After reading the story again I noticed that there are no physical descriptions of the Sea Witch herself, only of the outside of her home. As I'm planning on doing an interior illustration this is a bit of an inconvenience for me, but I know she has a lot of bones, killer seaweed, she likes toads and sea snakes and is evil enough to get pleasure from causing the Little Sea Maid crippling pain, so that's something at least! :D
Here's what I've been looking at:
In the story her home is described as being made of human bones, which is lovely and sinister but rather than just making a load of bones, I thought I'd have a look into the kinds of shapes I could use to recreate a bone-like feel. I really like the idea of her living somewhere that looks like a rib cage but may just be made form twisted coral with a few bones in there to throw thr viewer off.
Here are a couple of the experiments I made previously that really started off this idea:
I really love the shapes the ink has made in these images. They have a real sense of something horribly evil rising up from the ground. I'd love to recreate this kind of feeling by having her home seem so evil that it looks as if it's seeping into the water around it. How to do this in CG? I have no idea, but I'll get it done! :D Here's a rough influence map to get me on my way:
I'd suggest taking some of your ink images into Photoshop, converting into greyscale, using the levels to embolden the lines and then start using the paint bucket tool to see which shapes form, join-up etc - and these might start giving you some great buttressing/architectural forms that you might be able to duplicate, repeat, flip horizontal, mirror etc. until you start creating some sculptural/structural forms that might start giving you your interior; as the interior is under-described, you can deploy loads of artistic license with confidence:
ReplyDeleteI suggest you look at Gaudi for some further inspiration, but also - and this is a bit grim - the Sedlec Ossuary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM0DdWxWtQA&feature=related
And don't forget HR Giger for reference too - in terms of architectural forms comprising bones and bone-like structures, oh and also:
http://v2.lscache5.c.bigcache.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/11195558.jpg
http://www.churchmousewebsite.co.uk/cathed17.jpg
http://farm1.staticflickr.com/169/406354222_c423016b53_z.jpg?zz=1
Think theatrically and larger than life, Molly :)