Part 1
I sure had mixed feeling about this project when it was announced, I was happy that I can do something creative again after Unit 6, but at the same time how much I can bring out from creating based on an existing work, also the fact that we had to pair up with someone from tech arts worried me, since the two of us might be interested in totally different ideas.
My friend Angela asked to work with me and I happily teamed up with her. And luckily we have very similar taste of films and shows, and as we knew each other well, I can trust her with her skills and style. Randomly we both had this idea of choosing a work that is light-hearted and cute since we’ve both been doing kind of dark and weird themes. I put down a list of works that I think would be interesting to work on, but as we were talking, we somehow realized we both watched this anime on Netflix, and there’s a character which would be a really interesting choice. Although it’s miles away from what we first agreed to work on
So this anime called Devilman: Crybaby is about the two childhood friends, Ryo and Akira, reuniting after many years apart, but Ryo seems to have an agenda, and he turns out to be Satan who reborn to take over the world. As you can probably already tell that Ryo is our character of interest, so Angela quickly decided that he’s the one she’ll be sculpting. But tricky thing is that this anime is in a really simplistic style when it comes to sets and background, and I wouldn’t be able to be very creative with the set. However, with a few more watching of the anime, I came up with the idea of creating a space within the lighthouse that appeared in the story as a symbol of the friendship between Ryo and Akira. As the end of the anime is in an apocalypse background, the lighthouse will be destructed, and I imagine Ryo coming back in the ruins mourning his friend.
While Angela got nice feedback from the tutors of her choice suggesting it would be challenging but interesting to make Ryo as a sculpture, my tutor, Claire didn’t exactly like my idea, saying that she couldn’t picture how far I can get designing in this style and what the outcome is gonna be like. Was I ok hearing this? I mean, what she said was what I was worried about as well. Disappointed as she was, Angela said that even though Ryo was our favorite character, there’s no point if there’s nothing to work on set-wise. Somehow, the more I think about the idea of the lighthouse, the more it grew on me. And the fact that I tend to change my mind often when hitting something difficulty got me determined that I shall prove that I can make this work.
I actually enjoyed the process because I was not familiar with lighthouses, and as I was spending time researching I realized not only how unique the structure can be, but also how special it is conceptually. Apart from that it was already depicted as a symbol of Akira and Ryo’s friendship, a lighthouse itself stands for such loneliness, yet a guide and hope for those on the sea. This duality somehow fits the character of Akira, who is the strong, aggressive Devilman, at the same time, lonely without friends and family, the crybaby. And not to mention both the lighthouse and Akira himself would be broken by Ryo. Angela mentioned that at some point people made an altar for Ryo because everyone including himself thought he was the powerful being, until his mind was changed by Akira after Akira’s death. So we thought it would make sense for Ryo to turn to worship Akira instead, hence he came to the lighthouse as the altar for Akira.
With that in mind, I put my research heavy on the environments that represents Akira, rather than Ryo, although he’s the one in the set. I soon had the conclusion that Akira’s space consists of mainly earthy tones, wood, and curves. So I changed the placement of the stairs accordingly. Some research of lighthouse in Japan gave me more ideas such as the wood paneling on the wall, which fits the feeling of Akira’s space as well.
I did some drawings of them as kids playing in the lighthouse just to indicate my idea of the interior, but later this idea also grew on me: as we need to create a narrative within the space, maybe having the childhood memory as a part of it would be more interesting. At the same time, I started my sketchup model, as I was eager to show the tutors that this could work!
And this time I got nice feedback as well! It was probably because that I was so bad at explaining my ideas that Claire didn’t actually get it, but as soon as she saw the visuals, the idea was approved. It was such a relief for us and now the green light was on, we can keep on developing it.
It hadn’t been more than two days until I felt stuck again. The requirement of ‘designing in style’ was still being a pain. How should I do the concept art? How far should I go with my model? With a few more tutorials with Claire, I decided to focus on story board first. And that was when everything went online again. As I mentioned before, I would like to include the childhood memory in the narrative, and after a few days laying in bed just playing the story through, which is something I’m best at, and referencing the original anime while playing with angle in the sketchup model, I soon put together the scenes in my head.
For the storyboard, we’ll follow the children protagonists up, transits to the adult protagonists, then fall down. Because it’s a tight space horizontally, I should make use of the structure of the lighthouse and explore the dynamic on the Z axis. And because there’s always been something out of balance about the friendship between the two, having them in different ‘altitude’ could be an interesting representation.
Although it might look more like illustration rather than a storyboard, it’s for sure the part of the outcome that I’m most proud of. I always feel like the spaces I worked on are all a bit lack of dimension, and this time I really got to play with it (on a different direction but still).
After the presentation that nerve cracked Angela and I, which we actually got a lot of positive feedback for, it came the Christmas break (which we didn’t know we wouldn’t be coming back from).
I spent most of the time in the break trying to develop some concept art, like I said I spent most of the time ‘trying’, not saying that I didn’t have any outcome, it’s just that I’ve been really confused with the style I draw. Not just because the work has to be in the style of the original anime, the whole concept of ‘concept art’ is confusing enough. I know that it’s just a way to communicate the design, but the fact that most of the concept art I’ve seen is in a certain style and I long had the pressure of training myself to follow that style already. Anyway, I had a go, and up until now I still don’t know if I like these drawings. I also did some drawings for LCC’s project, they are more in the style that I wanted to follow. I don’t hate how they look but it wasn’t completely comfortable for me to pull it off either.
The stress eased after I saw some more examples of production designers’ visuals that Claire shared and I realized I didn’t have to follow that certain style as long as my work convey my ideas well. But I mean there’s no hurt trying out different things and I do think I learned to indicate light and shadow better and that’s something I would keep while drawing in a style that I’m more comfortable in.
I can feel the journal is getting too long but I still have my whole experience of 3D modeling to whine about. There’s moments when I felt I was already a master in sketchup but this project is just me realizing that’s not true, not in a way that I couldn’t achieve what I want, but that I didn’t even know what I was capable to do with 3D modelling programs. I originally had this ambitious idea of making a whole animation with the model, but at the same time it would probably look too distinctive from the anime style. Can I make it into the anime style? Should I make all the broken bricks and windows in the model? How realistic do I want it to be? So many question marks on my head that I didn’t get to bring the model further than what I had done with 3D modeling before. Although I’ve been working hard to prove that this choice of the anime wouldn’t limit myself and I can make something great out of it, I had to admit that it did. If it were a 3D animation or a real life movie, there’s obviously more to explore in terms of 3D modelling.
There’s pros and cons for every choice, I guess. I did get to have fun with the structure of the lighthouse, which I was really proud of, instead of just doing ‘somebody’s room’. At the same time I will have to develop my 3D modelling skills in another project. Communication wise, there’s never a big problem since the work Angela and I were doing don’t actually come across, but we still keep each other very informed throughout the process, not to mention we worked out the idea of the lighthouse together at the beginning. The lockdown definitely has affected on both of our conditions, physically and mentally, but we’ve been trying our best to support each other. I had experience of losing friends through working with them because one of us was being way too dominant and also lack of communication, so I’ve been really careful this time, luckily she felt the same and was being really understanding and trustworthy ant the same time.
So it seems that my journey with the lighthouse ends here. Angela applied for an extended deadline for her condition so it’s a shame that I can’t attach any picture of her model here. But I’ll update any progress from her!
Part 2
(The following videos are the demonstration for the Part 2 exhibition, as I couldn’t attach them to my submission for part 2. )