Week summary - 5

Character design: 'The Tinderbox'

When I started this project I had already looked at my time period - Edo Japan - before I read 'The Tinderbox.' This meant that when I was reading it I saw the story in that setting without really thinking about it, and I'm still not sure whether this was helpful of harmful to my creativity.

Initial ideas

Initially, I looked at the soldier character very briefly, because I saw how easily he could be reimagined as a member of the samurai class and how appropriate his forbidden desire to marry the princess would be considering the lack of social mobility in that era. I moved on very quickly, however, as I felt this route was too easy and as a result very unoriginal. I wanted to really push myself on this project and I had too many preconceived ideas for the soldier, so I moved on to a character (the witch) that I had not put as much thought into to force myself to think of fresh ideas.

I also did some more research at this stage into Japanese folklore to find some sources of inspiration to draw from. In particular, three stories caught my attention as being potentially relevant: the yuki-onna (snow-woman), fuchisake-onna (slit-mouthed woman), and the character of Oiwa from the story of Yotsuya Kaidan. The two former stories I had heard of previously, but the latter was unfamiliar to me and I found the idea of disfigurement very interesting in the context of the Tinderbox story.

First round of silhouettes

This time, I tried to be much, much looser with my silhouettes and work smaller to stop myself becoming too precious with them, This method of working is still a strange one for me but I'm starting to see how I can use it to my advantage.

Second round of silhouettes

As with previous projects, I chose the best of each sheet (marked in red) to transfer to the next. This helps me to see what design elements are effective and keep those in mind for the next batch. I also tried out a new method here; instead of working with a solid black shape and sometimes cutting into it, I used a set of spatter brushes mostly at random, and worked over the top with a small white brush. I found this to be a much looser way of working and produced some much more interesting designs than previous methods.

Final silhouette choices

Here I did some further research into the clothing of the era to help give the designs some realism. I spent some time looking at the history of fashion and how it changed during that period, and put together a mood board of images for me to reference (below).

Mood board

 The kimono structure is one thing that I found a little confusing, and even after researching it I am still not entirely sure how the sleeves are constructed. I did however learn a lot of useful information about social conventions to do with clothing and some general rules to follow. I also looked at the costume design in the 2011 film '13 Assassins,' to see how the clothing works in motion.

First round of iterations

Keeping my silhouettes visible, I started work on iterations, borrowing elements from a few designs at a time and combining them. Some designs I dismissed as looking too supernatural or ghostly; I want to keep that element of the character subtle.

I experimented with a few different ways of covering the face - hair, a mask, a travel hat - I like the effect that the hat gives, but will probably do some research into Kabuki and Noh masks to explore the possibilites. I want to make it obvious to the viewer that the clothing, like the witch herself, has seen better days, and make it as creepy as possible without being too extreme.