Reflective diary : Jesse’s Curse
Vulnerability Final Major Project - Illustration
Jack Tope
Introduction This is my final project at University, one where I got to choose what I wanted to make entirely. I wanted to make something that encompasses the feeling of weakness that my favourite monster scenes give me. The project is currently in a just-about finished state in my eyes, but I have ran out of time to continue working on it. The quarantine interrupted regular work proceedings and it took a while to adjust. Still, it is filled with plenty of pose drawing, character design, expression, and even some effective material use. As a result, I’m proud of the work I have done.
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Project Proposal Project Title: “Vulnerability” Content: I want to create a piece that capitalises on one of my favourite experiences in video games and books; the concept of the big scary enemy chasing the small protagonist, i.e. the viewer. I think there is a tremendous amount of excitement that can be gained from the horror genre and artists use this specific sequence continuously for creating suspense and drama. It’s a great opportunity for visual development in the enemy design and their pursuit through the world. If it’s possible, I want to make it interactive. I believe it puts the viewer into the position of the protagonist quickly.
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- Guardian from Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild
I aim to make the viewer engage with the designs, the narrative and the fictional world by creating a sense of vulnerability and panic. One of the key factors in this project is the prospect of scale. The enemy design will be large and daunting compared to its world to further instil the sense of weakness in the viewer.
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“Horror self-efficacy in coping with mediated fright is the key to explaining the conditional positive association of fear and enjoyment in the gaming context.� - Lin, Jih-Hsuan Tammy et al. (2018) So scary, yet so fun: The role of self-efficacy in enjoyment of a virtual reality horror game. SAGE Publications. In: New Media & Society.
One of the key factors in this project is the prospect of scale. The enemy design will be large and daunting compared to its world to further instil the sense of weakness in the viewer.
- Omega Flowey from Undertale
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Context and Audience: The piece is aimed at thrill seekers, light readers and horror enthusiasts. It won’t be gratuitous in gore or other horror elements because this alienates some of my audience (and also me, partially). I want it to be a piece that anyone who isn’t easily scared can enjoy and take part in. The idea of allowing viewers to experience the feeling of anxiety in a safe environment is an element all horror pieces aim to achieve. The appeal should be in the visual design of the world and enemy along with the visual response to the interaction from the viewer. I want to create a feeling of panic or vulnerability and get their blood pumping to show the importance of narrative and horror in general. I want to aim put it in an exhibition setting to encourage people to look closer at exhibits in general, creating a larger interest and expanding the audience.
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Research: - Enemy design. How can I design a creature or threat that looks large and scary, and how does it move? - World design. What place is the narrative happening? The setting is very important for thinking about atmosphere. - How should it be framed? I.e. how often should the enemy show up? How much should we see of it? Examples of a tangible threat making the protagonist vulnerable. - What things scare us? This is a very important initial starting point. I will need research on simple things like creatures or disasters, but also I want to have a look at some larger concepts that may be able to inform the narrative much more.
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Learning Methods: Enemy Design and world design: 1) Popular games and movies provide all manner of designs and artwork for this. I can find these online. 2) Looking at design documents and art books for said media. 3) Visual books too can work for horror and I’ll have a look for some at the UCA library and the Farnham Library. 4) I’ll experiment and come up with various designs, and then see the response from people. Certain designs may work better and then I can work upon them. 5) Some of the best movement will be able to come from visual reference, so I should visit places where large things move. Things like BirdWorld in Alton and other places in London.
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How should it be framed? 1) Visual centric pieces are much more important for this. Movement of the viewpoint and what can be seen is very important to horror and for this. Framing can be found very well in books. 2) Pacing is another important aspect that can be found well in other art pieces. What things scare us: 1) First hand fear is a good way to research this when working with new material 2) It’s easy to become desensitised to horror when I know the piece already or if I’ve seen too much horror, so it’ll be important to involve other people. 3) Interviews with other people could easily show me a lot about fear and how to use it. I can ask them about fears they have in their daily life, but also about scenes from scary movies that scared them. 4) In addition, it might be good to examine bigger concepts that scare people. 5) Studies and analyses of films are a great resource for figuring out how to develop fear and the idea of vulnerability.
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Learning Outcomes: 1) How to create an interactive piece for an exhibition environment. 2) How to effectively utilize fear for narrative purposes 3) How to show a sense of scale 4) How to create with a focus on visual design of the world and characters
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Proposed Timetable: Week 1 – 2 Initial research, looking at games, books and movies where the concept of being vulnerable and small is used and visiting museums. Experimentation on designs of the threat and simple methods of interaction. Interview people on their fears. Week 3 Research visual styles and designs of other large threats. Experiment with a range of designs using lots of materials. Peer review. Week 4 - 6 Research interaction designs more and solidify the method and style of the piece. Create the narrative. Peer review.
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Week 7 - 9 Experiment until the concepts for the final designs are made. Peer review. Week 10 - 13 Final piece development – The final interactive design, the final threat design, and the narrative that goes with it. Making it work and making sure it’s exhibition ready.
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Week 1
Jan 13 - 17
Ideas and concepts
Idea generation is important to start any project. I wanted this project to represent a part of myself and my interests as I was able to choose anything at all. Choice is a blessing and a curse, it was tricky to solidify my ideas. One of the first things we did as a class was create several mind maps of small areas of interest, asking ourselves questions and writing down our own curiosities. I found myself with a couple ideas to take further:“Immerse into a scary world” which involved looking into horror tropes, “Social
media” which involved the destruction of language through technology and “Escapism” which involved looking at a character within a built up, creative world. Once I thought about some of my favourite moments in games, I realised my love for creative creatures and the fear that comes with them. Sequences like that are highly tense and engaging, so I thought that would be a great starting point!
Week 2
Jan 20 - 24
Creative writing
I really enjoyed the creative writing workshop ran by Jane Hankin and utilized several techniques from it in the future, such as writing “5 lines”, using “I am” statements, or involving the reader with “You” statements. I had realised by this point that I really wanted to include character design into this piece to add to my portfolio and explore the simplicity of following a narrative with a visually distinct character. Creative writing was a perfect way to start the process of making a character.
My project proposal was written: “Vulnerable and Small”. I intended to make an interactive experience about the scary sequence of engaging with a giant monster, like the ones I love in games. (Pictured above is Limbo 2010). I had wanted to use Unity in conjunction with my art to make it interactive since I’d been getting better with it and had a side project I was proud of.
Week 3
Jan 27 - 31
Gathering Data
I wrote up an online survey that included open ended questions generally about fear. I wanted to know what things people were scared of so I could work a monster design around those. I specifically included questions about “Claustrophobia” (fear of confined spaces) and “Agoraphoba” (fear of being unable to escape). I put the survey on Facebook and on the Farnham Freshers page, it recieved a good amount of responses and the results were very useful. It turns out a lot of people have experienced something to the effect of “Agoraphobia” and it was very useful to read the stories people left in the questionaire.
Whilst this was going on, I visited the natural history museum for some animal research. If I was going to make a monster, I would need to understand what can make animals scary and more about their anatomy. I took pictures and made sketches, looking at what things made an impact on me.
Week 4
Feb 3 - 7
Idea development
The plan to use Unity for an interactive piece was quickly being destroyed. I was going to use some animated gifs and a visual novel framework initially, but it turns out that Unity can’t handle gifs very well. I didn’t want to use the Unity animator for every animation (since it is hard to edit), so I tried the Unity video player. Unfortunately, it had a buffer every time the video played as it loaded the video, leading to a terribly stuttery playback. The solution of using two overlapping players did not seem appealing to work with. I had a plans for a game concept called “Run or Hide” that involved mechanics of either running away from a big monster or hiding from it. It had some potential, but ended up being a bit bare with no backstory.
I spent the rest of my time writing stories to start generating ideas. I wrote the first draft of Jesse’s Curse and Jackson’s trauma, along with some extra writing exercises I learnt from Jane Hankin. I was quite happy to work with either, but Jesse’s curse seemed a little more grounded in reality which I thought would be good for the theme.
Week 5
Feb 10 - 14
London Trip
At the start of the study week we had a class trip into London to visit some exhibitions and attend a lecture from Scriberia. The big exhibition that we first went to had a selection of works of art relating to Buddhism. I really liked some of the 3D objects I saw there and especially liked the way they wrote texts down. They used long, thing rectangular pieces of parchment, tied together and put into stacks. They unfolded into large, continuous pieces of writing, filled with patterns.
It made me realise that the paper format can still be exciting. Extra parts like the carved cases and book tags were particularly fun to me. I always like seeing new possible ways of showing a narrative and I imagined how much fun it would be to figure out how to read it.
A very important addition to this trip was an unexpected encounter with a performer at a booth showing off Chinese New Year costumes. I was already thinking about looking into these costumes since they are effectively big, decorated monsters. They’re always fun to look at. I had the chance to try on the red lion costume with the performer! It was great to be close up to these pieces and it made me appreciate how detailed they truly are. I was especially enthralled with the eyes; their shape, the extra circles in the whites and the fact that if you pulled a certain string inside, you could make them blink! I got some great research pictures from this and a good lead into looking at Chinese art.
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Week 6
Feb 17 - 21
Peer review
I was lacking in artist research and visual work for the group reviews. I got a lot of feedback on movies and effects to look into to focus in on horror tropes. It was useful to see how other people had laid out their work, especially their research. I spent the time to print out a large research folder, featuring all the pictures I took from the Natural History museum and the London Trip. I spent the rest of the time here collecting some research pictures from streets at night.
Week 7
Feb 24 - 28
Visualising
This work was fruitful in terms of visual work. I used the night street pictures and some paint markers to make a nice selection of monsters around farnham. The aim was to try to find what makes the monsters scary, starting off by putting them in scary scenarios. Whilst they looked pretty, the monster designs were random. This was because I was struggling to put
together exactly what I wanted for my monster; some kind of lizardy-dragony-wolfy hybrid. I thought experimenting with whatever I could think of would bring me closer to the design I wanted. In addition, I made 2 sketches working from the official artwork of 2 iconic monster designs: the Guardian from Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the Tank from Left 4 Dead. I did this to figure out how they make them look so imposing, what aspects of them are scary and how I could incorperate this into my own designs. Ideas like body texture and focal points were useful for the future. After looking at all my favourite monsters and villains again, I described what I was looking for as “Presence�. This was the combo of sounds, damage to environment, silhouete and their movement. More importantly to achieve presence, drama is required. People have to be affected in context. I was worried after realising this that my project had become a bit aimless, but I soon remembered my survey and the fears on it that I could investigate instead.
Week 8
Mar 2 - 6
Jesse’s introduction
It was apparent that I needed to work on a more solid idea than looking for “monster presence”. Here is when I gave up on the interactive technology idea and focused in on illustrating a book. I still had plans to make the book more interactive to read through, but the project would be focused on visualising a story. The story chosen was Jesse’s curse. During a review we set several tasks which would flesh out the book a lot more, like figuring out how many pages it would need and which parts of the text need to be illustrated. Experimenting with materials was suggested, but I didn’t get to properly experiment until much later on.
I made a great series of thumbnails, having selected some of my favourite sentences from Jesse’s curse. I could imagine some in a boldly coloured, silhouette style look, and others in a textured look. I thought of a cool unfolding trick page that could’ve been exciting too, similar to the buddhist papers.
A key development in the style of the book of finally getting a character design for the main character. I had wanted a slightly awkward looking character since the main story is about their fear in a crowd. I emphasised these traits with a bobble hat, a big square coat, a thin neck and a large chin. I found this angular style really fun! It was a result of lots of anatomy drawing and drawing to block out body parts. As soon as this Jesse was created, the project had a solid anchor point. It took a little while to recreate Jesse’s look, but I soon figured out it was a lot to do with the eyes and chin. Jesse generally has slanted down eyes and small pupils, making her look anxious at all times.
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Week 9
Mar 9 - 13
Jesse Development Week 9 was spent mostly working on Jesse’s character design, figuring out what parts were iconic. I experimented with scribbly eye brows, but I refrained. I was still completely unable to imagine the monster in any consistent fashion. The project was beginning to slow down.
Week 10
Mar 16 - 20
Plans
Focus shifted towards the career plan around this point. I had the task of making some material experiments to add some colour to some of these thumbnails, but I struggled to begin working on them. I had found some good books to be researching though. They were books I had bought from Bologna and had great composition and colour. My tutor described it as “visual drama�.
Week 11
Mar 23 - 27
Quarantine Begins
On March 24th the decision was made to close the university to prevent the spread of the corona virus. It was a sudden break in concentration for me and there was a lot of silent panic for everyone. I managed to get some drafts done for the tutorial I had this week though. I had started working on a storyboard in my A3 sketchbook and made some paper cut out 3D draft pieces to visualize the scenes even more, but I always got stuck around mid-way where the monster sequence occurs. One of the other major blocks other than the monster design was the design of Jesse’s friends. I was really struggling to make them as recognizable and appealing as Jesse was.
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Week 12 - 17 Quarantine Stays The next few weeks are spent figuring out the quarantine situation and also working on the career module. I made a website and portfolio, along with a career plan. It was actually quite nice to see all of my best art in one spot. Jesse’s Curse was not moving towards completion, unfortunately. I couldn’t find a proper connection between Jesse and the idea of a chinese dragon. I was already struggling to see what I wanted for the project and the quarantine killed the train of thought dead. I did manage some print tests using a recently bought roller and ink, but I couldn’t seem to get any colour pattern I was interested in using for my project. Still, it was useful to refresh my memory with how to use these things. One week I spent some time on a Game Jam to add to my portfolio which went fairly well.
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I tried to draw out the street scene with whatever monster came to mind, and found that I really liked the bendy one behind the car. It occured to me however that I hadn’t actually drawn any chinese dragons from reference yet, I didn’t know how their face structure worked or what they properly looked like. This would be the basis for the next phase of work. 41
Week 17
May 4 - 8
Chinese Dragons I realised that my monster could be more closely based on dragon dances than I had previously thought, but when I thought about it, it made perfect sense for the fear I am trying to represent with the dragon: agoraphobia or claustrophobia, both that relate to crowds. I quickly started redesigning the monster to involve a crowd of people alongside the dragon. I looked up dragon dance videos on YouTube and was amazed by the movements, patterns and shapes the dragons created, not to mention the overwhelming percussian in the background of every performance that filled very moment with energy. I spent time looking at the shapes of the dragon, the patterns used with it and the construction of it’s head specifically.
After warming up with the dragon drawings this week, I had another go at drawing Jesse and her friends. I came up with some nice character designs inspired by previous attempts at them, each one looked pleasant and recognizable. I didn’t realise how much easier the project would become as soon as I had a proper reference for each of these characters. Previously in the storyboard I had kind of faceless bodies for friends, which was hard to work with. I started to work on some upscaled versions of the storyboard and finished the first 5 pages. I was really pleased with how these were coming out! My eventual plan was to take each of these pencil drafts and then use the lightbox I had (lent from a friend) to make some colour pencil versions, adding the much needed colour and definition to them. I thought first of all I needed to make all of these enlarged sketches of the storyboard and truly map out the book. 44
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I tried some colour tests. Water colour pencils weren’t working very well for me, but I bought some lino and cut a scale pattern for some prints. This was a really cool looking result! I eventually tried overlapping the pattern on top of itself which gave my favourite look out of all of them, even though the black scales were effective too. My initial plan with these patterns was to make the dragon three dimensional, turning these prints into tubes and then photographing them
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Week 18
May 11 - 15
Eureka Moment It was at this point I suddenly started working hard on all the remaining parts of the storyboard. Unfortunately time was already running short so I decided to slim out the story by reducing the ending sequence and cutting out the chase. In reality this was a smart move since the real fear I am trying to show is claustrophobia/ agoraphobia (i.e. inside with the crowd of people). I had already thought of the idea of the dragon wrapping around the main character like a snake alongside a crowd of people bashing into her, so I decided to work that into the story as the main monster moment. The first part was to finish the storyboard with this new final sequence.
I worked very hard on the enlarged sketches. I had made 17 pages in the end, each one made by looking at the storyboard and reimagining it slightly to look a little bit better or have better perspective. I was pleased with how they came out, the characters felt pretty stylised and pretty consistently proportioned. I’ve been working hard on trying to make human bodies and poses without them looking weird or awkwardly positioned and the drawings here achieve that and add a lot of personality to each of the characters. However, I didn’t realise quite how time consuming this task would be. There wasn’t a chance of me using colouring pencils to redraw and colour all 17 sheets before hand in. I made the decision to submit the drafts together as a book.
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However, I had a small issue. I wanted badly to include the linocut prints in the project. The plan to make a 3D dragon wasn’t possible at all at that point and the rest of the project was still in drafts. I decided to make a bunch of linocuts and then stick to a skill I know well: cutting and sticking. I’ve done it before for final pieces and I just love the look of textured paper cut into shapes. Using the drawings and the light box, I made stencils for any scene in which the dragon makes an appearance. Then, transferred the outline over to the inked paper, cut it out, and stuck it back onto the draft using blu-tac. It’s a little time consuming but I was familiar with this technique and set to work immediately. I made sure to make extra of each printed texture so that I’d have a healthy reserve.
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I quickly realised that the excessively colourful print was not really appropriate for the first scenes. It doesn’t work in such a small quantity. Black ink silhouette was a much more mysterious and effective solution, as well as being a bit easier. 54
I saved the coloured patterns for the scenes within the club (the “reveal� of the dragon).
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I was very grateful to have previously researched dragon faces. It took a little while for this one to look scary enough but by the time all the spikes were added it started looking pretty ferocious. The ring binder beard was a split-second decision that really completes the look. After cutting out the final few silhouette dancers, I photographed each bit and quickly made an Indesign book out of them. I probably should’ve spent a bit longer putting the text and image together, but I was very focused on getting this single dragon image together in an spectacular way.
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Final Evaluation My final piece altered massively in delivery from my project proposal, but I still think it achieved many of the things I set out to do. In my learning outcomes I set out to: 1) How to create an interactive piece for an exhibition environment. 2) How to effectively utilize fear for narrative purposes 3) How to show a sense of scale 4) How to create with a focus on visual design of the world and characters The first outcome became impossible with the quarantine regardless, but I still decided to reduce the interactivity quite drastically. Apart from that one, I achieved these other three quite well. I used fear as the centre point for the narrative and the visual design of both the character and the monster. I have shown a sense of scale through various camera angles and patterned visuals. Lastly, I have made a very stylised selection of characters and a colourful threat that fits into their style well. 60
I talked about getting a sense of adrenaline in my project proposal, the kind only gotten from being thoroughly engaged with an art piece and the narrative tension within it. I don’t think my piece will make someone panic as if they were really there simply because it’s too unfinished. It’s too easy to remove yourself from the experience as you see the rough lines and underlying sketches behind every scene. However, if it were a finished piece, I think this piece could’ve made someone relate to the experience of being overcrowded and in that sense really engage them with the character’s experiences. This project fell into ambiguity mid-way through like a lot of my other projects and I’m just happy to see that it resurfaced, especially considering it was the first project where we got to choose the theme ourselves. It’s easy to get stuck with an idea that doesn’t go anywhere when you’re making it from scratch. I’m very pleased with all the character design, interaction, visual style, and personality. I haven’t often made fully illustrated narrative sequences like this and it’s great to see that I’m capable. In addition, it’s one of the first times I’ve properly done creative writing that’s been included in the 61
final project. I’m quite happy with the general pacing, the character interactions and the flow of events. It feels like a solid plot line to work around. The real problem with it is that it isn’t done. To finish this piece, it’d probably need to be fully rendered in colour. Whether that be more cut out printed paper or colouring pencils, it just needed to be neater. The colourful patterned dragon sequence is the best bit by far and demonstrates how the visual style could’ve worked really well. I blame the unfinished nature on some confusion in the middle about what everything should look like, coupled with current events to do with the corona virus. To resolve that confusion I should’ve been experimenting sooner and I should’ve researched the Chinese dragons way sooner. There’s no reason why I left that so late into the process when it was always such a crucial part to the monster design in my head. The second I did that research the rest of the project fell into place. Research is the main downfall of this entire project. I didn’t document any of the movies that I watched properly, nor did I document all the monsters I already know about. There was so 62
much information that I just wasn’t looking at whilst I tried to imagine the monster design on my own. One of the final questions I’m left with is: Could this narrative and visual style have been turned into an interactive piece? Now that the designs exist and the story is clear, if I had more time, could I have made it into a game? Possibly even for an exhibition space? I think so. At the start of this project I was trying to create game mechanics first and then affix a narrative to them, which is a good idea if you’re trying to experiment with game design, but not for experimenting with narrative. Now that the narrative is complete I think there’s plenty of potential to make this into an interactive piece utilizing the action sequence and all the foreboding dragon sequences. I could even have made 3D models for an exhibition space. However, I don’t regret focusing on making a book. It allowed me to focus my creative vision into making this single narrative rather than worrying about all the extra parts of an interactive piece.
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Jack Tope Year 3 Illustration University for the Creative Arts Instagram: @topeart Email: topeartstudio@gmail.com