Anastos Blogspot: January 2013

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Adaptation: First Tutorial

In the tutorial I had today Alan suggested me some styles that could help me deciding things what I could adapt for this unit. Instead of doing complex characters from the Greek mythology I could adapt into a children's story in a unique style which will be effective, smart and managable to be done by me. I won't focus only in the character creation part but I will be doing also environment and props for the story I will choose. Having loaned some books from the library with children stories and in general fairytale stories I hope I will have decided the following days on what I will be adapting.

Maya Dynamics: Volume Emitter Smoke

Maya Dynamics: Omni Emitter Fuse

Maya Dynamics: Directional Emitter Explosion

Maya Dynamics: Sketching Particles - Clouds

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Adaptation: Creatures Ideas

For this project I have decided to focus on character creation for an animation. I have been researching and have found some interesting creatures that I could adapt to this unit from the Greek mythology.

Greek Mythology

Medusa: was a young girl who was so beautiful that Poseidon wanted to have intercourse with her. Poseidon transformed into a horse and made contact with her in Athena's temple. The goddess (Athena) was so furious about the incident that happened in her temple that unable to fall out with Poseidon lashed out to the young girl and transformed her into an ugly creature. Instead of hair Athena gave the young girl snakes and made her so ugly that everyone who was looking at her was being petrified.

Medusa by Caravaggio (1595).

Sirens: were three women that were associated with water, love and death. In Greek mythology they are being described as sea demons. They had human feminine head and the body of a predator bird. According to the myth they were Persephone's escorts but when Persephone was being abducted by Hades Persephone's mother Demetra gave them the body of a bird in order to help her with the research of her lost daughter. They never found her and they stayed in an island in which they were attracting sailors with their heaven song and afterwards they were killing them.

Sirens depicted in an ancient Greek vase.

Charyvdi: was a sea creature that was whirpooling the water of the sea and the ships of the sailors who were passing from it's way. She was living in the asian shore of the strait in Bosporus. Another sea creature was living also there who was also killing sailors with their ships named Skyla. Charyvdi was the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia's. Charyvdi is being involved in the myth of Odyssey where Odyssey succesfully passed from the place she was with minor losses.

Painting of Henry Fuseli (1794) depicting Odyssey passing from the passage where Charyvdi and Skyla was.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Adaptation: Ideas / Research

For this project I have been thinking to choose something to work with which will improve some of my skills and simultaneously raise my interest. With this project I want to improve my drawing / design skills and also broaden my Maya skills in terms of character creation (modelling, skinning, rigging). The field of character creation for an animation interests me the most as long as digital sets for the environment of an animation.

I have been thinking of different things to adapt, but the most profound are myths and stories from different cultures and historical times.

Mythology

Sirens from Odyssey

Greek Mythology: is so rich in content and contains many interesting stories with fascinating creatures that I could adapt in this unit. Some of the creatures are being derived from Odyssey, and in general from Greek mythology containing Gods, heroes, creatures and further on. I'm familiar with some myths/stories and some literature mechanisms of the greek myths which I have been taught back in school when I was younger.

"Spirit of well" from Chinese mythology.

Chinese Mythology: contains myths about the creation of China and the legends of China. Some legends seem very interesting by containing foxes, spirits and fantasy elements. The whole culture as long with specific myths concerning legends and spirits seem very interesting and there are fascinating stories which I could adapt in this unit.

"Namazu" the fish creature from mythology.

Japanese Mythology: contains stories about the origin of the imperial family which created the godhood and the imperial line. It's a system of beliefs that embraces Shinto and Budhist traditions as well as agriculture folkore. The japanese mythology focuses on the creation of deities. There are many myths containing creatures such as gods, ghosts demons and so on which again can give me a story/myth character which I can adapt in this project.