Lots o' Sketches and the Intro to My Essay

I have just relised, that for a little while now- I haven't posted anything. So- here's a weeks worth of Sketches and the start of my Essay.

Just a note: for last week, and maybe some time before- I haven't been able to open any PDF file, nor could I find the green light reveiw page on MyUCA. So- I'm sorry if this post will look a little bit chaotic and messy.

lots of snail-mes in various stagest of snailfication in diferent ways of being snailified, I thought I would hate drawing the shell as I see it as a clumsy item, but I enjoyed playing around with it and seeing what I could use it for.

More snail-me drawings now, this time I was going on a theme os A-symetry, whih is not my favorite type of creature, but it produced some interesting results

Foot studies. five feet and only two of my own, I find feet extremely hard to draw, more so than hands, which is unusual to some, I can get the basic triangular shape, but the toes are little five nightmares!

'Evolution' of a human skull undergoing my version of snailification, where the bones grow weaker and the 'shell' grows stronger- eventually over takeing the face, apart from the mouth and extending snail-eyes.

Skeletons now, to show how little bones, and how extended they would be. I went by the basic skeletal rule of '7 vertibrate in mamel necks, 7-8 ribs, 27 hand bones.

you might of seen this snail me a little earier in my sketches, I like this one, but it almost leaves out the human element and makes it feel like 'just another creature' though- this was just an expariment on photoshop- with both colour and lighting.

So many influences, so many boxes to fill. When I first started this, I though "this'll be a peice of cake! I know what influences my art!" but as I progressed I had to delve down into my memories and find what sparked a drawing frenzy, I found most of the influences- top row is dedicated to an English Artist (who's old, but still alive) called Patrick Woodroffe, and I have alot to owe him, starting my facination with art being one of them. second row is Jurassic Park, Aliens 4 and some Wayne Barlow work- which has just influenced me recently. Third row- more Barlow and Jean Mechelle Jarre- a French composer which gave the world Oxygene, revolutions, zoolook and Cronology- not a day goes by I don't hear his music. Fourth row- mixing the past and present now,  War of the Worlds was the first book (album book) and LP record that gave me nightmares- still influenced my 'story telling' part of my work that I try to tell. The Simpsons, well- they gave me crazed ideas, lets leave it at that, and Monster Hunter (game) is another recent influence, helping me to create creatures for environments (and sometimes the other way round). Sir David Attenborough- with his work with animals, has alwayed made me think of new creatures, big and small that could fit into the environment and ecosystem he described, as well as tell me about thoughs ecosystems and how the creatures survived there. -The Earth there, is self explanetory, nothing is more influenceing than the blue/green ball in space. Chocobos- yellow, ostrech sized birds that people in Final Fantasy games rode around on- for around three years I was fixated on drawing these pre-historic looking birds. The Natrial History Mueseum in London is my home-away-from-home and taught me about the fossilized remains of the 'Terrible Lizards' that roamed the Earth 64 Mya ago. AVATAR, though- I hate to admit, not the most original films, poked me onwards to think more of 'how will this creature survive' rather than 'hey, lets draw fantasy stuff' -also helped me see into the world of CG animation. Harry Potter was brried down in my deep past of when I was just seven years old, I drew Harry and Buckbeak quite alot back then- looking back now, I can say- my anatomy was terrible. Evolution- when I was given this current task of snailifying myself- thats where I looked, evolution, where one speices tranverses into another- simploe consept and has always been a facination of mine. and Finally- another recent influence- Half Life- where like with the other examples, it creates a world of strange alien creatures and lets imagination run wild- which is good to look back on when your imagination is depleated.

Ok- now that's out of the way, here is the intro to my Essay. I had alot to think about with Hybrids- so many possible subjects and topics, but- I chose one topic and turned it into a Question:

Why Do Transformating Creatures represent Human emotions, and how do they do so?

People have been interested in the creatures around them, from the smallest insect to the largest elephant, and as soon as people from other countries and continants started travelling, stories of fantastic creatures in distant, remote lands arose. Soon, tales of these creatures crept home, becoming part of local legend. Some of these creatures, were said to have the abilitiy to transform from their animal forms into human forms and vice versa. This raises the question of 'Do these creatures, how strange or wonderful they sound, represent human emotion, and if they do, in what way to they show that?'. What is most noticeable is the werewolf and how it represents both anger and sexual desire, Though what is exampled here is not the reasonable common legend of the werewolf, but creatures of different legends; the Japanese Kitsune, the Scottish/Irish Selkie and the Portuguese Enantado.