The Conductor

by Duan Sebastian
 The Story
• For some time, I have been thinking of
a figure emerging from the shadows,
from thick lines of charcoal drawings left
in a corner. He was always thin, black
and tall, obsessed with conducting deep
harmonic music using a thin slice of
white conte for a baton.
 Research QuickTimeª and a
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• I set up a blog to detail my research:

• http://charcoalconductor.blogspot.com/
• This details images of conductors, charcoal, artists’ materials, thoughts, re-
workings, draft models, drawings, photoshop mock-ups, etc.

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 Initial Sketches

• Next, I borrowed materials to practice

drawing the human figure.
• References
• Bridgman, G (2001), Bridgman's
Complete Guide to Drawing from Life,
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Sterling Publishing Company, Inc, New
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• Hogarth, B (1989), Drawing the Human

Head, Watson-Guptill Publications, New
York.
• These resulted in some initial drawings
and figures made from charcoal to get a
sense of the materials.
 Drafts
These figures lacked real humour
and were perhaps too blocky or
robotic. I wanted a more malleable
character, while retaining charcoal
characteristics…
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• I also made a short stop-motion film with a

figure of similar proportions to see where that
might lead.
Development