Study of light

For this part, I simply have to analyse a painting about its light, and for this I chose a 3D model called "Celebration" by an artist on DeviantArt called Drea Horvath (or "00AngelicDevil00").

As you can see, the first immediate light sources are the Chinese lanterns on the water and floating off into the distance in the sky. They are each their own light source. The paper of the lanterns also bounce the light around inside, sub-surface scattering, giving the objects a soft orange glow, iconic of the product. Additionally, you have them all reflecting off of the water, which I think is specular reflection as the light is reflected directly at you. You also have another light source coming from the tower, presumably multiple sources from each room. Considering the colour of the light and the fact it seems to be lit by fire (judging by the colour and comparing to the visible light sources) I would take a guess that this is all bounced light, diffused reflection off of the surfaces of the surrounding walls. Finally, in the right of the image where you have the cooler blues in contrast to the warm red lights, the sky is lit up in a moonlight blue. The clouds are clearly visible and completely blocking the night sky, but due to their glow I can assume there is more bounced light inside the clouds which gives a soft light across them and again reflected on the surface of the water. Because of the distance of the objects and no land or anything similar in the foreground (which would probably mean the camera would be in the centre of the lake), there is no visible objects under the surface of the water.

Silhouettes

Apparently, Blogger doesn't like uploading photos. So this took way longer to upload than it should have. Partially also down to my own procrastination in trying to find a workaround as well, but that's not the point.

To start off my character design, the task was to come up with 100 silhouettes, different general shapes of that the character I'm designing could look like (in this case, the soldier).

Very nearly hit the 100 mark, then I realised I'd just started drawing random shapes and couldn't really come up with anything else after.
One problem I had come across during this was the solidity of my idea, if that makes sense. I'd done about 20 silhouettes before I looked and said "yeah, this is what I want" and after that I couldn't really generate anything else. It wasn't until later, when I had already started my iteration of the soldier, that I came up with fresh ideas as to what to add to the silhouette sheet. On top of more looks of what the soldier could look like, I remembered that he doesn't have to be a he - it could be a she. So I started doodling a few female forms as well in different shapes and sizes. Although some aren't really fitting for a soldier (and some probably gear more towards the witch) they're still ideas at least.

Project intro and "The Tinderbox" synopsis

The start of my first project!

Basically, my project is to spend between now and November developing a character based on "The Tinderbox" by Hans Christian Andersen. The character must, however, fit a certain time frame - in my case, the Napoleonic period.

The story itself is a bit strange. The basics is that it's about a soldier who gets told by a witch he can have as much money as he can carry if he retrieves a tinderbox for her from a hollowed tree stump. To get the money, he has to set these three dogs on her apron and collect the money they're sat on. Each dog has a larger pair of eyes than the previous as it goes from bronze, silver and gold coins (they're separated in three separate rooms). He collects his money and retrieves the tinderbox (the last dog he neglects to set on the apron and he first forgets the tinderbox and has to go back to retrieve it). He then asks the witch what the tinderbox is for and, after refusing to tell him, he cuts her head clean off. He then takes what gold he can and becomes a very rich, popular man in a nearby city. He also hears mention of a Princess who is very beautiful but, because of a prophecy wherein she marries a soldier, the King and Queen keep her hidden.

The soldier proceeds to spend all of his money and soon is turned to rags. After he runs out of matches to light his candle, he tries to use the tinderbox and as it turns out, it summons the dogs for him (one strike for the first, two strikes for the second and three strikes for the third). The dogs are at his command, so he asks them to retrieve gold for him from the tree, becoming once again a very well known and respected man. Eventually, he asks one of the dogs to retrieve the Princess for him in the night, so that he may see her during her sleep. After a few times, the King and Queen notice, so they come up with a few different way to find out where she goes during the night. Eventually, they find that it's the Soldier's doing and arrest him and order him to be hung. While in prison, a boy passes his window. He asks the boy to fetch him his tinderbox, so that when it comes to his hanging, he could have his one last wish to have a cigarette lit by his tinderbox. Of course, this summons his dogs who he then orders to kill the King and Queen, as well as the advisers. He then marries the Princess and lives happily ever after.

It's a really odd story, and very amoral. I mean, he doesn't listen to the witch's instructions; steals gold; kills the witch; steals her tinderbox; kidnaps the Princess; and kills the King and Queen. He commits burglary, murder and high treason. But he gets away with it all, with only one consequence to any of his actions, which he recovers from on a stroke of luck. It defies almost any rule that any other writer has came up with. It defies the karma of consequence for action or inaction and defies that there should be no coincidence or stroke of luck for the main character to solve his dilemma. Yet somehow, Todorov's Narrative Theory (that is, equilibrium, disruption, resolution, restored order, new equilibrium, a formula that every story follows) is still followed, in a distorted way. I'm not really sure what to make of the story, whether I like it or not, but it does annoy me that these immoral acts of his aren't upheld. At the same time, it does represent the possibility of getting away with inactions.

Ref: "The Tinderbox" 1835 - Hans Christian Andersen, C.A. Reitzel