NEST Competition - Finished Front Cover

Here is the finished front cover for the NEST magazine competition that I entered. Rather than go for a more conceptual representation of the word 'nest' I have chosen to create a more literal representation that both connotes and denotes what the word 'nest' means to me.

I really enjoyed designing this cover, even though the short amount of time made it quite a hard deadline to work to I'm still quite pleased with the finishing results.
The picture itself is what it is, two artistic peacocks sitting in a big purple lettuce nest. The scene itself is surrounded by tropical, high humidity plants. I chose these flowers and plants to suggest that a nest is a place of warmth, a delicate place that is special to each individual person. However the cooler colours of the nest itself and the peacocks inside of the nest also suggest that a nest is a place to relax, to wind down and chill out and to avoid the heat and bustle of the outside world.

I think the problem with this piece is that because I have drawn it I know exactly what each piece of the work is meant to represent yet  I haven't actually shown what I want others what I want it to be represented at through my work. Because of the guess work involved for others trying to work out what the piece actually means I don't think that it will be approved in the competition, however I do think it will still be enjoyable to look at and just generally appreciate in its odd appearance.

If I had enough time to change anything about this piece it would be to make it more suggestive, to allow the audience be able to see what it is that I am trying to tell them about the artwork without them having to stare at the work for a long period of time or simply not to understand its meaning at all.
On the other hand I do also enjoy artwork that creates guess work for the people viewing and enjoy hearing each individual thought on what the artwork stands for and displays to them personally.

NEST Competition - Planning & Notes

Above shows a page of notes for the NEST competition that is coming up soon. These are my initial thoughts with both denotations and connotations of what I believe the word "Nest" to mean.
My ideas may change when I get drawing but for now I'm going to scribble up some thumbnails of designs and soon decide on an idea.

SWOT - NEST Competition

I have decided to make a short SWOT analysis on entering the NEST competition, showing what I believe will benefit me in doing this design.
My next step will be to start some mock up designs before I do the final version.

Lecture 3 - Panopticism

Leeds College of Art - NEST Competition

Today I decided to enter the college's upcoming competition, the theme is to design an A5 picture that can be as literal or as loosely based around the word "Nest."

I'm really excited about getting on with the designs and have made a page of plans and thought bubbles to try and mind map specific things about the word "Nest" that I like, also one of the reasons why this competition attracted me was due to the word nest being one of my most favorite words.
Although I'm excited about the competition I'm also quite nervous as I know that my work will be judged and discussed before a panel along side the other competitors that have joined.

Another thing I am also nervous of is my lack of time, I only found out about the NEST competition recently and haven't had any time to really prepare which I believe puts me at somewhat of an "underdog" position with the other people who found out about it when it was first released. I won't let my lack of time stop me though and if anything I find that I work better to a tighter schedule rather than a more open one as the pressure helps me to focus on the task at hand.

Castle Crashers - Art Doesn't Always Have To Be Detailed

Recently I bought one of my favourite games made for the xbox which had come out on Steam for the PC, Castle Crashers.
Ever since I first played it, Castle Crashers has been a personal favourite of mine as it combines the classic Streets of Rage beat-em-up with action, adventure and comedy. What I've always appreciated the most about this game however, is its art.

Castle crasher art is very much unlike anything I've seen in games before and sticks to a generally simplistic design for its characters although occasionally becoming more detailed for boss fights and even they are not stuffed to the gills with detail and pin-point brush accuracy.

Below are samples of some of the characters that you can play as in Castle Crashers other than the main coloured Knights shown above:

This character preview table shows all of the playable characters to choose from in Castle Crashers all varying in detail. This is what I love about CC, even the characters with the most detail such as the chain mail warriors (right, second from the top & left, same row) that have had to have rows of metal chains complete with rendering still fit the overall simplistic feel of the games design. 

Playing this game a lot has inspired me to start creating more simplistic art and also spurred me on to making my own interpreted image of myself in the Castle Crasher style, shown below:

Its games such as these that really give me inspiration to create new and interesting styles of art and I will continue to keep an eye out for similar art styes such as these in the hope that they will aid me in the future. 

League of Legends - Art Spotlight

I thought I'd put this up on here as soon as I found it. Both of these videos are in fact artist spot lights for characters in the game, League of Legends. Above is the character Nautilus and Below, Cyndra.
Although there isn't a commentary or any real form of narration in these videos I still found it incredibly insightful to see the individual processes of how each characters concept art is made; from the very first sketches right up to the final rendering process.

I would love to be able to create this kind of artwork for my character concepts and so I will continue to watch these videos and make sure to jot down notes on any techniques that I notice while I watch the speed paints.

I know that there is only so much that these videos will help in my improvement though. Although an undeniable source of inspiration for myself Its extremely hard to really learn anything properly without any real guided narration of how each piece of work is done. Because of this I'm going to make more of an effort to find proper concept art tutorials both free and paid for in order to better myself and my artwork in the hopes of one day being able to create work such as these.

Character Study - Mammoo Character Sheet

Mammoo & Robot Storyboard

The image shown above shows the draft storyboard that I made for this module before we begin animating. There are things that I will redo within the storyboard, one being the design of the robot and I will also add more annotations on the storyboard itself showing things such as camera angles and sound engineering. For now I will explain each panel of the board to give a brief idea of what the animation will entail.

PANEL 1. Wide angle long shot (perhaps extreme long shot) of the surrounding environment, showing the audience where the scene is being set. Sound of the cold wind blowing across the ice lands.

PANEL 2. Wide angle medium shot of main character fishing, the wide camera angle shows his igloo home in the back and possibly mountains in the distance = isolation. Continued sound of wind blowing.

PANEL 3. Close up of the fishing line being tugged from under the water. Sound includes wind blowing and a comical tugging sound from under the ice.

PANEL 4. Close up of main characters face as he realises that he has caught something on his fishing line. Sound includes wind and possible shocked gasp from character.

PANEL 5. Wide angle shot of character starting to pull at his fishing rod, add comical yanking and pulling sounds as he struggles.

PANEL 6. Close up shot of ice cracking and breaking around the hole in the ground, sounds of ice crumbling and cracking.

PANEL 7. Wide angle shot of hunk of metal begining to rise out of surface of the ice, main character getting the fishing rod pulled from his hands and stepping back in shock. Sounds of ice breaking and being destroyed (louder cracking that sounds used in previous shot).

PANEL 8. Close up of continued metal rising out of the water and ice, sounds of huge rumbling and breaking of the ground, maybe whimpering of main character as the metal figure continues to rise from the ground.

PANEL 9. POV shot looking down at character below, used to make him appear tiny and vulnerable under the gaze of the new metal character. Sounds finalize the runbling and breaking of the ice as character reaches maximum height, robotics and grinding of metal, turns back to quiet and wind blowing.

PANEL 10. POV of main character now looking up at the robot. (Inverted gaze as last panel was from robot characters POV) Robot appears to be empowered and gigantic. Sound of absolute silence except for wind and whimpering of little character looking up at robot.

PANEL 11. POV of robot, this time displaying lock on target stats as he looks at the small character below, sounds of beeping and engineering as he targets little character.

PANEL 12. Wide angle long shot of Robot and small character size comparison before robot blasts other character with a laser beam, sound of silence before laser goes off, when laser is released huge zapping futuristic sound.

PANEL 13. Extreme long shot shown in outer space, small mushroom cloud is seen at the top of the globe where the Robot has zapped the smaller ice dwelling character. Sounds of absolute silence as there is no sound in space.

PANEL 14. Close up of the main character, now a singed pile of ash on the floor. Sounds of smokey hissing.

PANEL 15. Close up of character, sound of a little splash as the fish he was wanting to catch all along pops up out of the ice and flops around next to him. Sound of smoke and silence.

PANEL 16. Continued close up of character in his ash pile. Sounds of sizzling and flopping of the fish. Possibly followed by a muffled growl from main character as he now cannot catch the fish he wanted in the first place.

Lecture 2 - The Gaze & The Media

Character Concept 3 - Mammoo Moodboards & Inspiration

Before I even started to properly create Mammoo I knew what I wanted him to have incorporated into his design. The design of Mammoo was to represent the embodiment of cosy winter clothing while at the same time not making him look human. I began to draw up some digital designs for him and my finished result I couldn't have been happier with, I drew his body made up of thick colourful wool covering almost is entire anatomy, his arms were designed to resemble winter scarfs and I deliberately designed them this way to allow for cartoony over-exaggerated movements, his fingers resemble the tassels on the end of some kinds of scarf and his feet patterns look like snow boots.

Before I had even started the Maya modelling side of my character I had already established that the style I wanted Mammoo to look like would closely resemble that of children's show, Pocoyo (shown above). The reason for me choosing to model in this way is so that I have more room to breathe with the fur design as I know that modelling fur wont be the easiest thing to do but in the Pocoyo style I can get away with making something that would normally look wooly look smooth instead.   

After making his initial design (the biggest light blue one on the colour chart) I decided to try with more colours although never really straying too far from the arctic colour scheme. After I had finished making the colour chart I had a new idea, as looking at the designs it looked like each Mammoo was from a different place, the blue variations looking more cooler and settled whereas the more greener variations could be matched with a more tropical or overgrown forest environment.
I have however chosen the colour of my Mammoo that I'll be designing further in Maya, however this wont stop me from creating my own set of these creatures and experimenting with different climates and appearances in my own time.

The final thing I did in my development was use my original reference image to create a turn around T-pose design that i could use as further reference for when it came to modelling in maya. I'm happy with how this T-pose came out as I feel like I've correctly identified each part of his anatomy successfully.

I will continue to experiment with Mammoo and his design outside of the module and work on making new designs such as female Mammoo, tribe chieftain Mammoo and Mammoo from different parts of the world, maybe using the most green design on my colour chart and converting his fur into a more leafy appearance. I'm very proud and excited to have made my character the way I have and hope to improve as the year goes on.

Character Concept 2 - Clouse Moodboards & Inspiration

 

When we first began plotting different ideas for our machinima characters this was one of the first ones i thought of. His name is Clouse and he is an anthro cloud that can float and behave as a cloud does but also walks on the ground, although when walking on the ground could be confused or mistaken for a sheep by people passing by. My main source of inspiration for designing Clouse was the recent viewing of a new guiness beer advert, the advert told the story of a unique cloud, different from all other clouds that set out on a journey to experience different things and helping people along the way. This made me imagine what the cloud would look like if it had a face and was placed in a more cartoony world, hence Clouse was born.

I made various different colour schemes for him and thought carefully about what kind of story Clouse could be in along with the more technical side of animating him and preparing him for said animating through modelling and rigging. One main thing that is putting me off from taking this design any further is his general anatomy, he is built to walk on four legs and/or float in the air but our brief states that the characters we make must be bipedal. I know that if I were to model and animate Clouse his anatomy would mean that him walking upright would cause his face to face the sky as he lacks a neck or any other joint to afford this kind of movement.

That said I wont cast the idea out just yet and will discuss with my team mates what they think of his design and the ease of creating when it comes to modelling. For now I will focus on designing a character that stands on two feet rather than floating and walking on four.

Character Concept 1 - Seraphim Snake Moodboard & Inspiration

As part of my idea for my seraphim snake idea I have collected a series of ideas that have inspired me in making this character and how I think they have influenced my ideas as shown below.

One of my main inspirations for creating this design was Bayonetta, having played the game several times I know that they had taken great time and effort into designing their angelic monsters for the game. One of my favorite angels in the giant snake creature that had control of the winds. 

I made some designs for the environment of what the seraphim snake could live in. I imagined its habitat to be vast and very pure looking, I also made it to look like the environment is more suitable for a creature with wings such as the seraphim snake rather than other legged flightless creatures.

I also studied the other angel creatures and studied their anatomy, looking at how they are built and designed for serving God and living in heaven. I used this information and my own religious knowledge of the anatomy of angels to design the aspects of my seraphim snake idea.
I think I will keep this idea but im not really sure about if I will act upon it in this particular module. In the future I will make my own concept art for him and further his development but for now I feel like his design wasn't well enough planned to consider refining so I will make new moodboards for my next character plans.

Maya - Alien Rigging

After I had finished modelling my character and decided its design was good enough to continue I began learning about rigging. We had previously known about rigging and played around with it a little bit before but up until now I had never actually rigged a character so this task was quite a nervous one for me to begin.

Althought I was nervous about starting the whole process I was thankful that we had all been given the resources to review how to rig through an asortment of video tutorials that were put up online for us to watch at our own pace, I liked this because it meant that I could rewatch the tutorials from home in an attempt to understand them better.

It soon became clear that rigging was a lot harder than what it looked like from the video tutorials and nothing but one-hundred percent concentraition was needed in order to make a sucessful rig. It was this lack of confidence in myself that made my lose concentraition throughout the tutorials on numerous occassions, causing me to have to constantly rewind and recap on what had been said in order to try and understand a bit better.

Thankfully I began to understand better about how a characters skeleton needs to look in order to be sucessfully rigged and planned to use what I had learnt through watching the video tutorials to be applied to my own module character for the machinima and even my own projects outside of my studies in my spare time.

 

Although it feels like its taken me a very long time to learn the basics of creating a rigged skeleton for a character I really do think i'm begining to understand more. I know this because I can generally create a skeleton without having to consult the video tutorials for help on what to do next and this makes me feel proud as I sometimes find it hard to understand the more difficult and fast paced goals that we are told to achieve.

 

In the future I hope to use what I have learned in order to rig my own character outside of uni projects and hopefully further my understanding of the process also.

Maya - Alien Modelling

The first part of our Alien project was to begin to model and build our practice character using Maya and the image plains we had previously made from the reference pictures that Matt had given us. In the begining of the modelling I wasnt really too sure on where to start and how to get the best shape so I started with a simple cube and placed split edges around its parimeter in order to shape it into the image I had for reference. However my first attempt didn't go as well as I thought it would and due to only using split edge tools and deleting some vertexes that I actually needed to keep I ended up having to delete my first attempt and restart, although thankfully I hadn't gotten too far when the decision to restart was made.

 

When making my Alien a second time around I was a lot happier with how it turned out. Rather than using split edges on my primitive cube I insted used only the edge loop tool, this meant I had a lot more control over my vertex manipulation and I made the model with a lot more ease and quicker too.

Generally I'm really happy with how my model turned out, he looks a lot like the alien character that we were given for reference and i found the whole modelling process to be very relaxing and enjoyable. I think more practice and it will spurr me on to creating my own models in Maya using my own designs and concepts that I've drawn up.

SWOT Analysis

Artist Study - Kekai Kotaki

For the past few years my favourite concept artist has been Kekai Kotaki, a Hawaiian artist whos career started at the age of 21 working as an environment concept artist for Guild Wars. From then he went sky-rocketing through the ranks of the concept art branch unitl becoming lead artist after just 8 years before leaving ArenaNet to move on to other things. Kekai's art ranges from warriors and dragons to enormous sea monsters and vast landscapes. Although his characters are almost ever changing what doesnt seem to vary is his style when he makes these pieces.

 

From studying his work I've learnt that Kekai builds his art on top of textures, moulding the artistic creation onto the texture and refining it until complete. The style itself appears loosely painted yet at the same time at first glances looks incredibly detailed. An example of this is armour, Kekai's style allows the eye to pick out each brush stroke and identify it as a stand alone shape while at the same time using near perfect rendering techniques to refine even the smallest shink in a soldiers chainmail vest.

 

Below I have chosen just a few of my favourite pictures that Kekai has created, all 3 are from his time as a Guild Wars concept artist. These 3 in perticular are from "Guild Wars 2".

 

The first picture I have chosen is the first Dragon boss your GW2 character faces in battle, the reason why I love this piece in perticular is mainly down to my love of dragons and the mythology behind them, the other reason why this piece catches my eye is the colours that Kekai uses in this portrayal. The purple and pink lightening shooting out of the earth really catches my eye and seems to make the focus (the dragons claw and arm) stand out more and almost appear three dimentional as well as giving the dragon more depth and ferocity as a whole.

The second picture I chose, also from GW2 shows a Charr engineer, one of the playable classes in the game. I love this picture because the armour that the Charr wears around its arms and the mask on his face really stands out to me as I find that both creatures and humans that wear masks are more aluring and interesting than those without. Another reason this piece catches my eye is the cannon that the engineer is holding, I adore the textures and colours used on it and the way it has been composed with the rest of the picture really makes my imagine clearly how it would feel to touch it and how heavy it would be to  try and hold it.

My final picture that I have chosen shows an army of Charr preparing for battle, I chose this because I really appreciate and admire the detail that has gone into creating each one in the scene. I also love the colours used in the making of the main characters flaming sword. The rendering of this picture is beautiful and I would like to learn from it as it shows the subtle glow from the sword to the Charrs face as he is holding it up.

In the future I will try and get in contact with Kekai to try and understand his style of art more and what has inspired him to refine his style the way he has, I will also continue to follow his various blogs to keep an eye out for when he travels to do various workshops around the globe as I would love to attend one to learn all I can.

Review - Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalousian Dog) is a short surrealist silent film made in 1929, created by Spanish director Luis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali.
Although I have seen this film on numerous occassions it never ceases to surprise me how much this film and its connotations interest me and how even after so many viewings I have yet to really understand any parts of the film.
One of the things about the film that probably stands out the most and perhaps would confuse the audience the most is its complete disregard for chronological order. The film itself opens with a card saying "Once upon a time" and continues to switch to various points in time, both in past and future, examples of this can be seen after the famous scene of the female characters eye being slit open by a razor when another film card appears saying "eight years later" and then others such as "around three in the morning", "sixteen years ago" and finally "in the spring." I found the dissaray of time lapses similar to that of French New Wave film "Breathless" (À bout de souffle), directed by Jean-Luc Godard, some aspects of Breathless and Un Chien Andalou seem similar to one another, like Un Chien Andalou, Breathless has no real sense of any chronological order and the film seems to skip back and forth through time and to different locations regularly although it has to be said not as dramatically nor drastically as Un Chien Andalou.

Another thing that interested me about the film was its inspiration behind its making, a good example of this is shown in the scene where the male character is staring at a hole in his hand that has a nest of ants crawling out of it, this scene is infact inspired from one of Salvador Dali's dreams he had prior to the making of the film. Another instance of this was also prior to the films creation when Bunel, upon talking to Dali in a café, told him about a dream in which he saw a cloud slicing though the moon "like a razor blade slicing through an eye." This we now know and recognise as one of the most iconic if not stomach churning scenes of Un Chien Andalou in which the female characters eye is sliced open by the male character. Behind the scenes of this film it is recognised that the eye used in this scene is actually that of a baby calf that through the use of extreme lighting was made to look like human skin. Through discussing their dreams the two became fasinated with what the human psyche could create and soon after set about creating An Andalousian Dog.

What i love most about this film is both Dali and Bunuel's complete disregard for the generic cinematic guidelines that films almost blindly follow without question, in Bunuel's writings after the making of Un Chien Andalou he made it clear that the only rule for writing the script was: "No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted." This in itself made me enjoy the film more as it showed that unlike most directors now and then, Dali and Bunuel almost seemed like they were making this film purely for the fun of doing so and had no real intentions of trying to make their audience understand the connotations (if any) behind the film.

Un Chien Andalou has proven far from funny however as a while after the film was brought to view of the general public both leading actors of the film committed suicide, Batcheff (the male character) overdosed on Veronal, the female character Mareuil committed self-immolation by dousing herself in gasoline and burning herself to death in a public square. This makes me wonder about the link between An Andalousian Dog and our recent lecture on Psychoanalysis and makes me question if films so drastic such as this one could manipulate the human psyche of the audience and indeed actors viewing (and starring) in the film at the time. Despite the arguably negative effects this film seems to have produced along with its years of confusion from its audience I still love the film and appreciate its approach in the film industry and I believe it will be a long time before Un Chien Andalou is forgotten.

Machinima - "Sanity not Included" & "The Idiots of Garry's Mod"

Ever since they really started taking off in the video game world I've always loved watching various fan  and pro made Machinimas. A Machinima in itself usually looks like an in game short film using the characters in their playable rendered setup to create non canon situations. 

Two of my favourite Machinima shows can be seen below, the first being "Sanity Not Included" and the other two from "The Idiots of Garry's Mod" series. Unlike TIoGM, Sanity Not Included is a show that boasts shorts from a variety of different games making one big collaborative Machinima whereas The Idiots of Garry's Mod focuses on making collabs of only characters made by games company, VALVe.

I'm not sure why Machinimas appeal to me so much, I think one of the main reasons is because its one of the main ways of the audience watching their favourite characters do non canon things such as rag-dolling around a set or doing something humour provoking with another character from either the same game or another. In general its a way for a games fans to act out what they imagine the characters to be doing either in their spare time or otherwise.

Artist Study - Torvenius

Over the past few months I've been studying other artists work, mainly artists whos speciality lays within speed painting and concept art. After a while I came across an artist by the name of Axel Torvenius, a Sweedish concept artist working for a small games company responsible for working with bigger concept art branches of other video games companies.

 

Although his work is incredible what really cought my eye and interested me was his speed painting folder. The reason I found his speed paint folder so interesting was because his style and technique meant that he is able to create beautiful art but with an extremely simplistic design and feel.

 

Because this style attracted me so much I tried out speed painting myself, using Torvenius' loose brush techniques to create simple but reasonably pleasing art that I was quite proud of.  

Below are some samples of Axels speed painting, in some of the pictures it is quite easy to see some of the techniques that he has used to create his art such as textures in his backgrounds and low opacity on brushes to make a more loose and layered feel to his work.

 

After looking at some more of his work I was inspired to try and create my own speed paints which are shown below, along with the processes of how I came about creating each one and some of the tricks I picked up from studying Torvenius.

Speed Paint 01 - Lake

 This was my first attempt at speed painting, I started in full colour and then added further blended colours into it to create the sky, water and the mountains. At first i was happy with the finished product, especially the roof of the shack in the bottom left and the long pole next to it. However I decided I would try more attempts using different techniques with the next one.

Speed Paint 02 - Marsh Wanderer

This piece was actually inspired by one of Torvenius' own works, specifically the stone that this character is holding, in one of his speed paints he drew a character holding a stone similar to this one which was the main thing that caught my eye so I decided to use it as inspiration. Unlike the last piece, I began this painting purely monochrome, only using different varients of greys and blacks on a variety of opacities. Afterwards I used overlay to create different colour theories and gave it a more swampy feel. The final step was to add texture to the picture as a whole, I did this by using both a tree bark and a gravel texture and lowered the layers opacity to give it a more grainy feel. I really liked the way this one has turned out and its my favourite so far.

Speed Paint 03 - Iron Serpent

This is my final piece I have done so far and although I am happy with it I still prefer my previous "Marsh Wanderer" piece. The methods of making the iron serpent were pretty much the exact same as I did to create the previous one, using only lowered opacity monochrome colours and then using an overlay to add the colour. I feel that I should have allowed more room to show off more of the snakes form, however I was very happy with the textures that I used over it. In order to create the Iron Serpents more mechanical look I converted a picture of a chopper motor-bike and duplicated it, turning it in odd angles with each duplicate, I also added a sand texture for the grainy feel.

All in all im happy with how my speed painting is comiong along so far although I have a lot to learn I feel that I have improved in the short time that i have been learning this new art technique and will continue to hone it to a more satisfactory standard.

Lecture 1 - Psychoanalysis

Character Concepts 1 - Seraphim Snake

For the begining of this module we were told to create prospect characters with the intention of making them into an animated machinma short. The first thing that came to mind for me was Angels and snakes, the image above shows rough sketches of my first character: The Seraphim Snake.

The reason behind combining the two was simple, I was literally picking my favorite breed of religious Angel with one of my favorite animals. The Seraphim and the snake, to create this wooly headed creature.
I thought carefully about what it is that the Seraphim stands for and what they as angels are designed to do, they are the highest ranking angel of the Lords hierarchy and are direct servants to his throne, responsible for holding the throne itself up. The human kind often picture them as the stereotypical winged humanoids that unlike the rest of the angels, carry a sword of fire. I however have read different passages and found much more interesting descriptions of what these creatures look like.
The one I read about and had already been naturally raised to believe was that Seraphims are in fact gigantic 6 winged snakes, made from a body of fire, each pair of their 6 wings has their own purpose when serving the Lord as follows:

PAIR 1: These wings protect and cover the eyes of the Seraphim, as neither Angel nor man may ever look directly at the Lords face the Seraphim must naturally protect its face and eyes for it is not worthy, even as the highest ranking angel in the kingdom of Gods army.

 PAIR 2: These wings aid the Seraphim in flight, they do not cover the creatures body in any way and are used to perpetually fly above the ground that the Lord walks on as to walk on the same ground as God would destroy man and Angel alike.

PAIR 3: The final pair of wings that serve a similar purpose as the second pair of wings, rather than using these wings to fly however the final pair of wings is used to cover the feet or in this case the tail, these wings are used for the main purpose of not walking on the same ground as the Lord.

Because the whole history on the Seraphim is a pretty serious one I decided to sweeten it up a bit by creating a cartoony snake whose body naturally reenacts the same purposes of the originally depicted Angel. The design for my character only has 2 wings unlike the previously stated 6. This is because he only needs his one pair of wings to fly with, the replacement for his other two wings is in fact the wool that grows around his head and tail.
The image above shows two designs for the Seraphim snake, image 1 (the top image) shows the creature in his full bodied form, a small fat serpentine body, wooly head and tail as well as two wings sprouting from his head. The wool on his head is usually flat to his skin unless he is near the Lord, then he fluffs up as shown in the other drawing, making the wool cover the majority of his eyes and face. The same goes for his tail, which fluffs up when he is close to the ground that God is stood on.

I will consider using this character and do further research into it before I make my final decision about what to use in the final outcome for this module.

Thought Bubble 2012

 That time of the year is coming again when it will be time for me to attend the annual Thought Bubble festival. I love this time of year, Autumn is known as the season of change in both ways that we can and cannot see. I often find this is the case for Thought Bubble as every year is a time for each person attending to go in a different costume and meet new people who have different things to sell.

Last year I went as a character from Anime/Manga series, BLEACH. A youngster called Lillinette, this year however I will be going as the Joker's girlfriend and partner in crime to stop Batman, Harley Quinn. I already made sure to get everything I needed for the cosplay early so that I didn't have to worry about any missing components when it came to the final week before Thought Bubble to make sure everything is in place.

However it isn't just the cosplay opportunities, photo-shoots and generally being able to talk to others who enjoy similar interests as you that I enjoy most about Thought Bubble. What I honestly enjoy the most about the festival is how easy it is to browse professional artists work who are sat right in front of you and the ease of being able to ask them all about how they got to where they are now. I always use opportunities such as these as what I like to call "Sponge-bases" that I use to soak up any and all knowledge the professionals have to offer me. I find that any event like this where people already in the industry that you want to be in are literally stood in front of you wanting you to talk to them should never be passed up and as far as networking goes I believe it is one of the best places to start or widen contacts.

I cannot wait for Thought Bubble and I will make certain to talk to as many influential people as I can and use this Sponge-base to soak up as many new contacts, techniques and information as I can.