle would be something of a nuiscance.

Above Left stands a Male Corvaka and below left stands a female Corvaka. They are deer-like, as are the Hukra (far left) but are far more skittish and wary.

i like how these came out with the distinctively long ears that almost resemble long-eared rabbits in a way. i vision them to be much smaller than the standard Hukra... perhaps the size of a small pony in our terms.

Peigah (left and below) is another favourite of mine. I’m proud how I’ve done the wings. I based them off that of a vulture’s which seems a contrast to a creature that I deem in myimagination to be a flightful and pure creature.

After being told about AnimeStudio, I went and got it. It’s an intriguing piece of kit that allows 2D animation, much like how Monty Python do theirs for the interface for ‘the Search for the Holy Grail’. Wanting to gain a feel for the program, I played about with one of my other drawins. Respectively, I should have done done it with my Nolfian at the time but it was very insightful nonetheless.

I created this with AnimeStudio and I found it hard to gain a feeling for but it came with a very useful quick start guide and once I had done the simple steps of dropping anchors and drawing shapes, I got on with animating.

I didn’t figure out how to get the actual picture I had draw to move, though I suspect it’s not possible, but I’m not certain. However, it’s simple and effective, and I rather like it.

I had Kunama scratch her muzzle with her arm and hand. I had to go for simple clawed shape since the anchors argued when I tried to make it look exact. I am very happy with the result and I may be tempted to try and get to grips more with the piece of software.

You can see it here ;

h t t p : / / k a t h l e e n - p o p e . l i v e j o u r n a l . c o m / 4 2 1 0 . h t m l

Over the course of this semester I have discovered many new ap-proaches to getting my work done even if my self motivation was sometimes more than a little lacking. I am not ashamed to admit that and I found the Independent Practice specific studio days very helpful. I got feedback that was greatly appreciated and helpful, I feel now that I have a direction in which I can set my sails to.

Simon spoke to me about signs, what they would wear, where they lived, ate, drank, how did they speak and so on so forth. I found this very interesting and was very thrilled he had said it because I had already started working on that in the two to three years that I have been working on my Nolfian race, albeit on and off. I have created clothes for them, animals that live on their world, what they eat and even created the single dialect that they speak in.

Mark spoke of an aspect to my work, which originally, I had not even considered or acknowledged as a course of action. He has surprised me, which isn’t unusual, but he has made me surprise myself as well. Animation is a whole new world, a new learning curve where I am completely out of my depth. However, he spoke of AnimeStudio and how Asako and Chris Holt from the third year have used it. I took a look at some of their work and was very impressed. He also spoke about this music video that GAP had chris do and the Blind team to do a video for the Ravonettes. The style of it was something I found very intriguing since it wasn’t completely digital nor was it completely 2d or tradtional media. It was simple and I found myself getting very inspired by what Mark had shown me.

I hope to try and do something similar in the future with my animals and try out the methods Blind used to create that video for the Ravonettes. It’s going to be curious on how it turns out depending on whether I actually get my act together and actually do it.

I think there should have been more studio days set for Independent Feedback because there was a long period where I just had very little to no motivation or inclination as to where I should go with my work. Feedback from other people or from tutors and visiting people is very useful no matter what others may think about it being a waste of time, especially when one clicks with the personality in front of them. I found that Mark’s eccentricity fed off into me and has given me more incentive to actually go in one direction regardless of how rocky it may be. I just hope my newfound inspiration and motivation can carry forth past christmas and in to the next semester.

eVAUlAtion

BL:ND, (2008) Gap: Sound of Color, http://www.blind.com/work/directors/chris-do/gap-sound-of-color, 15/12/2010

Geoffrey Mandel. (October 2002), Star Trek Star Charts, New York: Pocket Books.

BarbieDePlastico, (July 11, 2009) Fashion Figure - Deviant Art, http://barbiedeplastico.deviantart.com/gallery/23715463, 15/12/2010

Alice In Wonderland (Book & Films) Lewis Carrol and Disney plus others, illustrated by several including Tenniel, Rackham andHarry Rountree.

James Cameron’s AVATAR (2009)

C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Film productions by the BBC and Disney. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Published by Lions

Draw50 by Lee J. Ames (I have refenceed him before in last year’s portfolio) oublished by Kingfisher.

BiBlioGrAPHY