Inspiration, Concept Art and Colour Palette

Inspiration:

Artist: Luis Araujo

This image in an interesting character study and can definitely be considered post-human, or at least seems to question the very nature of humanity. While I don't wish for my characters to be this disjointed, I do think that these works are interesting and inspirational.

Artist: Luis Araujo

This is another image like the one above that I consider to be inspirational in terms of the theme "post human".

Artist: Linn Olofsdotter

I like many things about this piece - the textures, the colours, the dark outlines... I will explore many of these factors in my work but I am not going for the same abstract/colourful style.

Artist: Ikenaga Yasunari

I love this piece, especially the fragile but smooth lines that create the forms, especially when you look at the hand. I also love the textures. I will definitely explore both of these in my work.

Artist: Florian Nicolle

I really like the character here, the way that the skin is overlaid in a texture and the character looks fragmented. I may not really use this in my work, but I think it is an interesting idea in terms of post human characters.

http://stylecouch.wordpress.com/2009/03/

Artist: Liselotte Watkins

I really like the simplicity of the features of the face in these characters, and the dark, shadowy eyes. It is a beautiful style which I will use for inspiration in my characters.

http://stylecouch.wordpress.com/2009/03/

Artist: Liselotte Watkins

I love the hair in this piece - the forms that are created with simple lines. I want to explore this in my characters but might make mine black and white and possibly hand drawn.

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/a-lonely-japanese-girl-8-total

Artist: "Alice"

I love the use of textures in this piece, especially when looking at the skin. It really gives the work a nice aesthetic.

http://friendfeed.com/basaktarkin/comments (good concept art style)

Artist: Basak Tarkin

I love the simplicity of these drawings, with an emphasis on the hair - It adds something interesting to the character when you have one aspect such as the hair which is vastly different to the rest of the drawing and draws the eye.

This is a piece of concept art from the game "Borderlands". I love the colour of the sky here and the colour of the entire scene. I also like the use of cell-shading and might explore this in my work.

This image reminds me of a modern/futuristic kind of wasteland - something is clearly wrong here.

I love the rough texture of this image and will try to use this in my work.

I want my buildings to look more cityscape with a modern house though.

I also love the ending credits for the latest Sherlock Holmes movie. While I don’t want to take much from their animation style, which is a mixture of video and creative tracing with other aspects slightly animated, I do love the colour palette. A lot of these colours are dull and invoke a rotting/dirty aesthetic that I am quite interested in exploring in my own work.

I love these ending credits and I am using this as a major part of my inspiration, especially in terms of colour palette (dark, dull) and the animation style (basic, robotic movement).

Concept Art - Initial aesthetic and character design:

I quickly threw this piece of concept art together using basic shapes and textures with the colour palette shown below to test the aesthetic I want to go for. I still want to play around with the hair texture though and refine the skin texture. The character is very silhouetted, but I think it might be more effective if I give them a lighter skin colour – maybe a rotten green or purple or something that could represent rotting flesh. I want to make the character’s skin reflect the flickering of the TV, so these colours will keep changing.

The white eyes, nostrils and mouth are used to make the characters appear less human and more technology-crazed. It also represents their emptiness. I think these will have heavy static animated to reflect the TV.

Colour Palette:

These colours have been selected from scenes from the Lemony Snickets ending credits animation as well as the ending credits of Sherlock Holmes which are dark, dull, dirty, gloomy and gritty.

They are also inspired by a book on "Painting the Undead" - the colours are intended to make the world I'm creating look sick and unnatural.