Visual Language: Depth // Three Figures

I really enjoyed doing this task! I decided to relate this back to my horror movie theme as I thought Van Helsing and the Harpies would make a really interesting composition - particularly as the harpies can fly so there's more choice of where to place them in the image, and more possible angles to view from.

I wanted the image to look as if the harpies are swooping down on the Van Helsing- type character. I did like the look of a birds eye view, looking down at the character and the backs of the harpies but I thought the view from behind the V.H charachter looking up at the sky was more dramatic. By having this character large on the page there is a lot of overlap with the other two figures, creating a greater sense of depth. 

The image looked best from a low angle - at the characters feet looking upwards. I struggled to draw this so I laid down on the floor and got Olivia to pose for me so I could get a better idea of the perspective. (above is my sketch of Olivia which I added a fancy hat to) 

This was my final rough for the piece. It was suggested that if I'm going for a fantasy look the wings and flowing hair should be completely over the top and spanning the complete width of the page rather than stopping just shy of the edge. Also now I had the basic idea I should work on getting the positioning of VH right on the final piece and working the other figures around that. This was pretty good advice as some of the time I do get caught up trying to get composition spot on in my roughs when it would make more sense to have an idea and work with it on the final image as I can always change stuff while I'm doing it or go back to sketching something I'm not sure about. 

Working with coloured pencil at an A3 scale was pretty difficult (and very time consuming) though I do enjoy the range of tones and textures I was able to use with this medium. This piece was really frustrating, the more I added to it the more it looked like really bad fantasy art you'd find on a teenage boy, who's into Metal's myspace page but I'd gone so far I had to stick with it until the end. I think the depth in this image has been pretty successful, which was the point of this task anyway. The overlapping and sizing of the different characters makes it obvious that they are further back in the image (and not just very small). I did add some texture to the floor that suggests depth too but I do not think this is necessary and could definitely have been executed better! On the whole I can't tell how successful this image is, on one hand it's kind of busy and tacky but I kind of still like it never-the-less. Classic horror is pretty busy and tacky anyway.