Creating my own fantasy myths part 1

With the new project I took some thought of what to make for a new project so what I decided on my negotiation module is to make a few stories of my own fantasy. It wouldn't be as difficult with some research and building ideas for characters and stories but wanting to have some connections to existing cultures but wanting to make a made up for my own but some familiar legends might make an appearance. It would perhaps be like having short stories for each of them and make certain they have a connection with each other.

Unlike certain fantasy themes, these characters I imagined would either be non-human or creatures rather then normal looking people with special powers like in some common folklore and myths. They have to stand out, like the Tolkien mythology and other creative legends.

I would have to make up some stuff of cities like El Dorado, Atlantis, Akakor as they are all mythical cities that have never been found for centuries.

So what I intend to do is to do some research on myths and legends, write notes of about them to build character ideas along the way. Will be writing stories about each of the characters
isn't so difficult when you have the idea into it, make them sound exciting, something to attract the readers' attention of what they are about.

I plan to start with ten and see how it would go with some time I have for the module, so what I will be doing is do some sketching of the characters, when I get some ideas I will be doing them in digital enhancements, perhaps some of them maybe just to give some idea.

The illustrations below are the first five illustrations I will be doing as I'm targeting up to 10 for the project. Thinking it would be a good idea to finish off these first then move on to the rest, rather then trying to get them all ready for digital and painting.

Seriphar: 

An example of one of my designs is the spirit of fire in a form of a bird, based upon the Pheonix and the slavic folklore about the Fire Bird giving it the form of a majestic bird with a human torso. Wanting to make a spirit in a form of a bird in flames like the legends.

Giving it a pure fire, both designs look good but wanting to go for the more winged-humanoid, this will have a water colour style which I think will work out well for this one, but making sure to have some experiments before I do anything to it first.

Geno Thane:

Geno Thane is a being who is known for his creation of animals and creatures, refers to himself as an artist. There have been a few myths about gods creating the world in different cultures. So I come up with the idea of making this guy who takes the role of creating creatures, it would make people wonder if he did something to make himself more alien then the rest of the characters. Thought maybe add some spiked growths on some parts of his body and insect-like appendages coming from his back. I thought of the character to be someone who takes delight in creating something new for the world. If people want something of themselves to be improved or a creature to have, they must offer something in return for payment... otherwise, they end up becoming something non-human. To make him more bizarre, I thought he would consider himself an artist and takes delight in creating new creatures, no matter how they are made from.

Skalisk: 

An ancient serpant named Skalisk roamed the ancient world and sometimes causes mayhem. I was trying to come up with a multi-head snake, but had to take some thought for the support of the amount of heads the body can handle. I was originally going for three, but some of my friends and tutor suggested I could add more to make it more like a hydra-like creature. I didn't want to make it too many, so had some talk with others on how to add smaller heads, so I thought maybe make the heads take form like they were coming together in fragments of energy or something to form new heads like trees growing new roots and sprout branches.

I wanted to give it sails and decorative crests with hair as though they were like dragons but more serpent-like

This was the idea what of my hydra would be, originaly going for four but took one of them off and went for three instead.  Took some research on serpant creatures that are usually affiliate with evil or the Oroboros that represents the infinity.

Skreovores:

I wanted the Skreovores to be demons that were once angels but turned bad, and ended up become some sort of beat-like creatures for their betrayal against the heavens. Wanting them to have a insect-like appearance but changed it a little, making them vaguely humanoid and gave the wings more claw like after they were torn, becoming a second pair of claws. Given the Skreovores an alien face.

The horns I tried out and thought of making many designs of how they appear, originally going for antenna or beetle horns but thought maybe a little mix.

Atta

The ancient titan of Earth, big as mountains and made out of sand and rock to form a body. He is one of the primordial beings that shaped the Earth in its creation. Debris falling from his body from his movement. I was really interested to figure out how the ancient creatures would look when creating the world, so I went for an elemental-type of being and thought making this guy huge and having most of his body being rock and the rest either stone or sand depends on the land he's on. Wanting to give him an ancient appearance but thought his face would look awesome with rocks forming a face. Left out the legs cause originally wanted him to look like he was floating but thought it would not work as if he is to be an earth element, then should at least be part of the element like he was coming up from the ground. 

So far that's that for now, more will be on the way and hope you like the ideas. The last part is done if you wish to clck on this link: Part 2

Hartlepool CCAD art festival

Heard there's going to be a art festival sometime in the early summer, it would be interesting to go there and see what's on display and show some of my work to other artists. I will find out on the exact date it starts as it might be interesting to go there.

New Genesis comic up for sale!

Today I went to Newcastle to show my comic book to the Travelling Man staff, apologies for only one due to the struggle of how to use Indesign. But least for me, I'm slowly getting the hang of it and WAY different then quark express is when I was in CCAD. Getting the resolution right and the pages in the exact order was a pain.

Ideas on creating new myths

So my ideas of making something entirely unheard of would take a lot of research on the myth and legends from different cultures before doing anything to create new creatures and characters.

My plans for the project are to to list a number of characters for my project, each one with a list of details for what they are and write down stories about them to give more insight upon the characters in the book.

Some ideas I have would mainly be about spirits, gods and demons as I think it would make both horror and fantasy genres. Been fascinated by ancient myths about creation of the universe that have been told by different civilisations from how the world came to be before the rise of human civilisation.

Comic art festivals 2015

According to the Comic art festival website, a group of artists called the 'Red Brigade' is on the lookout for volunteers to show their comic art heroes, get their favourite comic books signed and have fun.  

http://www.comicartfestival.com

sandra@comicartsfestival.com

Negotiated Project: Creative Myth and Folklore

For the project I decided to do short stories of characters based on myth and legends but made up, create something new and unheard of before to make up new tales of spirits, heroes, deities and animals. Creating something unheard of would require research and source of information to build characters and their backgrounds. It’s important to look at something that inspires my imagination, like people, sceneries, objects and animals to know how they would look like. Without that they would look pointless.

So to make up ideas I needed to find some ideas to build them up, look into other folklore and legends from various cultures. Take notes that would work for my illustrations and write the stories. It’s best to make sure that the stories have some connections to build a fictional world.

Taking notes for the characters I’m illustrating for each of them so that I know what I’m doing. Look into books, galleries, books, locations and films that are great sources for fantasy folklore.

While researching on myths and legends, drawing at the time would help build the ideas up over time, thinking of doing ten to be a start, making sure each of my illustrations have a fair amount of time to work with then doing one thing after the other.

What I plan to do for the module to be what I wanted, I’m making it into a book, either have one side to have the illustration and the other page with the story but can mend them together. Keeping a balance between writing and illustration. So as to show some work in the first few days before moving on to developing them on computer but use both versions, with the original all sketches to see how they look, compared to each other.

It will need the type of paper for publishing to look professional so I would be experimenting on the quality papers and to make a cover and title which are most important for a book to have.