Chimeras - The Ancient Frankenstien Monster

My Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Illustration) at Brighton City Collage is now unofficially over. More than 6 weeks spent on this Final Major Project, thank the stars that we could chose our own briefs to keep us interested for that long. My chosen theme was Mythology, but placed in a modern context (PS, when I say modern I meant more modern than their ancient dwellings, could be anything from Victorian to the future). At first I pictured Cerberus guarding 10 Downing Street or the White House ( Obama's Portuguese Water Hound + two extra heads = one funky mutt - one head to look out for assassins, the other to receive treats and the last to lick himself inappropriately). However, that proved to be a bit restricting as I couldn't really play around with it enough. Then it went onto the Norse mythological eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, in the Grand National Horse Race, but again it was scrapped for the same reasons.
At the time I was reading Dead Koontz Frankenstein series and likewise got in the mood for the old James Whale film and the original book. Then, when cruising through ImagineFX fantasy art mag' I came across Andy Park's God of War concepts and his Chimera struck me ( left a nasty scar too.) I realised how the Chimera is like a Classical Frankenstein Monster, mixture of bits and pieces of animal chucked together. Plus with today's controversial genetic experimentation on animals meant I couldn't resist this brute. I could play around with the creature a bit and have a narrative, so I was pretty happy.

I probably thought too much into these paintings. There are two important points echoed in the set.

1. The Human character becomes more and more detailed, as if regaining some of his humanity. After his monstrous visage in the first painting.

2. There is a subtle 'glow' of lighter brown around a figure of power. In the first it is the scientist as he crafts his creature; second it is the creature itself, breaking looses and out of anyone's control but its own; Thirdly, the power is in neither of their hands, the true power lies in nature. The thunder is like the jury, condemning them both for their violation of its laws.

3. There is a pyramid of three circles Incorporated into the paintings. I don't known why, I just liked it is all. Besides, '3' has some spiritual meaning, I think, and can be interpreted however the viewer wants.

PS. My scanner hates dark colours, sorry for a questionable quality.

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A shadowy figure plays with his God-boasting powers in his fingertips, fusing two age long rivals together into one seamless foundation. The light reflects off his eyes and his surgical mirror, giving a sight as unnatural as his creation...

That is an Ibex (I think) and a Lion skull fused together to form the skeletal base of the creature. It's like architecture, you need the frame before daring to build the walls or the whole thing would collapse.

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Creature on the rampage...yep, cliche ahoy!But what could you honestly expect from a fella with identity issues.

I really like how the creature turned out, though the tail is a tad bright now that I look at it. I have no idea where the 'stinger' on the tail came from. I think I just needed to get rid of the silly looking Rattler' from the original concept, yet still have something there so it doesn't look useless but as deadly as the teeth and horns.

I think the goat was based of an American Bighorn Sheep (though the horns are still Ibex, I liked the stabbing pointy-ness)

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When I ever come up with an idea for a story more often than not the main character will die, like a self-sacrifice or just because I like the villain better. But this is sort of a way for our scientist to regain his humanity by righting his wrong with the ultimate sacrifice, using his body to push his creation off the building. Or was it nature's bullet, the lightning, the cause, striking them off?

The lightning bolt was a lot more garish before, almost taking one half of the painting and in bright white. Obviously that had to go with something more subtle.
It was interesting to draw in that perspective as well, I'm not used to it so it was good practice.

Er...Hello there Mr.Strange

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Robin and Basilisk ^

I was trying out something different, using Lasso tool in Photoshop to create solid blocks of colours. However I not 100% sure about this, mainly because the shapes are a little crude for my liking. The Basilisk could have been more interesting in design, but at least the Robin is quite cute. That cliff face caused me a lot of grief, still is.

Awww, poor Painapple

For some reason I can only post one picture per post, which is a tad annoying... there might be a setting for that.

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< Dying Painapple

My first drawing ( done in 30min, just before dinner, 'yum') using that fab' book Fantasy Genesis by the brilliant Chuck Lukacs (click on the link to take to the offical blogger of Fantasy Gen'). This book was so much fun. It's like those classic 'roll of the dice results in ...' games but for artists who suffer from artist block or just need to do something different. It can result in some funky outcomes. For this chap I got the words Pineapple, Ski and Volcano for surface with the action of Dying.

This book is brilliant. I really do recommend having a look on Fan'Gen's Blog linked above.

I wonder what attacked this guy's stony behind?

Battle Bird

Wow, first post on this blog. Not very used to these things but I suppose it'll come with time, like everything...

This blog is short and sour, just a place to dump the stuff I've already done, I'll put a sort description to each one...

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^ Battle Bird: This was a challenge I made with myself to do a painting in 1 hour from one of my rough sketches that I chose at random. With only 1hr limit I wasn't able to spend to much time faffing with the background, I think at that point I only had 10min left on the bomb-clock. I don't know if I'll ever revisit this, might be interesting to put more of a setting and purpose to this sqwarker.
PS. Yes, this was heavly influenced by Battle Cat from He-Man when I sketched this.