By the way, the city and mountain would be way bigger, with way more houses huts and shacks and the top rung would be way more elaborate (hopefuly with some sweet chinese garden)
These are mine! drawn before I found the Yamaguchi book. I want to take a poll on the river spirit. How many people want to never see this kind of river spirit again? I liked him originally but without any positive feedback 2 posts in a row I would like to just move on to trying a bunch of different dragon designs.
How many people for and against having the city (not the insanely fast one I drew here, but the one from the story, more like Jake described, on the back of a giant turtle like this concept here. Tell me now and I will kill it, we do have a lot on our plate already, but I don't want to get away from the whole mystical feel...like that just about anything can happen in this universe we are trying to portray. Also, through out the film we could do some really cool things happening in the background, like other turtles passing (very blurred in the distance) which I can take care of with minimal work using a mixture of maya flash and after effects (Basically, we can do this, but I need feedback to make sure it even feels appealing to anyone other than me...and I'm a little bit distorted on the idea right now, so tell me if it even goes along with the feel or the style of the film
5 comments:
I think it would add a level of complication to the film that adds nothing to the story... yes we want the stroy to feel mystical, but it's more of a traditional story, and I think if we were to have the city on the back of a turtle and turtles moving by in the background then we'd have to have a reason why- otherwise it just distracts from the storytelling. Also, it's been done before... all of Terry Pratchet's books are based on a world built on the back of a giant turtle... and since it's not really a classic motif or archetype we should probbaly avoid it. And isn't it in one of the Aladdin movies as well?
It is a really cool concept and visual, and a great drawingl. And despite previous post, I do love turtles (my mom has a collection of them and I grew up with tortoises roaming my backyard) but I don't really think the concept fits with this film. And I thnk we should try to keep it as simple as we can, since the story and the concepts we're already trying to get across are already so complex.
I like the first drawing as well- and I liked the one you posted previously- that was probably my favorite out of those river spirit concepts. my only concern is that he seems rather jolly... which isn't exactly the attitude I imagine for the water spirit. I imagine it to be more serene and dignified... very grand... almost scaring the boy when it appears. But I really like the idea of combining a mythical beast and a figure...
I have a question for everyone that is only sort of related to Levi's post:
How complex (or simple) are these designs supossed to be? The film by A. Antin is incredibly simple and I know that we have looked to that film for inspiration. Are we going to actually be doing this stuff in Sumi-e style? Will it be a modified Sumi-e style? I know that the character designs will need to be more comlex than the backgrounds, but by how much?
I don't want to be practicing Sumi-e if we aren't going to use it. Sumi-e is harder than I thought it would be.
(Jake, I will be posting some of my Sumi-e practice attempts on Monday by the way. I will start posting regularly soon.)
You're such a sweetheart!
After my second drawing of him I was tired of it anyways. And the turtle, well, vomitvomitvomit. But I did read about it when looking up the mandarin word for river. Evidently all or most stories about turtles came from some kind of chinese story where a monk or something saw a greatgrandfather tortoise walking around with a chunk of dirt stuck in between the cracks of his shell with grass growing out of the dirt, he wrote stories about tortoises with mountains on their backs and it developed from there... Then when I saw Jake's design with the tree on it...well, to make a long story short, it was a bit of a pain to draw because visualy it takes away a lot from the city which is the real focus
Tortoise rest in peace
AWESOME! I think this is a great idea. I think it will add a higher level of interest to the film. I think Howl’s moving castle would be a good reference for doing something like this. I don’t think it would be too hard to do either and it could be really fun. Having turtles at the beginning could gain a lot of interest to the film at the beginning too. The city could stay exactly the same but just be on the monsters back.
My vote is do it.
Let me first say that I really like the drawing, Levi, and am in love with the idea. I think it's really cool and I think you're brilliant.
Let me also say... The turtle is out. It complicates and confuses an already packed exposition, it competes stylistically with much of the film, it creates a LOT more work for us that, as Simini pointed out, adds nothing but a layer of ambiguity and surrealism to a story that we want to be concise and realistic, and muddies the storytelling waters, if you will.
I like the idea of the waterspirit riding a dragon- that's one we hadn't considered, and I'd like to see it developed further.
In response to Will's post: we WILL be using Sumi-e, or at least an understanding of it critical to what we will be doing. SIMPLE. We want things to be simple. They can start out more complex and be simplified, but the final designs for everything must be exceedingly simple. This also goes for storytelling and story. Simple.
Verdicts:
Simple Design.
No turtle.
We will develop the human/animal river spirit combination and see how we feel about it.
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