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
• 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.
Initial Sketches

• Next, I borrowed materials to practice

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

• I also made a short stop-motion film with a

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