Life Drawing and Snail-me V.2

I finally found my camera yesterday and so took some shots my life drawing pictures today, though- most of them are... bad pictures- it was a little rushed when I took them, because with lots of things going on at oncve- I forget things, but, luckially, I remembered to take the pictures- I edited them on photoshop- as in lighten and darken areas that were too ark because of the camera ect...

As you can see... terrible shots. It's also been a while since I've drawn any type of homosapiean too...

Snail-me

A second shot at drawing a snail-me. and yes- I copied off my UCA photo, but it's only for practice and figureing out how to draw myself- I didn't trace though.

I went much, much more human this time, adding snail parts rather than looking like a snail-blob, though- I would still like to do that, but makeing it look less like 'just a person' and more looking like me (combined with a snail)

La Bell et la Bete reveiw and sketches of the weekend

Again, I'm not too good with reveiws, this time- I hoped to have improved, I only wrote down a few notes when watching the film, as it was almost identical to Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

I only focused on 'Beast' as he conjoures up alot of symbolizom in the film.
This story has been told many times throughout history, the latest "true" 'beauty and the Beast' being Disney's 1991 version under the same name. though La Bell et la bete seems to focus more on Beast desperately tying to ignore his animal instinct in attempt to not scare off and dissapoint Bell, as in one part of the film shows Beast focusing on a wild deer while Bell is talking to him- ignoeing his animal instincts he takes notice if her rather than the deer who gallops off into the woods.

Beast stareing through the trees to spy on Bell's father as he leaves, his eyes, very animalistic and stareing- almost like feral cat eyes.

Another way La Bell et la Bete shows Beast's animalistic nature is when Bell's father looks him in the eyes, Beast immidetly yells "do not look directly into my eyes!" as most creatures, includeing canids and gorillas shy away or feel challenged when another creature looks them directly in the eye.
These animalisic qualities could mean alot of things- expecialy when it comes to love, from urges and primal instincts to anxiety and nervousnes. though it seems in La Bell et la Bete it was, like almost every boy on his first journey to meet a girl- it was inexperience, he felt like a beast because no one understood him and treated him as such, alienateing him from the rest of the world and Since he was so shy, he locked himself away- fearing rejection in an almost paranoid fantistacle way.

Beast carrying Bell after she passes out, seeing his 'horrid' apperence

Beast eventually gives Bell a golden key to his treasures- which represents his heart- in return that she will come back to him after a week of freedom to see her ill father, though Bell can't help but tell her brother and his friend about the secrects that lay withing the castle, the brother immidietly tells his and Bells greedy sisters who want nothing but to be in ritches and welth. the brother and his firend on the other hand want to kill the beast, both for fame and so it would be easier to gain his treasures.


Beast watches Bell as she eats, in an almost stalking like mannor- this could be represent of two things, his anmalistic nature takeing over- as most preditors watch their prey as they eat- or like a stalker he only wants to watch her as he becomes more and more fixated on her. 

 Weekend sketches

I managed to finnish some sketches over the weekend, and am quite plesed how they turned out- though admitted, I used hand images from the internet and drew them instead of my own hand. I did have two animations prepared, but they didn't work when posted (the animations were of the transition of 'normal' hand to snail-hand as seen below)

Hand study to show 'evolution' from normal hand to a slug/snail like hand, and bone study to show internal stucture of bones slowly fade away as the hand begins to transform. I used two images, one of a normal hand x-ray of an adult contaning 27 bones in the hand, and another x-ray of a baby's hand, though babies has the same amount of bones, the x-ray showed me how they could drift apart and 'melt' away. I quite like number 3 (18 bones) of the transformations as it seems to be more half-way than the rest.

Hand study, showung two different possistions of the hand

second hand study, showing four different possistions of the hand

Better Late Than Never

I have been trying to wrap my head around film reveiw all week- I've never reveiwed anything before (I missed the 50's fly on monday) and so- this reveiw of the fly will be primative and probally not even a true reveiw. so- I'm sorry 'n all about the terrible reveiw- I hope tomorrows reveiw will be at least a touch better- also, because of a fairly weak stomach, I couldn't bare looking up photos of the film (says the person who had to reaserch pictures of necrotizing fasciitis just two years earlier)

The fly is a film Staring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.
Jeff Goldblum plays Seth Brundle who is working on teleporting devices and Geena Davis, who plays a journalist, films Seth while he is working. After a few problems, namley turning his baboon inside out, Seth transports himself but he doesn't realise that there is a fly in the transporter with him. After feeling what he calls 'filtered' and 'cleansed'. a few mutant insect hairs grow on his back- and that's where the trouble starts. over time more and more body parts fall of of him and are replaced by strange fly/human hybrid organs until he loks completely inhuman.

The film raises a few political issues that were current at the time of production such as women makeing their own decision about aborting their own baby and how AIDS can spread quickly and 'mutate' the body. The Fly used some symbolism and their own storyline to outline these issues such as Geena Davis' character's dream sequence where she gives birth to a live, giant maggot instead of aborting it earlier on, and Seth slowly transforming into a horrid 'mutant' as a diesease takes holds of him- become stronger- but ultimately much weaker- this is almost how AIDS works, it destroys the immune system and causes you to eventually become weaker until even a simple cold could be devastating.

As I said- lots of problems....

Photoshop Snail-me

Unfortuneatally, I haven't been able to find my camera to take photos of my life drawing sketches, but when I do find my camera, I'll update this blog with the pictures.

During the Photoshop introduction, I learned a technuiqe- that was and still is very useful to me, as I sometimes find it a pain to paint on photoshop- though I enjoy it more than useing physical paints and brushes.
I have skipped a few steps in this, I know- I had it all planned out, sketch and scan in some anatomical hand drawings. Then, show how a hand would turn into something more snail-like, but instead- I skipped to drawing myself as the snail-hybrid- though this isn't going to be my final drawings- I still fee like I should and could add much, much more to the digital painting.

I do feel as if there is something either wrong or missing. I can tell- now by looking at it that some of the hybrid's slime isn't falling in the right direction,  it's tilted, and it looks more blob-like than human- I still want an essence of Humanity still in the painting, expecially in the eye/eyes, the only problem with that, is that one of the most defined features of any kind of snail is it's tentical-like eyes.

But- putting my little critisism to the side- I really enjoyed this painting, It took me around an hour and a half in the computer bays- and about ten minutes more at home touching up parts that I could see needed improvement.

More Snail Studies

I may not have been the most active blogger, but I have been drawing my chosen animal- since it is an interesting one. I've been thinking that, for my portrait- I would look something more like the Blob, than a strange human/animal hybrid, since snails, like most invertibrates don't have an internal skeleton, though they do have a shell- which I was thinking of 'dropping' for my final portrait as, at least now- it doesn't seem to fit well on the human body (at least in my head). I still have tonnes of sketches to do, and a reveiw of the 1986 version of 'The Fly' (which I have no idea how to start or finnish.)

in anycase; Here's the sketches I've been working on over the past three days:

As you can see from these sketches- I'm not that good at drawing Snail shells...

Course Start and Animal Pairing

Paireing, or to put it more like the breif- combineing with Achatina fulica, or to you and me- the Giant East African Land Snail, may seem like an almost failure to people, why would they be combine with something so un-human, something not a vertibrate, something to them that would most likely make their stomach turn when they think of the slime involved. But I find it almost as a relief. I have an interesting, yet simple creature to draw, no limbs, no complex tail, no fins, no fluke, no neck.

and so I start on my 'snails pace' journey to intergrate myself into the image of the simple mollusk- the snail