Location, Location, Location ... And some history.

When I got this project I had pretty much instantly decided where I was going to set my castle. I have always had a soft spot for Eastern European architecture, in particular around Russia, Ukraine and Romania. The castles around these regions all feature very similar designs, including the prominent onion domes and circular turrets. I feel I will choose the Ukraine for my Castles location as it is nestled quite nicely in the middle of all the Countries that inspire me.

Also what fascinates me about these regions is their Gothic history including the legends of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula and his female counterpart the real life Erzsébet 'Elizabeth' Báthory, the worlds most prolific female serial killer. For my castle I think I am going to create my own version of Báthory and her house of death. I will start off with researching both the history of Báthory, my chosen Country and a little more about the architecture of Castles and other buildings in this region.

"Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. Ukraine borders Russia to the east, northeast and south, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast including Crimea, which is claimed and controlled by neighboring Russia making it the largest country entirely within Europe, The territory of Ukraine was first inhabited at least 44,000 years ago, with the country being a candidate site for both the domestication of the horse and for the origins of the Indo-European language family. In the Middle Ages, the area became a key center of East Slavic culture, as epitomized by the powerful state of Kievan Rus'. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, Ukraine was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, but Ukraine remained otherwise divided until its consolidation into a Soviet republic in the 20th century, becoming an independent state only in 1991. Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket due to its extensive, fertile farmlands. As of 2011, it was the world's third-largest grain exporter with that year's harvest being much larger than average. Ukraine is one of ten most attractive agricultural land acquisition regions. Additionally, the country has a well-developed manufacturing sector, particularly in the area of aerospace and industrial equipment."

And now a little about Ukraine's architecture ...

"Ukrainian architecture is a term that describes the motifs and styles that are found in structures built in modern Ukraine, and by Ukrainians worldwide. These include initial roots which were established in the Eastern Slavic state of Kievan Rus'. After the 12th century, the distinct architectural history continued in the principalities of Galicia-Volhynia. During the epoch of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, a new style unique to Ukraine was developed under the western influences of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the union with the Tsardom of Russia, architecture in Ukraine began to develop in different directions, with many structures in the larger eastern, Russian-ruled area built in the styles of Russian architecture of that period, whilst the western Galicia was developed under Austro-Hungarian architectural influences, in both cases producing fine examples. Ukrainian national motifs would finally be used during the period of the Soviet Union and in modern independent Ukraine.

The great churches of the Rus', built after the adoption of Christianity in 988, were the first examples of monumental architecture in the East Slavic lands. The architectural style of the Kievan state, which quickly established itself, was strongly influenced by the Byzantine. Early Eastern Orthodox churches were mainly made of wood, with the simplest form of church becoming known as a cell church. Major cathedrals often featured scores of small domes, which led some art historians to take this as an indication of the appearance of pre-Christian pagan Slavic temples.

 As Ukraine became increasingly integrated into the Russian Empire, Russian architects had the opportunity to realise their projects in the picturesque landscape that many Ukrainian cities and regions offered. St. Andrew's Church of Kiev (1747–1754), built by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, is a notable example of Baroque architecture, and its location on top of the Kievan mountain made it a recognisable monument of the city. An equally notable contribution of Rasetrelli was the Mariyinsky Palace, which was built to be a summer residence to Russian Empress Elizabeth. During the reign of the last Hetman of Ukraine, Kirill Razumovsky, many of the Cossack Hetmanate's towns such as Hlukhiv, Baturyn and Koselets had grandiose projects built by the appointed architect of Little Russia, Andrey Kvasov. Russia, winning successive wars over the Ottoman Empire and its vassal Crimean Khanate, eventually annexed the whole south of Ukraine and Crimea. Renamed New Russia, these lands were to be colonised, and new cities such as the Nikolayev, Odessa, Kherson and Sevastopol were founded. These would contain notable examples of Imperial Russian architecture."

 And now for a brief history of Elizabeth Báthory.

 "Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, Alžbeta Bátoriová in Slovak; 8 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a countess from the renowned Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary. She has been labelled the most prolific female serial killer in history and is remembered as the "Blood Countess", though the precise number of victims is debated. The stories of her sadistic serial murders and brutality are verified by the testimony of more than 300 witnesses and survivors as well as physical evidence and the presence of horribly mutilated dead, dying and imprisoned girls found at the time of her arrest. Despite the evidence against Elizabeth, her family's influence kept her from ever being put on trial, although she was placed under house arrest. The stories about her vampire-like tendencies (for instance, that she bathed in blood to rejuvenate her skin) are much less verifiable than those of her sadism because, unlike the easily verified deaths of servants and young girls, these were generally recorded some years after her death. Her acts, real or apocryphal, quickly became part of national folklore. After her husband Ferenc Nádasdy's death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls, with one witness attributing to them over 650 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80 Due to her rank, Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted, but promptly imprisoned upon her arrest in December 1610 within Csejte Castle, Upper Hungary, now in Slovakia, where she remained immured in a set of rooms until her death four years later. The case led to legendary accounts of the Countess bathing in the blood of virgins to retain her youth, and subsequently also to comparisons with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia, on whom the fictional Count Dracula is partly based, and to modern nicknames of The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula."

I think that's enough history research for one post. I think in the next blog post I will post some of my image mind maps, to show what Castle ideas get my creative juices flowing!

Late blog post and huzzah?! BA3!

It's been a long time since I made a blog post, a couple of weeks since we got our latest project for the last part of year 1 and it is one that fills me both with dread and excitement! We have to build a castle in Maya.

The prospect of building something in Maya scares me slightly, having only tinkered around with it for a little bit I'm not sure how well this will go. Mentally I have so many ideas for this project, I'm just worried that I will get a little too ambitious for my skillset. However I am excited to learn how to create a whole landscape in Maya and learning to work UDK!

Finished model and changes to design.

This was one of the final images I used to help guide my model design.

Once I started modeling however I noticed I had to do a few changes to the design, the hooves looked a little bare so I added some slight hair to them, added in the linen held in place with leather on her legs, removed the earrings as they looked weird with the hair parts and the antlers I couldn't figure out how to do the wooden effect in time so I had to make them normal antlers again. however as Deer were seen as mystical beings by Celts the Third psychic eye could still fit in with what I wanted from her.

Here are some screenshots of my progress with Zbrush

 

The end result I am very pleased with! through frustrations and sleepless nights I think my very first finished model looks great! One thing I would have changed would be to work on the zballs a bit more, like creating the side bag, the skirt, the hair and horns as these were all difficult to build up with clay and snake hook alone!

I feel that once I get the hang of zbrush I won't find it so frustrating, Hopefully the program will crash less for me in the future :)

Drawing over Z-brush screenshots.

I found this method pretty fun, I'm not sure whether it would be recommended but seeing the clothing like this is quite handy, if a little messy. I combined the wrapped legs from one of the concepts as I felt it would add to the bottom half of the outfit and make it look a little more naturey. I'm not sure how the metal bit will look so might have to change that once I get creating in z-brush.

Hair/Clothing concepts.

From my last post here are the ideas for clothing I have tried

The top third image is the one I will choose to concept further, I really like the first attempt in the bottom row so expanded that a bit further as you couldn't see the deer legs which is one of the key parts of the image. For the hair I was torn between blonde and brown, blonde because to me it adds to the whole innocent look, but the brown would look more natural in a forest enviroment.

The brown definitely looks better as it's almost fawn colour which fits in well with the deer image, I'm thinking of adding freckles onto her face to create the colour of a deers coat.

I think she's beginning to look quite sweet

Hair/Clothing ideas

Realised I needed to do more character work and had no idea about what clothing I needed to make, also that I could realistically create with my skills in Z-brush. First I went looking for Druid/Pagan clothing from the Iron Age and found these.

I will avoid the colours of the bottom image as the whiteness is a symbol of purity and chastity. I think I took more insperation from the 4th and 5th images mostly from the 5th one as it looks more religious. With hair for women in this age it was either styled loose or braided I will still be using the idea of a long plait.

Character information.

Finally getting round to posting my character information, such as name, religion and so on.

General Characteristics

Name: Enora
Appearance: Enora has very fine features on an extended heart shaped face, in the center of her forehead she has a small third eye. long brown hair that is tied back often in a ponytail and woven with lillies. She has blue eyes that are large, a long deer-like neck, she has legs similar to that of a deer which end in cloven hooves. She is quite tall.
Dress: According to her Religion, Enora wears white clothing, not too revealing with modest jewellery.
Gender: Female
Symbol: The Doe
Race:  humanoid (human with deer features)
Pronunciation: (ay-NOH-rah)
Name Origin: Breton
Name Meaning: St. Enora was the wife of St. Efflam; both took vows of chastity after their marriage, yet remained together for the rest of their lives.
Parents: Not born, created by the horned God Cernunnos.

Spiritual Characteristics

Animal: Deer (specifically a female deer)
Religion: Druidism
Devotion: Lives alone and only allows the purest of people to visit her home. Was bless with a third eye to detect the purity of people and reveal their hearts.
Virtues: Chastity (specifically Purity)

More work on the model

It's coming along nicely, was going to try and keep her human feet but it would look weird with the deer legs ... so she is going to have toe-toed hooves like deer have. The hands have been a challenge! I can't wait to start shaping this girl nicely, the more I use Z brush the better I am getting, I think the biggest part will be sculpting the antlers on her headband.

I've started on some colour schemes to go into the research portfolio, as the model doesn't need to have colour on it I want to give some kind of idea to what her colouring would be.

Beginning to build.

I am a little bit bad with Zbrush as I am with Maya. Me and 3D don't seem to get along to well. I feel with time I will adjust to it, as it's something I don't have any experiance with really. Starting to form the Deer-Lady body has taken me awhile and a lot of grunting!

I want to keep some human aspects to it, and have deer elements aswell, I don't want to go full blown fawn with the legs, I will do some research into the way deer legs look when they stand up. I'm finding the hands very tricky to do, especially as when I try to move parts they go a different way, must get to grips with the 3Dness of it all!

Sticking with an idea.

Last Wednesday, after a group critique session and asking my group peers which choice was a better one, I have decided to completely stick with my deer lady. This will be the last time I think on this as hand in draws nearer I can't keep changing my mind. In my opinion the results I got with the silhouettes were stronger and looked more to the brief than the mermaid did. Also from the reactions from peers the deer lady looked better.

I also got some better ideas for the deer lady, the antlers on her head made people think of Christmas. This played on my mind, how could I keep the antlers but make them less Christmasesque. A fellow student mentioned making them out of twisted willow branches with natural symbols of purity embedded in them and into them. I have seen Willow branches shaped into deer before, I then looked up the symbolism of willow.

"The Celtic meaning of willow has a long history of symbolism associated with metaphysical and ritual practices.
Specifically, the willow wood has been (and still is) used in ceremonies intended for enhancement of psychic abilities, honoring the moon as well as increase the essence of love in our lives.
Many uses and associations came be traced back to our Celtic ancestors' observations of the willow tree in their natural environment. Druid priests, dryads (priestesses), bards and ovates all recognized the willow's affinity to watery domains. Flora and fauna in close connection with water are considered dwellers of the psychic realm, and symbolic of inspired imagination."

As I want to involve the 'third eye' into my design this would work really well, the psychic abilities from the willow could power up the Deer ladies third eye and her power to detect only the purest of people. For the next day I think I'm going to do more work on a back story and why this character chose her Chaste way of life. Also I will work on character costumes.

My course leader advised me to never abandon an idea as throughout my time at Norwich University of The Arts I might want to use this pure mermaid idea again in another project. As I've already come a fair way with this character idea I think this advice is very wise.

More sillouettes (failures and sucesses) and working out webbed hands.

Just a little more experimenting with PS and Al.Chemy. Some of these are deer-like but I didn't want to not include them as I feel they are part of my journey into creating what I am thinking about. I still want to incorporate the 'Third Eye' from the deer thing to my mermaid thing as I think it would be a cool look.

 And here are the PS pieces. Really love the way of the designs and how they curve.

And here just messing around with how webbed hands would look, will have to do more research into the way sea/water creatures pull themselves through the water and propel themselves fast.

Symbols of Chastity and Purity I want to use.

I seem to have found my ideal creature, now I need to establish what I want put on her to represent my chosen virtue.

So far I have found these things in nature to represent Purity.

• Waterlilies. "According to Buddhism, enlightenment is associated with this blossom. Different colored water lilies have different representations according to the ancient Buddhists, and the practice is still carried out. For instance a red lily connotes love and passion, and is considered to be the lotus of the heart. The iconography of the purple lily is mystic power, whereas the white lily is mental purity. The highest deity is represented with a pink lily and blue lilies are often associated with knowledge. In the spiritual arena of Hinduism, the concept of resurrection is symbolically denoted by the water lily. This is because at night (or during darkness) the lilies close their blossoms and with the first ray of the sun, they open. It is also a symbol of purity, because even though the plant grows in mud, the flower is pure and free from blemishes". (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/what-does-a-water-lily-symbolize.html)

•  Pearls. "The pearl was imbued with many of its implications in the context of paintings of the Madonna. Through representations of the Virgin Mary pearls came to be associated with faith and chastity. The pearls used to adorn the Virgin were not necessarily the pearls one would see in everyday life. These were larger, perfectly round, and flawlessly white with a beautiful luster, while normal pearls may have irregular shapes and lack the Virgin pearls’ snow-white sheen. The perfection of the pearls served to mirror the Christian perfection of the Virgin Mary. Interestingly enough, they also mirror the impossibility of the Virgin’s standard. In order to be the perfect Christian woman one must be a virgin and yet a mother, fertile yet free from lust. As the ideal woman of Christianity, the Virgin’s impossible pearls mirror her impossible persona. Additionally, the Virgin Mary’s beauty promoted comparison with the beauty of a pearl. As depictions of the Virgin became younger, more beautiful, wealthier, and whiter as time went on, so did comparisons between her visage and pearls. The Virgin’s beauty became inexplicably connected with her goodness." (http://www.melissahuang.com/2013/05/03/pearls-unicorns-and-lilies-symbols-of-feminine-purity-in-the-renaissance/)

• Starfish. Oddly enough "In Christian symbolism the Starfish represents the Virgin Mary (Stella Maris which means Star of the Sea) who lovingly creates safe travel over troubled waters and is also seen as an emblem of salvation during trying times. The star as well as the Starfish are seen as celestial symbols and as such, they represent infinite divine love. In addition to love, the Starfish also holds characteristics such as guidance, vigilance, inspiration, brilliance and intuition" (http://www.whats-your-sign.com/love-symbol-animal.html)

• Water. "The symbolism of water has a universal undertone of purity and fertility. Symbolically, it is often viewed as the source of life itself as we see evidence in countless creation myths in which life emerges from primordial waters. Interestingly, we are all made of water, and so we can liken many of these myths and allegories to our own existence (the macrocosm mirroring the microcosm and vice versa). Further, we can incorporate symbolism of circulation, life, cohesion and birth by associating the creative waters of the earth with the fluids found in our own body (i.e., blood). In Taoist tradition, water is considered an aspect of wisdom. The concept here is that water takes on the form in which it is held and moves in the path of least resistance. Here the symbolic meaning of water speaks of a higher wisdom we may all aspire to mimic." (http://www.whats-your-sign.com/symbolism-of-water.html)

All of this together makes me want to create this aquatic mermaidesque creature that seeks out pearls maybe wearing starfish and lillies. Maybe look into it being a shore dweller that looks in rock pools and shallow water for clams, Don't really want to venture into a deep sea diving being as I'm already aware that to deep sea dive a humanoid creature would have to have no hair and be streamlined to avoid creating drag, have massive lungs and specialized adaptations to avoid buoyancy and would have to be covered in blubber to stop freezing to death in cold water, and due to osmosis and salt water the skin would shrivel up and looked wrinkled. Not very innocent and Pure looking to say the least. (Source, Fact or Faked)

A Change of Heart and Sillouettes.

Having gone the past few days unable to really make my mind up on what I wanted to do, I kept veering away from the Gargoyle image and then was going towards deer, but I wanted to keep my association with water and purity, and started going towards a water based creature.

Although I really love the way the deer lady was going, the way the water creature came out just struck me, and naturally made me think of some weird kind of mermaid. In my research I came across this image

I love the way that the legs are seperate, the mermaid still looks humanoid despite being fishlike. I would like to incorperate this image into the way my character looks. When I first started thinking of the idea of mermaids I thought would they be a bit too promiscious for Chastity, but then after a little bit more research I found this quote

                   "Mermaids are the perfect symbol of purity and serenity, the union of sea creature and beautiful woman, alluring but unavailable. Amphitrite was the Queen of the Sea and the reluctant wife of Poseidon (also known as Neptune)."

It hit me, they kind of are a great symbol for purity, they are described as beautiful but elusive and unavailable to men, also with the whole bottom half fish body would make things awkward in the bedroom so to speak. Now I must just think of everything else that goes with this character.

Holy Priests in World of Warcraft

As an avid player of WoW I first thought of the Holy Priests as images for chastity, uses of whites and blues in the clothing and the wearing of cloth. I collected a few images to use in my research.

I like the colours of the Spirit Healer and the way the wings look, maybe my Gargoyle can have angelic looking wings, or even a cloak made from feathers to look more pure. As I would like to involve water as part of this creatures image maybe she can carry water around with her in a staff or something.