Design Ideas for The Bad and Good Wolves

Life drawing is really fixing things for me, drawing gets more fluid.
Today I had a chance to sketch out some ideas I had for both of the wolves. These are the sheets of variations in shape and structure ( I left other aspects like surface texture, colouring out of consideration). The main references while creating these, were wolf anatomy, of course, and Native American carvings. Influence of their culture will be even better pronounced when we select particular designs and work on their better resolution.

Well, now its time to ask for your opinion. If you have any preference or comments over any of the wolves, drop a line :]

Also, for more, visit The Wolves Within blog

Wolf Character and Environment idea sketches

I upload some more in-shape sketches of wolf characters and thumbnails for environment.  This is only the very first ideas I tried capturing and serve more as guidelines on which the design would rely.

In my honest opinion, and also from Bob's and Godwins feedback, it seems this can be pushe way much further. The anatomy studies are playing here a lot, but maybe the boldess should instead.

And these fairly vague thumbnails aim to explore directions for environment. However, lots more, for sure, will come.

Vizualising the Story of the Fight between two Wolves

Leo and I today have finally drawn out an image sequence which now covers the full story. The decision was for both of us to try and create an animatic , so to see each's take. (A note on the soundtrack, it was edited, so at some parts, the pacing music suggests rather falls off...)



 This sequence embodies a metaphor. Two wolves , which represent the good and the bad side in each of us, race from the unconscious part of our psyche to the conscious one, with the aim to take over and  dominate one's entity . On the way each of the two seemingly take over. However, it all comes to an equal fight at the end, as the legend concludes, there is no single winer, as it is us who decide  which side will take over.

Style Approach: References to Native American Art and Design for Theater

The story is taking it's shape, soon we'll work on character and set design and overall style for the animation. Few key sources are informing it: Native American tribe art and (set) design for theater. Amerindians have a symbolic representations for animals,which do vary slightly , here is an example of wolf:

Examples of Totems, pottery, masks, jewelery and spiritual paintings are truly suggestive for shape, colour combinations, surface textures and graphics

The tale is aiming to represent fight happening inside each of us,  in the inner environment. It  has a more abstract feeling , surrealism, lucidity and secrecy about it therefore, the second big influence, as mentioned above, is design for theater performances.

Clear and recognizable structures merge with abstract decorations and fantastic lighting. Volumes interact and start creating something unexpected. Also, it seems one of the major aspects of set design right there is consideration how all of it will play with the surrounding darkness. How the darkens, as one of the key  elements , will play its part. The following example plays with same setting but different lighting approach, which results in mood changes

Lastlly, all the desicions for reference should now come together and be evident and consistent in our own concepts.

Thumbnail Storyboards for WW Project

After discussions with Phil and Aland and brainstorming with Leo, I've gathered some intitial shot ideas.
So far I have a feeling the poses and angles ought to be even more so dramatic and well thought out, as the story will be suggested via these still poses and not an animated action.

For next few days the task is still to visualize the story aiming to gather a coherent sequence. This would inform our character designing as well as, even more importantly, what such type of story is asking from us to do ( for example, what other effects to include, or what elements to get rid of)

Panels are not put together in a linear sequence, instead they simply capture ideas for shots









Sketchbook: Wolves

AMerican Indian Art and Symbology

 This originally is a post for The Wolves Within project. It is taking shape and this is more substantial referencing.

American indians possessed rich and varied culture: from fisherman to agriculturist, susbsistence and buffalo hunters. Within diverse environments thei evolved a spiritual relationship to forses of nature, deep concern for animals, understanding of human responsibilities . The origin of the art motifs result from this relationship and observation of nature.

Traditional pattern work, images of animals, objects cary specific meaning

Totem poles  recount  legends, notable events, celebrate cultural beliefs and are  artistic presentations.

Introduction to Self Initiated Project's Idea; Native Americans' legend: Wolves Within

With the start of 3rd year in CG Arts and Animation, starts one of the two most ambitious creative projects. I’ll be working together with Leo Tsang on it. Blog of our project (yet under construction), Wolves Within, can be found here.

Wolves Within

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed..."

It is a legend told by a Cherokee tribe.Having the basic plot and idea where all is heading (namely, opportunity to develop two wolf characters, environments representing inner space and possibly, if intended, set it all up for future to turn it into an animated short), we also get clues for sources of reference.

As said before, it is a legend told by Cherokee. They refer to themselves as Tsalagi which means "Principal People." It is one of the Better known Indian tribes and also one of the” 5 civilized tribes” because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European Americans. However, sources have indicated that Indian tribes don’t have a distinctive examples of art from each other (at least it is fairly impossible to make such distinctions because of data loss ect.) , so it is considered that what is relevant to Cherokee art is also relevant to all Native American art. Therefore we too reference Native American art in general to further inspire our style.

The project is only yet taking shape and many decisions are waiting to be maid, therefore our focus at the moment is simply familiarize with wolves shapes, anatomy and already created representations.

Initial anatomy and structure studies:

So to get acquainted with "what's out there" I also gathered a sheet of wolves design. Quite honestly, none of the images seem to be similar to what we are aiming for our designs.

Finally, project would build on clear classification of virtues and vice