Starting the final piece.

I looked through my research images and chose out those which inspired me the most.

These are the types of clothing, poses and references that have guided me through the painting process. This is the first time I've drawn properly and I can tell I am rusty, I really have to get painting everyday especially on skin tone.

This is also one of the few times I have drawn my base idea in Photoshop, I normally tend to draw on paper and then scan and clean up the image ... but with the time running out I decided to give drawing using a tablet a go, I still tend to draw really tentatively so I always end up with several lines in the same spot. Getting the colour down was easy enough, just the shading that bothers me.

This is the final image. I am rather pleased with it. I can easily recognise the species of insect and what name it goes by, by the use of colour and imagery. My favourite part I have to say in the cloak, whilst I was painting it I though it looks terrible, but as I added more details and took parts out to look tatty, then I really loved it! Originally there was not going to be a cape but it looks rather bare, and I didn't feel it had enough of the Death's-Head Moth in the image. I didn't add any of the magical vapours around the hand because I really felt like it would ruin the final image, I wanted it to look like it could be real ... If a human witch doctor thing with a floating skull for a head could be real.

Creating a Silhouette.

After gaining some knowledge of how the death's-head moth is looked upon I have created several silhouettes in both Photoshop and Alchemy which I have been determined to learn. As a massive struggler with 'letting loose' and 'painting freely' I feel I have learnt something with this selection

I really love the surprise Shia LaBeouf head in the middle of my silhouette (thanks Shia LaBrush) and it gave me an idea, the skull is mentioned as the reason that the moth was supposed to be the bringer of misfortune. So first I had a couple of quick warm up sketches in my notebook

This idea really strikes me as something that looks like it'll bring misfortune! I decided to go with the female form so it could be a femme evil witch, also African female clothing struck me more than the male because there was more jewellery and colours.

I Then I took that idea from the notebook and from my Photoshop work to Alchemy to do more skully things. I think you can see how I was slowly making progression with this program the more I used it I created more colourful and pretty images.

This was one of the final images I done, I am so happy with this piece, it looks scary, threatening but also in a way beautiful! I was playing around with the same colours that feature mostly on the moth. I wanted to add some sort of magic element to this, I'm not sure if I'll keep that idea as I go through to the final image but it looks really nice here.

From all these Silhouettes these are the few that stuck out the most to me.

They have a very defined shape, they all look humanoid and they seem to have a feminine shape to them. if I had more time I would definitely work more into them but given the time we have I am simply going to draw from that shape and from references that I can find that are similar.

Shaping the character.

To get a sense of how to create the character I will have to look into how Death's-head Moths are treated and looked upon by the areas they live. I already gathered that they mainly live in Africa and that they are looked upon as bringers of misfortune and death due to the skull on their backs.

I had a look into African superstitions and found this website that listed a few http://www.superstitionsof.com/african-superstitions.htm.

This quote from the website states that ...

"African people are very superstitious, so the superstitions in Africa, usually, is a part of everyday life. First African superstition is related to witches. For witchcraft in Africa, often accuse women and even children. It is believed that the witches have night meetings in the forests and seas. Then they agree on how to hurt people. Moreover, many nocturnal animals, especially birds, are suspected as witches. Throughout the history of the village in Africa, witches were blamed for the strong winds, drought, infertility, illness, hunger, misery and all other disasters."

Witches it seems are a problem for African people, so I will probably turn the moth into a witch type character, possibly even some kind of Shaman. Next step for me is to make Silhouettes to see how I can make this baby look!

Beginning research for the 1st task.

I've decided my insect of choice, the only thing we were told regarding this project was insects so we have free reign as far as with what direction we will take. As I am choosing to specialise in 2D character concept for my main project work I will be going in this direction with these tasks.

What I will be doing is what we learned in Year 1 to create this character, to get ideas for the character I will be ...

• Creating Mood-Boards.
• Doing Silhouettes to garner a shape to the character. (probably around 25).
• Creating a final piece (will hope to make it polished).

I've decided to trim the fat so to speak with the process for this task. I skipped doing values and different outfits because we don't have too much time to get this done. Normally I would create numerous outfits but I think I will just choose from outfits I found in my research to guide what I end up drawing.

First things first, a little information on said Moth ... I am going to be focusing on the Acherontia species as this one is the most recognised, and the skull is most prominent.

My favourite information from this is

"In spite of the fact that Acherontia atropos is perfectly harmless except as a minor pest to crops and to beehives, the fancied skull pattern has burdened the moth with a negative reputation, such as associations with the supernatural and evil. There are numerous superstitions to the effect that the moth brings bad luck to the house into which it flies, and that death or grave misfortune may be expected to follow. More prosaically, in South Africa at least, uninformed people have claimed that the moth has a poisonous, often fatal, sting (possibly referring mainly to the proboscis, but sometimes to the horn on the posterior of the larva)."

I feel this will affect how I create the character, I want it to be a reflection of this superstition. I can also take from this how I want the character to look, as it mainly resides in Africa I feel this will take a African twist, I have never looked into Africa from an artistic viewpoint so this will be a nice refreshing start to my projects.

Even though they are supposed to be all scary and evil .... they squeak .... so cute!

And now for mood-boards ... I have gathered here a collection of ...

• Images of the moth itself.
• Artists that I feel will inspire me and make me think of the moth.
• Images of clothing (mostly items from Alexander McQueen's collection) that remind me of the moth
• Images of regional clothing related to where the Moth lives.

These mood-boards have given me a lot of inspiration and will hopefully guide me into the silhouette phase of the task. In the next post I do I will start work on researching more into African culture and begin work on the silhouettes.

Tackling the very first task.

Seeing as I have a vague idea on what  I want my studio work to be about I thought I would have a little go at the very first task that is INSECTS to get my creative juices flowing. Now I'll be straight with you all, I hate anything creepy, anything crawly and would rather do anything than look at insects, but it's a project and in the industry I don't think any dev or boss would appreciate a person who doesn't want to do the work because 'ew icky gross insects scare the heck out of me!'.

I had a little think about what I wanted to study without feeling to scared. Now I'm a fan of the creepy and the weird and one little creature that has always stuck with me in my mind is the 'Deaths-Head Hawk-Moth'.

The first time I encountered this Moth was when little me was in a tent in my nan's garden, reading my smuggled in copy of 'The Silence of the Lambs' for the first time with my flash-light, the moth stuck in my mind since then, which is weird because I am terrified of Moths the most!

First thing I did when we got the brief was 'DEATHS HEAD MOTH!' I can think of some creepy things to do with this beastie!