Assignment: Project 2.

Part 2: Concept Development Journal

Title: Scanograms: mythical creatures and beings

Initial Ideas
From the research project, the ancient winged creature and their powerful spirit evolved
intrigued me very much. The admirable integration of the human and animals had a strong
sense of stateliness but not strange or terrible. However, the contemporary creatures were
more creative and imaginative. The artists created their creature by new technology
(computer software) as a helping tool, by observing those things surrounding them which
might exist (still-life objects or animal beings) or non-exist (we can never recognize what it
looks like). For my creature, I wanted to create a combination of both ancient and
contemporary style. I wanted it could represent my culture, my present era, and my personal
temperament of aesthetic.

Concept thumbnail sketching
My initial reaction was to draw down some figures that intrigued me very much. And tried to
find out the significant features of different animal beings: the hairs of a lion; the wing of a
eagle; the wing of a bat; the fin of a fish; the tail of a reptile; the fragile leg of a kangaroo; the
teeth of a walrus Also used the gun as a symbol of guardian.
As my idea developed through my sketches, while I realized that Hong Kong is a material
city. Materialism is in all Hong Kong peoples mind. Car, TV set, air-conditioner, mobile
phoneare all surround us everyday. So I wanted to create a functional creature that could
represent my materialism culture.


Refinement of concept
Initial idea:
By only the hand-drawing sketch that could not represent the visual elements very well. So I
created some of the ideas with the scanogram to see how the elements worked.
I chose different elements by their distinct and unique texture or shape and form. And its
original meaning of the nature.
For example, the shells were used to form the hair of the lions head, (but it looked like a cat
rather than a lion because it was a small-scale pattern.)
The bitter gourds were used to form the wings, and it really looked like a feather wing with
distinctive texture.
The metal fragments built up the cats body which looked like a robot cat, it retained its
original nature as metal.
The bamboo was curved and used to make the teeth as a walrus, while the bone animal head
remained its nature although interfered with radiant sphere.




Cat-like head Eagle-like wing

Bat-like wing Robot cat (graphical style)



Walrus-liked head


I just wanted to combine the radiant walrus head and the robot cat body. It looked dramatic
that the radiant sphere increased the depth visually that offset the graphical flatten body.
While the curved teeth passed through two spaces (2D & 3D), the junction point was
amazing. Also the facing downward teeth occupied the empty space of the left lower corner
which balanced the composition of the whole image.

Developing idea (to make the creature functional):
The bonehead with two pieces of cactus as ears which looked like a dogs head and it
remained a bonehead as its nature. I added a display monitor over its forehead to make it
function for conversation to people. Also the big ears could increase the sensitivity of
hearing.


Dog-like head with a display monitor for conversation to people
The metal plate again to build up the body, this time it bore with weight and volume. And the
flourishing cactus made the upper part of the legs which were muscular and strong. A fly-
horse torso which was not distinctive to something but it had a sense of the past ancient
period. And I tried to add a gun to strong its guardian symbol by the contemporary era.
Moreover, although how fast running of the horse, it could not be like a car to last for
keeping at high speed.


A car-wheel symbolized for transportation


A gun symbolized for protection against enemy

TV symbolized for materialism (it is not a
basical need of a man), and the circuit plate represent the advance technology of the present
era.





These two imageries were starting to work the composition of the head combined with the
body. The left hand side looked better representation of the motif. The radiant sphere had a
sense of the future.




This imagery was tried to explore more and further in different aspect by altering the built-up
materials, but still retained the basic elements such as wheel, gun and wings. This time
returned to my initial sketch picture: the body with no legs, used tail to walk, fragile hands,
and fish fins. A baby head was used, and, baby is a symbol of pure in every ones mind.
And I put a metal-wreckage over the upper part of the head to represent his brain. It
announced that it is not a baby, it had the ability to know everything, and it was an invasive
creature. Contradictory that the peaceful face of the baby head, the fragmentary and scattered
body, a pair of feeble wings, were opposite to the powerful and functional gun, wheel and
sharp fins.

Actually, it suggested the ancient guardian purport in form and meaning, but in a really
different way. A latent power was hidden in the fragile body and the peaceful face. (As
compared to the majestic face with a latent power in the recumbent lion body of the ancient
guardian). The powerful elements of the gun and fins, however, were admirably in harmony
with the curving of the bamboo bodies, and produced a rare integration of the human and
animal aspects. (It was identical to the ancient guardian that the powerful modeling of the
savage faces is harmony with the carving of the lion bodies).

These compositions and elements will form the basis of my final image.