Visual and Conceptual Influences

Initially my superhero was always going to be a simple man who had a vengeance. I noticed that there isn’t any mystery about the character if he is going to be like that. I then gave him the power of telekinesis. The primary weapon still exists as blades but he can therefore use his telekinesis to throw objects and his knives. I liked the idea of a superhero not hiding his identity like “the Punisher”. This gives the audience a question of how is he a superhero and therefore makes him more mysterious. To show the telekinesis I tried to give him a sense of aura that he was controlling. Costume was vital in making him the character that he is. Sketching in a pad is limiting to variable colours and textures so I made the decision to draw a standard image, scan it into Illustrator and draw over the lines. This gave me freedom to play about with different colours as much as I wanted until I found something that suited. I really liked the way it looked on the computer as it gave it a more comic feel and really brought out the lines. Personality wise I had the idea in my head that he would be a vigilante that works alone. This let the weapons follow and his facial expressions easier to draw out.

All of this links to my building. As he looks like a man, I wanted to put across that he likes to live as a man with strange aspects. The building as a structure is very standard looking. For example the brick walls, marble floor, tables, chairs and televisions. The other aspect in the scene is the obscurity of it. This includes the dome glass roof, weapons wall, big open spaces and tall galleries. To directly link my building with my character, I used the animation to show his telekinesis with the doors and stairs. This also played on the environment. I made it look like the building was in space. Every superhero has a vehicle so I created a car that he could use to make fly down to earth from space. The character is meant to be a “bad ass” but he does care about what is going on in the world, therefore I thought it was appropriate for him to have multiple large TV screens with the news on and multiple computer screens in the office. The overall look of the place was established after seeing the lairs of “Smallville” and “Thor” which indicate large open spaces and rich materials. I tried to get this across with the trophies, pillars and large glass tables. Linking with the mystery on the character, I set the lighting so is had a very narrow distance but strong shadows to give highlight certain objects.

Overall I thought my project went well and linked nicely between my concepts drawings and building.