Image research for the mini brief

Getting some design inspiration 



So after I had a think about what kind of character creation I wanted to make for our Insect mini brief, I started to quickly move onto collecting some image research so that I could get a little bit of design inspiration before hand instead of just going off of the top of my head with ideas as I only had a limit amount of time to produce something. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go into as much image research as I would of liked to when it came to actually finding photography online because of my ridiculous insect face phobia but I did make sure to find as many images that I could actually bare to look at to make sure I had some solid image references and popped them into a college. As well as this I decided to also look at the different types of things that would be found on the woodland floor, such as mushrooms, nuts and weeds. as the creatures I am designing wouldn't just wear the shells of insects as protective clothing, they would also take whatever they could lying around the forest and craft it into something. I made sure when looking into insects and woodland life that I was finding things that looked quite tough and not very soft so that my creatures would have a strong look to their armour.

As I was looking through the collection of research images I had compiled into mood boards I was thinking about how the different insects and plant life would build up and add into character creation. I decided to make a small list from just looking at the image I had collected and think of possible ways I could use these things in my design.  

• Snail shell back pack.
• Stag beetle armour.
• Silk worm clothing
• Wings worn on back to disguise self from predators up above. 
• Subtle earth colours like greens and browns in order to blend in.
• Poisonous berries used as weapons. 
• Insect head used as a helmet.  
• Mushroom top used as a shield.
• Insect legs used as a staff? or weapon? 
• Insect shells used as protection. 
• Wasps or Bees stinger as darts. 

Once I had come up with a short list of design ideas for my creature, I thought it was about time that I actually got onto drawing some stuff down. Instead of just doing some pencil sketches like I usually would do, this time around I wanted to just create some silhouettes of possibly character design. This would allow me to have a little more imagination in my design process as it would give my the opportunity to work from a black slightly structured black base image and then just add ideas and designs from there. I programme I decided that I wanted to use to create my silhouettes was 'Alchemy' as I have really enjoyed using it in the past for different university project and I personally think it creates really interesting designs that I may not of thought of drawing before.

I decided to keep the amount of silhouettes I produced to a minimum as I didn't want to get a little too wrapped up in the creation process and realise that I didn't have any time to create a final coloured piece. The silhouettes I produced can be seen in the image below and incorporate different ideas from the list I wrote down up above. As I was fairly pleased with how these silhouettes had turned out as they have given me a good starting point and base to begin working on my final piece.