MPG Brief - Responding to the brief [Week 1]

Brief:

The brief given to us is to be completed within 4/5 weeks, We are to choose from one of the given prompts and create concept art for either a character or an environment relating to the topic. We should provide the client with each step of our creative process, thumbnails, design iterations, and all steps towards a final concept piece. On top of this , we should provide a short justification for our designs. This should be formatted as either a PowerPoint, pdf, a dropbox with all files, or a link to an Artstation page.

My response to the brief:

Of the prompts given, i decided to explore the topic of "Evil Princess", as I usually opt towards working on something sci-fi related, i wanted to take a different direction this time and maybe look at something based more around fantasy / fantasy horror. You will see later I do explore sci-fi very briefly in one of my ideas but ultimately I think I am going to opt towards a more dark fantasy feel.

Below are my notes on different routes i could take, i also considered what kind of environment my character would be in, while I have chosen to take the Character design route, I think it is still important to consider what setting that character would be in to inform my design choices.

Some main inspirations that come to mind are, Dark souls, Blasphemous, The major oak, The chained tree at Alton towers, and I was given some other references to look at such as Darkwood and the tree from 300. I will use these inspirations to build a mood board to help inform more thumbnails. For now I was inspired to get some of the ideas out of my head and onto paper.

Thumbnails:

This is a small collection of some of my initial thumbnails, they explore the ideas I wrote about in my notes and i hope to build on these after doing some research and observational drawings based around gnarled trees, haunted woods, and of course looking at the visuals within my references. 

I am particularly enjoying the themes of the Princess being sealed within some kind of gnarled tree, I think this could provide some interesting visuals and also intertwines a bit of environment design into my character design. I especially like the thumbnail of the princess sat atop the tree, [third image, first sketch on the second page] i think she has a very regal look here, however i also like the first thumbnail i did combined with the 7th [third image, first sketch on the first page] as the body becoming one with the wood of the tree provides an interesting and creepy visual. Perhaps some sort of curse was put on this princess and as a result she has become evil to rebel against her wooden confines.

On the last page, I also explored some facial iterations, right now I don't know if I want to go for a more human/corpse/lich look to the princess, or a more Ent/dryad look to really lean into that wooden curse narrative. I do however like the very withered and rotting look to her, I think that is not only visually creepy but maybe implies that while her actual body might be weak, her strength is drawn from the ancient and colossal tree that holds her.