Colour studies

AS Unit 1 Core Portfolio “Appearances” 

Final piece inspired by Melissa Cooke, ‘hear all evil, speak some evil, see most evil.’ “When I began my portfolio with the word “appearances” the very first image that sprang to mind was everyone’s outward appearances, their facial features, their eyes, every flaw and every imperfection that we can point out within ourselves, and the psychological expectation that we’ll stop at nothing to alter these imperfections. However, we often don’t realise that our outward appearance isn’t always as honest as what project. Often in our day and age we try to cover up and hide who we really are, our secrets, thoughts, ambitions and we don’t give people the chance to learn every small detail about us. 

When I started my portfolio I wanted to focus on the idea of masks and how we hide ourselves from others, standing behind an invisible mask which distorts how others view us. As a result I stumbled across Melissa Cooke’s work, and more specifically her 2009 collection, “You know me better that I know myself”. In each of these pieces she explores the repressed darkness inside each of us, using props, costumes, makeup and theatrics to provide a sense of identity. It’s within these works of layered powder graphite that my outlook on appearances shifted from subconsciously using masks to hides behind, to actually embracing them and using them as a sense of identification. As my portfolio continued to evolve and change I remembered the small ornament of the three wise monkeys (or “san ‘en” according to the Japanese proverb) carved out of stone, which sat on my Grandmothers mantelpiece. The three monkeys were created to remind people to be good in mind, speech and action. However, with the thought of appearances still firmly engraved in the back of my mind, the idea of hearing all evil, refraining from speaking ones secrets  and seeing all evil seemed to stick. As a result the basis of my final piece began. 

I decided to us pencils and 9B graphite sticks as my main medium, as of course, I was greatly inspired by Melissa Cooke’s works of art. However I also enjoyed how such a mundane object, such as the pencil could create such a dramatic and beautiful work of art. Furthermore, keeping Cooke’s 8ft works of art in mind, I decided to work on a large scale as not only did it create that “wow” factor that I was longing for, but it also provoked the viewer to examine each detail more closely, creating a sense of narrative for the viewer as they begin to make their own stories and connections with the piece.”

WIP animation from a couple months ago that I deleted because it wasn’t going as I’d hoped, though as a first test of POV animation, it’s much better than I’d’ve hoped for ^^

A model of my keyboard I made a couple months back, using Cinema4D

untextured OBJ - download link

Finally finished these Klipsch R15-M speaker models in Cinema4D

Originally made a model of this before, but the model and the textures didn’t turn out nearly as well as I’d hoped so I remade it from scratch and it turned out a lot better :D

Drawings/inkings of human form

A SideFX Houdini smoke simulation I made a couple months ago

I really need to get back into using Houdini because it was super fun

This one is heavily inspired by the opening to Mekakucity Actors [1:03]

it needs way more work, especially on the ending of it to make it feel right

I think a lil bit of a wiggle on it and some motion blur would go a long way to make this feel a lot better than it does right now