Ghost story evaluation

NCI 402 Work Based learning

For this project i was asked to choose a ghost story and create three sketches from scenes based on their description in the form of my chosen practitioner.

I began by deciding on the third story A Tale of an Empty house which is based in the 19th century within a victorian era village centred around an estuary. the main plot of the story is about two men and their chauffeur who spend a few days in the area and come upon a what seems to be an abandoned old house until at night one of them gets strangled by a vengeful shadowy ghost-like figure. The ghost was originally an ugly short farm hand who was sentenced to death for the murder of killing the father of the woman he loved who had forbidden them from seeing each other. 
From reading most of the text i picked out three descriptions that i would use to create my sketches such as the dark figure was seen at the window, the girl ended up in an a asylum and the scene where the ghost strangles one of the men.

To help further add more reference to my work i did a little research on the setting and time of that era for example the environment of the estuary, the formal gentlemen fashion of the victorian age and ever since reading the cat like forehead description of the farm hands face i immediately had the thought of the vampires feline like feral face from Buffy the vampire slayer come to mind since it fits the image quite well.
Before i started working with a style i made a few rough fast sketches to work out where i was going to go from there.

Reference imagery

I was then given a list of artists to choose from and decide which style would best suit my ghost story, i ended up researching about 10 artists even though only four had caught my interest such as Martin Simpson, Chris King and Luke Newell. But the one who really inspired me was Charles burns artwork that looks very detailed and creepy to me, especially since he has the sexually transmitted disease known as gonorrhoea in his sketches to make some of his characters hideously revolting. Apart from that i have also tried using the similar line work for my girl characters hair to make it look unwashed and flowing after being in the asylum for so long. 

To make my shadowy character more menacing and evil i gave him a swirly flowing dark aura surrounding his whole body, plus as a bonus to make him seem more supernatural i filled in his eyes with a yellowish glow.

As for my strangling piece i was aided by a friend to take several photo shots of us strangling each other from different angles so that i could pick which one would be best suited for the final sketch, eventually i settled on the back of the head shot.

Martin Simpson

Chris King

Luke Newell

Charles Burns

Once all three sketches were complete i had them all uploaded and then edited on to photoshop, where i decided to fill them in with dark colours instead of going with the original idea of having them black and white. By looking at my final results not only do they look more colourful but they appear to have been brought in a more comic book themed style which i find unexpectedly interesting.

Final Pieces

Shadowy figure at the window

Girl staring out the window

Being strangled

Before completing my work i was given a little group exercise to work on where i had make a list of phobias and produce a sketch based of that fear, i ended up with Barophobia a phobia where someone is scared of falling or gravity in another case. So for that i drew a hairy coconut with stubby arms and legs flapping through the air, with wide opened eyes and a large screaming mouth falling from a great height.

Overall i have found this project both inspiring and fun especially when it came to producing the sketches i hope to do more conceptional ideas like this for future projects.

Swot analysis

• Reference imagery collected, research could of used a little more detail.
• Should of made more time to experiment more.
• With the descriptive text been given i could given a job opportunity as a concept artist.