Jenny Berisford

For life drawing this week we focused on portraits and attempted draw them both rough and detailed. Although portraits are probably my favourite thing to draw I felt as though I really struggled with getting the proportions quite right and therefore I felt as though as though I took too much time trying to make it look perfect, which arguably isn’t the point of portraits at all. 

In this scene Maui is vulnerable again, his large body hunched and back toward Moana as he mourns his loss against TeKa and the loss of his hook. This emphasises Maui’s love for his power and how much he feels broken without his hook. Note how the colours are unsaturated, sucking the life out of the scene and the fog on the ocean is a layer of sadness upon the scene.

In this scene, Maui who is usually big and imposing is now small in comparison to his rival Teka. I think this scene visually represents the bravery of Maui, and shows the scale of the fight; going up against something so big when he looks so small is a big power move. This action makes him look heroic. Is Maui arguably the hero of Moana. 

In this scene the directors spoke about how Maui has to be incapacitated in order for Moana to take over and for him to teach her. It’s using a plot device to convey a characters personality and growth. Worth noting is also the calmness of the ocean and the happiness and warmth portrayed in the sunset, happy colours for when Moana and Maui are working together. 

This is one of the scenes mentioned by the Disney directors in regards to Maui being the most vulnerable. While describing his backstory, this is one of the heights of Maui’s vulnerability. This is also the longest scene in the film and the sea is at its calmest, the colours are slightly warm as well, this was done on purpose as they described the scene as “warm but slightly sombre”. 

This is one of the scenes I want to use to reference Maui’s character. In the beginning of the film, Disney wanted to portray Maui as more of a villain and I think this scene emphasises that point. This is one of the first scenes we see of Maui (as a human), so it is thus our first impression of him. His facial expression looks menacing and he is backlit for the colour green. This makes him appear evil and menacing, also making his face appear almost grotesque. 

This is my finished cast model sheet with the silhouettes at the bottom. I felt as though this piece took the longest perhaps and I found it the most painstaking as I kept changing my mind about the look of the two end characters. I’m pretty pleased with how this has turned out! I think I still need to have a further experimentation with Photoshop so I can discover a style that I think will work for me, but I am pleased with this for my first attempt at Photoshop. I think I really managed to get a diverse visual rhythm in my cast as well as they are able to be picked out purely from the silhouettes. 

This is my character design sheet filled with ‘8 dynamic poses’ for my character. I tried to use the poses to display the playful nature of my character. As the brief said for the sheet to be finished to ‘presentation standard’ I decided to colour and shade it. I think the colours and shading makes the poses more exaggerated and definitely made the piece look better. I think I still need to work on exploring poses and coming up with more ‘exciting’ ones, but I’m happy with how this turned out. 

This is my character model sheet! I spent some time in this really working on the concept of my character and considering how he would look not only in shape from all angles but also his detailed features like his feathers and the placement of them on his body. I’m actually really pleased with how this has turned out especially considering my inexperience with Photoshop. I spent a fair amount of time and effort on this piece and I hope that that is evident. 

This is my final walk cycle for my character! I decided to add the squash and stretch to his head slightly to emphasise the hit of the contact step and add a sense of weight into the walk. I feel that it’s uneven, but I also think this adds character as it looks almost as if he has a sort-of limp. I do think this piece could be improved and it isn’t perfect, but I had worked on it for such a long time that it felt like it was time to step away and leave it as it is. I may even come back to work on it after hand in, but for now I am happy with the way it looks, and pleased that it is done.

This is the turnaround for my chosen character! I’m not too happy with how thick the line looks on this and the linework is thinner on my other corresponding works but I don’t think it looks bad by any means. I decided to not add the characters feathers as I just wanted to focus on the shape of him and getting that to look smooth throughout and accurate.

By ways of essay, I have an in detail draft finished and I’m still currently working on compiling all of my research onto the blog. I think next time I need to be slightly more organised and proactive in this respect as it would have been easier if I typed up the research to my blog as an d when I found it rather than leaving it in big chunks towards the end. Not the end of the world but it is more time-consuming this way. I still need to come up with the exact wording for my question but after the group tutorial with Lyndsey, I feel confident that I am going down the right path with my essay and I’m feeling enthusiastic about writing it. 

I think this is a really intriguing argument and it will be interesting to discuss Maui’s shape and the impact of it in my essay. 

This is the final edit of my Dynamics exercise! I’m really pleased with the way it looks especially considering the fact that each frame is hand drawn. I think had I done it digitally I would have saved time, however it felt nice to hand draw it and I’m pleased with the end result.

Here I think is a thoroughly interesting argument of appeal/accuracy. Would Maui being lithe and athletic affect the way we receive him visually? Does his build help to further emphasise his ‘Yin and Yang’ type of relationship with Moana? Interesting points to discuss and important points nonetheless.

I did a quick look into seeing whether I could find information about significant animals in Polynesian culture as I wanted to understand the reasoning behind Maui turning into certain characters and ascertain whether they were culturally symbolic or characteristically symbolic. I cam across this article that discusses certain motifs in Polynesian tattoo culture. This may come in handy for my essay but it may also not be part of the discussion; an interesting read either way.

However, Maui is not just a character, he is an actual part of Polynesian myth and culture and holds massive cultural importance for people of the culture.