the art of morrigan (hardcover)

7/21/2019 The Art of Morrigan (Hardcover)

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the art of

M O R R I G A Ndevelopment and artwork


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the art of

M O R R I G A Ndevelopment and artwork

Designed and Producedby

Emily Clarkson

emily-clarkson.blogspot.co.uk

@eclarkson2012


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Introduction6

Influences8

Te Story (Storyboard)9

Character Designing19

Environment Designing56

Contents


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Introduction

Myths and legends are found in cultures all over the world. Stories told fromone generation to the next, speaking of incredible beasts, terrifying warriors,

witches and wizards. Celtic myths are a prime example.

With a little digging, the intriguing character of The Morrigan was

unearthed. An ancestor of Irish mythology with many names. The etymology

breaks her most common name down into two parts. Mor is a derivative

found in many old languages translating to Nightmare. Meanwhile Rigan

translates as Queen. Most scholars agree that Phantom Queen is the most

accurate translation of The Morrigan.

The Morrigan is mostly considered to be the Goddess of battle and strife.

Simultaneously she was associated with sovereignty, fertility and the land.

She took on a multitude of forms. In some legends she was part of a triad of

deitys. Others described her as an individual who could shape-shift.

As an individual, Morrigan was commonly associated with imminent and

violent death, but also the outcome of war. She could be seen near the

battlefield in different guises such as a beautiful young woman.

She was commonly seen as a Crow. This form gave Morrigan thefreedom to survey the battlefield, coaxing the side she favoured and

terrorizing those who had crossed her. The crow as a symbol would often

be seen at the end of battle landing on the shoulder of the leader of

the vanquished.

Another form Morrigan was known to take was that of a washer woman.

The terrifying hag would sit by a stream and wash the bloodied uniforms of

warriors about to go into battle. A certain death omen for the owners of

the uniforms.

Morrigan could foretell the outcomes of war and she would sometimes

intervene so that her favourites would stand victorious. If she was to

interfere, it has been noted she never did so directly. Instead Morrigan would

set events in motion to acquire the outcome she so desired.

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Influences

Having chosen to explore a mythical tale the next step wasto find an appropriate art style with which to create the

world. Influence came from a myriad of existing

animations seen in the influence maps on this page.

The most influential samples were The Secret of Kells, an

animation made to look like stained glass windows. And

the monochromatic animated story sequence from Harry

Potter and the Deathly Hallows was also a heavy influence.

Taken from this were the fundamentals of the eventualanimation. The subdued colour palette of Harry Potter

and the striking shapes from The Secret of Kells

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Left: Original Storyboard prior

to finalized character and

environment designs.

Trying to devise Morrigans story initially came out of the process of imagining her

origins and putting oneself in her shoes. What would it be like to be Morrigan? She

was a powerful Goddess. She ruled over the battlefield and would happily act upon

what she could see no matter the consequences. Possessing an ability to transform

into multiple forms creates a whiff of magic about her. And when paying particular

attention to the forms she would commonly take, a hag and a crow, it becomes

apparent she is a walking death omen. As a Phantom Queen of battle and strife,

perhaps love is an experience out of Morrigans reach. From here, the concept of a

tragic love story was born.

Story

The premise of the story was that Morrigan falls in love with a mortal warrior. With

her almost clairvoyant powers, she predicts his call to a battle in which he is doomed

to die. Morrigan, in a bid to save her lover, uses her shape-shifting abilities to try and

keep him out of harms way. Tragically, despite her efforts to save him, he dies at her

hand. Morrigan finds herself alone, a slave to her calling as the Phantom Queen.

Destined to sway wars and reap the souls of the dead for eternity.

The initial concept for the warriors death was that he accidentally sees Morrigan in

her death- omen washer-woman disguise. Purely seeing this form of her meant

imminent death, at which point a barbarian runs him through.

After multiple revisions, the finalized story, results in the

Warrior seeing Morrigan in her Hag form and backing

away from her as she transforms into the woman

he knows and loves. The shock leads him to

tragically back off the edge of a ravine and

fall to his death.

Right: Early concept art for

Morrigans three forms

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1. Forest (Night)

4. The Clearing- Morrigan is mobbed by Crows

7. Forest Pan- The three forms of Morrigan appear and disappear from behind tree trunks, one by one. The Hag looks sinister, raising her cloak and

vanishing, a crow appears, weaves between the trees and vanishes as Morrigan peeks out gestures to come forward and finally disappears.

5. The Clearing- Morrigan has vanished 6. The Clearing- Titles

2. Forest (Day) 3. The Clearing and Morrigan(Panning Shot)

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8. Hills of the Dead- Panning Shot- a long lingering pan across a desolate battlefield. Crows eventually surge from the ground, obscuring everything

9. Camp-fire(Night) Morrigan spots a distant

fire.

10. Camp-fire A Warrior tends to the fire 11. Camp-fire Warrior spots Morrigan hiding

(Panning Shot)

12. Camp-fire Warrior invites Morrigan to sit

and warm by the fire

13. Camp-fire- Morrigan nervously

approaches and sits by the fire

14. Campfire-(Close up) Morrigan smiles

nervously

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15. Camp-fire(Close Up) The Warrior smiles

18. Treetop Hill- Spring (Blossoms transition)

21. Treetop Hill- Winter (Snow transition) 22. Treetop Hill- (Slow Zoom) Spring. The

clouds roll in and darken the scene.

23. Treetop Hill- (Dramatic zoom close up)

Morrigan is in shock as she has a vision.

19. Treetop Hill- Summer (Fading Transition) 20. Treetop Hill- Autumn (Leaves Transition)

16. Camp-fire(Wide shot Zooming Out)

Loving glances over the fire.

17. Camp-fire(Wide shot Zooming Out)

Leaves wash across the screen.

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24. The Vision- (Close up) (An explosion of

crows creates the transition)

27. The Vision- The Warrior Falls in slow

motion (Crow Transition)

30. Treetop Hill- (Close up) Morrigan worries

(Crow Transition)

31. Treetop Hill- (Close up) Morrigan is

determined to help. (Crow Transition)

32. Aerial Pursuit- Morrigan in Crow form

follows the Warrior

28. Treetop Hill- Plumes of smoke rise in the

distance. A villager calls the warrior to help.

29. Treetop Hill- The warrior follows the

villager.

25. The Vision- Men charge forward

in slow motion (Crow Transition)

26. The Vision- (Close up) Weapons clash

together in slow motion. (Crow Transition)

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33. Aerial Pursuit- Morrigan wheels around

to dive, obscuring the view.

36. The Ravine- The Warrior and Barbarian

fight.

39. The Ravine (Close up) Morrigan trans-

forms into the crow and attacks the barbarian

close to the edge.

40. The Ravine- (Close up) the Warrior shield

his face as the crow attack in the flurry of

feathers.

41. The Ravine- (Over the shoulder) The

warrior find the Barbarian has fallen. There

stands a Hag.

37. The Ravine- (Close up) Warrior strains

beneath the strength of the Barbarian.

38. The Ravine- (Wide Shot) Morrigan as the

Hag arrives in time to see the men on the edge.

34. Barbarian Onslaught- The men run full

pelt down the hill obscuring the view

35. Barbarian Onslaught- (Close up)Weapons

clash

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42. The Ravine- Crows provide cover. 43. The Ravine- Morrigan returns to herself. 44. The Ravine- The Warrior backs away in

disbelief.

47. The Ravine- The Warrior plunges to his

doom.

46. The Ravine- (Wide shot) The Warrior falls

as Morrigan reaches to save him.

45. The Ravine- The Warrior slips

48. The Ravine- (Slow zoom out) Morrigan

stands alone on the edge of the ravine.

49. The Ravine- Morrigan is mobbed by her

Crows

50. The Ravine- Morrigan has vanished

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51. The Ravine- (Slow zoom out) The crows

clear and the forest is empty once again

52. The Ravine- (Fade to black)

Above are some of the sporadic notes and doodles on how the

Morrigan was to play out during an earlier stage in production

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The Warrior

divided from the world of others, morriganwalked alone until one day, she set eyes upon a

handsome warrior

Initial character designing was narrowed

immediately by the set of rules established

earlier in pre-production. The concept of a

limited colour palette for one. Character design

was tackled by firstly creating silhouettes.

inspired by Celtic symbols and shapes. Despite

this, the first iterations did not feel very Celtic.

The second approach to character designing was

made simpler still using a small A4 page bible

of Celtic jewellery designs and studying the knot

shapes but also the negative spaces. But the key

element to cracking the overall design came from

the realisation that these patterns not only were

infinite but they carried from top to bottom ofthe object. In short, the patterns across the body

of the warrior needed to carry from head to toe.

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Te Warriors character was meant to be

strong, wilful and honourable. And so his

design called for strong, bold shapes.

Te patterns then were used to create

body shapes, the clothing and accessories.

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Te later designs incorporated patterns that ran from head to toe.

With variations to the length of legs and positioning of the arms.

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Knot - Themed

Brow Designs

Generic Brow

Designs

Brow-less

Designs

Front View Three- Quarter View Side View

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Pipeline

On the completion of the 2D design production movedinto 3D. The following few pages show the pipeline of

the Warrior, from the modelling phase up to the final

design and poses. To start the 2D designs were used to

create orthographics making them useful references

in 3D.

Additional considerations revolved around the line-

work that worked well in a 2D space but had to be

thought about differently in t3D. For example, how

would the looping pattern continue on the inside leg ofthe trousers.

Moving into modelling phase brought on a few

challenges and creative decision making. One of which

was the design of the hands which were changed to

mittens so as to resemble earlier character concepts.

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Textured ModelRigged ModelSkeletal Model

Head Expressions Blend Shapes

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The Barbarian

Th Barbarian character is the Warriors opposite. His enemy andopponent. However in this case he is also the Warriors doppelgnger.

During the 2D designing stage a series of enemies were created but the final

design was a combination between an early warrior design and one of the

Barbarians. During the 3D stage a duplicate of the Warriors body was used

as a base on which to build the Barbarian features. Finally to differentiate

between the characters, a stark contrast in colour was used.

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The Hag

sometimes she would intervene in the bloodybattles she was doomed to predict.

disguised as an old hag, she would hasten theend of those who displeased her.

The Hag character is the darkest of Morrigans disguises.

As a walking death omen she needed to look a little

creepy and mysterious. Utilizing the same jewellery

sources as the Warrior, the Hag made for a far faster

resolution in her design. The hood gave her the

mystical edge she needed and in subsequent illustrationsher form was reduced to its most simplified shape, with

an additional feathered edging as a nod to Morrigans

crow form.

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The hag, which was the fastest resolved design had to be made in two parts. Again using

the turn arounds, orthographics were made of her with and without her cloak. Hermain body is incredibly simple. But the addition of the cloak more of a challenge.

The biggest challenge was to make sure the fabric moved like fabric, enabling the

character to use the cloak as a prop.

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Morrigan

Morrigan as herself is a shy and tentative individual. Early designs were a little too

flamboyant in places and yet again it was the simplification of shapes that led to

her finalized form. Morrigans dress provided a surface with which to run

pattern work from the top to the bottom of the body. It is Morrigans design

that most strongly emulates the Celtic knot work providing all the inspiration.

In particular the shape opposite, the Triquetra, known as a trinity, which has

been associated with triads of deities, such as the Morrigan. With such strong

symbolism it had to be worked into her design.

once, centuries ago there lived abeautiful young woman.

secretive, shy and happiest in shadow,she was rarely seen.

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Another part of Morrigan in

need of exploration was her

hairstyle. With Celtic knots

being a large overall theme a

braid seemed necessary,

however the style of her head

and addition of fringes

needed to be established.

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Morrigan made was a slightly complicated character

to build even when using orthographics devised from

the 2D designs. As is the case with all of the models,

2D design does not always translate perfectly to 3D.

Morrigans pattern line-work is an example of that.

Though by the end the lines were fairly close to the

design, the way they flowed around the 3D body had

been compromised.

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The Crow. Morrigans other prominent form initially in terms of design took

a more anatomical approach. But on trying to stylize it like the rest of the

characters lost its way a little bit. This one took a little tinkering before its final

form was found. Line-work was continued across the wings from neck to tail.

One of the challenges was understanding how the line-work would deform

on the bird as it went from a passive sitting position with wings tucked in, to a

wide open wingspan in flight

The Crow

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Environment Design


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Finding the style took some time. Initially the

route taken was a much more complex one. It

resulted in some over-complicated, unsustainable

designs. But in following the same bible of

jewellery shapes as the characters, a newer, fresher

and bolder version of the environment came into

being. Using a specified colour palette, a striking

series of environments was eventually created.

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Much like the earlier iterations of the storyboard, the colours varied

between black, pale yellow and red for the extra punch to the scene.

The shapes were bold and with little detail so that the characters, who

are already of simplified shape, did not appear out of place.

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These designs soon became

the hero shots for the main

animation. The dramatic

ravine cliff-edge with red

skies really started to lend

itself as a climactic bloodied

end to the story.

While the fire glowing in the

dark offered plenty of story

telling- Morrigan finallyventures out from the lonely

darkness and into the light.

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Rather than creating a thoroughly bloodied battle scene that Morrigan would typically preside

over. A more PG level of devastation was created by moving toward an environment with no

bodies, but strewn objects. Eventually settling on stark silhouettes against a red sky. This visual

became a running theme of all things tense during Morrigans story.

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The camp fire scene was always meant to

be an atmospheric one. The image above is

one of the earlier concepts. Meanwhile right

shows the final render.

To achieve this scene, a number of tricks

and techniques were used. Such as Bump

Maps, Transparency Maps and Matte

paintings.

The above streaks are a matte painting, used to help create a sense of expansive forest

beyond the camp fire and leading into the distance. Below are the transparency maps

used to create the shadows of leaves and branches, casting across the floor. On the left

is a section of bump map. This map is used to feign a raised or sunken surface when

applied to a 3D model. These provided the trees with bark-like texture.

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The images here offer the scene from a more distant perspective, showing each of the

elements opposite in action. Now the canopy of transparency maps become more obvious,

casting the striking shadows. The Matte painting curls around the back of the scenery

feigning the forest beyond.

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the art of morrigan (hardcover)

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