After collecting enough resources for each character, I went on to the concept art stage. I took each character from the story and started experimenting with shapes, colours, hairstyles and clothes for each one to match their appearance in my art style and above all else their personality. Using Miro board I created and simplified their roles and personalities to help with their concept art and appearances to both match with each other. I sketched out in my artbook hair styles and the characters shapes and heights to experiment with specific clothing and accessories.  I also drew a few snake doodles along the way so understand the appearance of a snake’s anatomy better. 

I narrowed down my choice’s through multiple designs of appearance, silhouette, colour schemes, historical clothing and accessories across multimedia films/shows and story illustrations for designs I preferred.  I thought more about concept art and character design stages once I was still planning and collecting my research. There a total of 4 characters that I picked which are Bai Suzhen (White snake), Xiaoqing (Green snake), Xu Xian (Love interest/Doctor) and the Buddhist Monk (antagonist).

Going through appearances I thought hard about hair, clothes, accessories related to myth and cultural background especially in the era of the tang dynasty, most importantly what colour scheme I would go for each character. Using Miroboard, I brought all my research and inspirations for each character, to brainstorm ideas how I would draw them into my own art style with accurate details and matching each characters personality with their specific type of hair, clothing and body shape. 

Research and Planning Mood board

Pipeline for the first stage of Character Design

After choosing one of the four Chinese mythology stories, which was the tale of ‘The White Snake’ I took this time to further research the story, variations and other films and tv shows that tells the same story but adapted from many creators and artists with their unique  art styles and visual storytelling. In short summery it tells the tale white snake spirit, longing for human life, finally managed to transform itself into a charming lady after centuries of practice and cultivation. Bearing the name of Bai Suzhen, the beautiful snake maiden fell in love with a respected doctor, Xu Xian at first sight.

In some other versions, the pair’s first encounter took place far earlier. It holds that when Bai Suzhen was merely a young snake, she was once saved by Xu Xian in his past life. It was driven by gratitude and the eagerness to repay such a life-saving kindness that Bai Suzhen, through her constant efforts, accomplished her transformation to take on human form. After which, she set out without hesitation to look for Xu Xian and repay him back for his generous deed. The young couple set up a medicine shop, enjoying a harmonious and happy life together. But there was a looming time bomb threatening to shatter the couple’s joy, since Xu Xian had no idea of the fact that his beloved was a snake spirit. And the appearance of Fa Hai, a Buddhist monk at the Jinshan Temple, was the catalyst that lit the fuse.

Believing that such a marriage was unnatural, Fa Hai told Xu Xian that his wife was not a human being but instead an evil snake. He also convinced the doubtful husband to make Bai Suzhen drink a special wine that would prove his word. Xu Xian followed Fa Hai’s advice, tricked Bai Suzhen into drinking the wine, and witnessed his wife turning into a white snake. He then broke down and died. Bai decided to save her husband. She braved the land of the immortals and stole a sacred magical herb from there violating a rule that a snake spirit was never supposed to break. Xu Xian was brought back to life, taken by Fa Hai to the Jinshan Temple, or Golden Hill Temple. To reclaim her husband, Bai Suzhen unleashed the waters and flooded the temple.

One popular adaption for the myth is a fantasy film known as ‘The Legend of the White Serpent 1958‘ developed by Toei animation, the same studio behind Alakazam the Great which adapted the myth of Sun Wukong (The Monkey King). It follows the main story and adds additional background characters for character support for the main two love interests beating all the odds and the animation has a mix of western and eastern influences with realist character design and a beautiful varied colour palette which contrasts with the rough limited animation and poetic quality with charm. It shares it’s traits and style with other movies such as Monkey king Havoc in Heaven franchise and Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, both produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS) by the Wan brothers. 

Another popular adaption of the story would involve the white snake trilogy by Light Chaser Animation Studios which took the approach of a 3D art style but keeping the traditional western/eastern style of it’s Chinese roots. The first and last film focus on the early centuries of China during the tang and southern song dynasty. The second movie focuses on steampunk modern time similar to ours with technology use involved outside it’s normal time zone. It also shows many art techniques for it’s animation such as their colour palette established for each character, mood, culture/environment and lighting for it’s sense of direction with all characters who are morally good, bad or grey. Also to mention the trilogy besides it’s visual effects and animation is the amount of 2D they put in for the characters journey and growth such as using the Chinese style of a ink painting and colour palette washing out looking like a mix of 2D and 3D (Hybrid) animation.

We prepared our presentations for this week where Abdul and I went ahead with the Morrigan and presented her to our classmates and other students from China on live stream. It went really well as each pair presented our Irish mythologies and put a lot research into each one with motivation and interest. After we had shared our presentations the other students went and shared 4 stories which included The 9 Tail Reindeer, The White Snake, The Red Mansion and Jingwei Filling the Sea. 

After the talk and reviewing each one, we (individually) had to pick one of the stories which would become our main project and pick 2 or 3 techniques to follow through with the project. I decided in the story of the white snake, which I came familiar with growing up and watched the Light Chaser Animation Studios with it’s exquisite character designs, special effects and storytelling that caught mine and so many eyes of audiences intentional. I thought about going beyond the techniques that we would be choosing whether it was something I’m good at or something that needed more work done. So I took it upon myself to lower my choices between Character Design, 3D Modelling and Grease Pencil/Look Development before starting the new project. 

This week we were given the task to choose one myth or legend from Irish mythology to showcase on our presentations about the myth/legend origins, artwork and how they are viewed in today’s world. I got paired with Abdul and went through a list of myths until we came to the conclusion of the Morrigan as we collected links and images with tones of info for the figure and what made her interesting to even talk about her.

While we were planning and designing our presentation, we continued with the Art Cycles and thought more about what we wanted to do and were brought into more detail for character design and concept art. Even back to the basics of pipeline and examples from various environments and tv characters and the difference between style and story, especially how they went for one specific art style for the whole production of their show. I went to back to the shows and looked at artbooks/character sheets of various characters (main or secondary) and tried to understanded their structure and formed shapes that made it possible for their designs from many artists and animators. 

Adventure time 

Star vs the forces evil

Over the garden wall 

Owl house 

Gravity falls

Here is a few roughs I did by taking one of my original characters (OC) and put them into a number of art styles I have chosen from the vast majesty here on this blog but no line art included.  

First week back we were introduced to the module Experimental Design and what we would be doing this semester. We meet other students from another university in China where they presented themselves and showed their beautiful work and showed them ours and what we have done the past few years. We were given the task to find Irish Mythology here in Ireland preferably one myth/legend to showcase in pairs to the new students for the live session where they will share their Chinese Mythology with us. In pairs we had to pick our Irish Mythology which my teammate Abdul and I narrowed our choices and came to the conclusion on covering the myth of the ‘Morrigan Goddess’ for the PowerPoint presentation. 

While we discussing about our choices, we had to also think about the assignment on what we wanted to do or what techniques we wanted to learn this semester. Each of us were also given tasks on picking an art style or animation style/technique that currently interest me whether it was a movie, show or game to talk about for next week.  It was a difficult to choose from what to talk about as there was hybrid animation or 2D animation shows so I went for my strongest suite which was 2D animation with 

Horror and cute whimsical elements combined have always interested me over the years. Growing up with Tim Burton and Laika studios Coraline/Paranorman started this inspiration for me as the animation direction wasn’t too shy from showing weirdness and the abnormality in it’s setting and interesting art styles. I gathered inspirations from my childhood which collaborated with horror elements and the more modern in the present. 

A few examples of a specific art style would come from Dana Terraces work Owl House and Knights of Guinevere. I chose these two first as characters themselves have basic shapes with character design, bright and dark colours in contrast, creative backgrounds and a captivating storytelling to enhance it’s characters. Same with the Knights of Guinevere pilot which blends beautiful detailed backgrounds, has a dynamic art style, excellent character animation conveying emotion through body language, and strategic use of colour to enhance atmosphere and tension creating a unique and immersive viewing experience.

I then remembered the shows I watched back in the early 2010’s and how became more memorable than the other shows I watched and how each one balanced colour, detailed backgrounds a range of character designs they have explored in contrast with personality and in depth with it’s unique storytelling involved with the main cast and secondary characters, builds up tensions and exaggerated expressions. This popular art style is known as the Cal-arts which some like but others don’t, especially how some designs share the same mouth ‘bean mouth when the characters smile. Which is something I won’t use for my art style.