Head maquette

I started this maquette yesterday, trying to get a similar feeling to the simple plasteline figure's head. I developed the head further, putting in ear detail on the right hand side and some little teeth. I really like this design and hope to use this small model to help with colour tests or texture tests later on. I also want the final sculpt to have the same kind of forms as this one. The side profile is more appealing than the front at the moment so maybe this is something I might change in the sculpting process as well.

Mischevious character sketch

I drew this on Photoshop as a joke - but it actually captures a lot of the character of the Kijimuna that I want to get across in the final design. Sometimes the quickest, crappy sketches are the best! Also the pile of fish in front of him gives me an idea of how to present him at my end-of-year show...

Goblin thing

It's hard to imagine this one with a load of orange hair but I was looking at Lord of the Rings's Golem and liked the proportions and his build (or lack of it). This is a sketch of a more goblin-type face. I coloured it grey just to make it stand out from the background but Kijimuna's skin is often described as red coloured so it will not end up looking anything similar to Golem whatsoever. Also, to me, this looks a little more evil than I want this character to feel, Kijimuna often befriend humans in a lot of Okinawa's folk tales so I need to consider this in the design...

Face development

Now I've explored the shape of the body for a week, I'm focusing on it's face for most of this second week of the project. In the design maquette, the use of the Kijimuna's facial features and expression will be vital in communicating the creatures character and emotions - I want people to feel something for this character, if it's face is too alien, people will not be able to read and relate to it. To give it a more human look (without having to conform to generic face shapes too much) I have decided my version of the Kijimuna will have rounded-pupil eyes and similar teeth to that of a human.

Today I explored different facial features on a half-face mound of WED clay.
 (I use wed quite a lot for things I will be working on all day because of it's high glycerin content allowing it to stay moist for much longer than say, smooth buff. I used it for the project in my last blog: Capramostro and hope to use it for the final sculpt on this one.)
I tried to start off with a human-style face and took a front and 45 degree photo every time I changed the face significantly. Most of the changes were to the nose but the mouth, size and distance between the eyes differs also.

I'm not particularly warming to any of these variations right now but this photo evidence might be useful when I work on the face a bit more. I hope to produce a small bust maquette tomorrow based more on the simple plasteline figure posted earlier on.

Liquifying a design

Just getting used to some stuff in Photoshop like the liquify tool - the image above was a quick test I did. No. 1 is the original drawing and the other three are variations created using this tool. No. 3 is my favourite, the others just look distorted. The idea of having the eyes quite far apart is quite appealing so I might come back to this later...

Monkey face - in colour

First sketch I've coloured, thought I'd try a more ape-like face, but I don't want it to look too much like an existing creature and the nose is different than other ones I've looked at. I don't particularly like this one - I want the side profile to be more human than this.

WED clay sketching

This weekend I got some clay out and did a larger version of the plasteline maquette I did during the week but in a more crouched stance. I changed it a couple of times to see how little things about the pose can affect the feeling of the character. As I went along I couldn't help but block out muscles and tendons etc. I think having longer arms works quite well, especially taking into account that Kijimuna live in trees similar to a lot of primates who have lengthened arms...