Developed Research

 

In these 3 mood boards I have gathered images which all relate to the cosmic horror genre. Since this genre is so broad I have tried to keep to monsters which would evoke a sense of fear and terror or are disgusting to look at, the reason I have chosen to do this is because that will be the look I will be trying to achieve when I produce my final character designs. a lot of these designs achieve their look by combining existing features from a lot of different animals to create a new and unique creature, some designs also incorporate non animal features for example plant based and metallic features to create unnatural and unusual creatures.                        

 

This mood board is for my art style and shows the art style I will be trying to achieve in my final 4 character design sketches. The art style I am trying to achieve will be similar to field journal like the one in the spider wick chronicles movie, this is a sort of Gothic fantasy style with brief observations about he creature in the image. I have chosen this art style because I like the idea of an explorer finding these strange creatures and sketching and documenting them, writing observations about them and commenting on their form and how strange it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annihilation: This movie explores cosmic horror more deeply than a lot of other movies which attempt the genre, the main reason that this movie does so well in this aspect is because of its use of interesting and outlandish ideas, creature and environment design. one such example of these creatures is bellow, the base of the creature is a bear but its skull is exposed and it lacks eyes as well as this it lets out screams of the person it has recently killed instead of a bears usual roar; this is very unnerving and also manages to trick one of the characters as it sounds exactly the same as the character which the creature had recently killed. the reason this creature works so well is because it is so unusual and unlike a lot of attempts at cosmic horror creatures it is heavily flawed and is made worse as a predator due to its changes, which is very unique as most movies and other media make their creature apex predators or functionally invincible which is fine but it is nice to see something different and more plausible.

annihilation also trys to show what humans might do when faced with something incomprehensible, these reactions include fighting the entity, studying it and surrendering to it which is what Josie ends up doing as she feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere else.     

This is the environment around the lighthouse which is described as the epicenter of the biological anomalies which is shown by the increasing amount of irregularities displayed in the environment and the creatures. such as these crystalline trees which appear very close to the lighthouse.   

This is the inside of the lighthouse with the hole being where the shimmer which has been causing the biological changes is located which is made a apparent by it being the center of the white tendrils and the hole being the only thing in the room which is a different color.

This scene chows Dr. Ventress finally succumbing to the shimmer in a strange light display surrounded by what almost looks like galaxies which fold into and then out of themselves, this gradual decay and dispersion eventually destroys her.

The shimmer eventually takes form as a humanoid which is devoid of any features and had metallic looking skin which began to slowly mirror Lena in a weird and disturbing way eventually transforming into a replica of her.

When the shimmer took on the shape of Lena it is hinted that it took on some of er traits and as a result it becomes self destructive and reckless and aids in its own destruction. 

Cabin in the woods: This movie while it doesn’t explore cosmic horror specifically it does have some elements specifically in the creature design and themes which fit very well into the genre. This movie features hundreds of different creatures most of which are references of various other movies, tv shows and popular fiction such as the unicorn bellow, but some of them are original creations and are designed to be disturbing and creepy such as the child and bat like creatures bellow.

This girl very much fits into the genre of cosmic horror with the strange and out of place mouth in the middle of her face which mixed with the lack of any other facial features and that it is on a child makes this creature quite disturbing.

this bat like creature fits very well into cosmic horror as it is a weird mis-mash of creatures which form one strange creature with a large bat like body and strange triple hinged jaw along with an exposed upper spine make this creature very interesting and contains some ideas that will be useful during my ideas generation.

Cabin in the Woods also features various mythical creatures creatures from popular fiction, but it portrays these creatures as evil and murderous even the ones which are often perceived as good and peaceful such as unicorns and elves.

this is the final frame of the movie which shows the elder god ,which the company has been trying to appease, breaking free from underground spelling the destruction of the earth and showing how the characters have caused the end of the world and the earth of billions because of their unwillingness to make sacrifices.

 

 

 

 

this is a group of images which I collected from books. The reason that I have chosen these pages to photograph is because they relate well to my these and will be useful when I am producing my initial ideas.

This is a drawing time lapse i found on you tube of someone drawing a cosmic horror creature which follows the Lovecraft definition more than I will but still fits my theme well.