Presentation Wk7

The Conductor

by Duan Sebastian

The Story • For some time, I have been thinking of a figure emerging from the shadows, from thick lines of charcoal drawings left in a corner. He was always thin, black and tall, obsessed with conducting deep harmonic music using a thin slice of white conte for a baton.

Research • • •

I set up a blog to detail my research: http://charcoalconductor.blogspot.com/ This details images of conductors, charcoal, artists’ materials, thoughts, reworkings, draft models, drawings, photoshop mock-ups, etc.

Initial Sketches • • •

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Next, I borrowed materials to practice drawing the human figure. References Bridgman, G (2001), Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc, New York. Hogarth, B (1989), Drawing the Human Head, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York. These resulted in some initial drawings and figures made from charcoal to get a sense of the materials.

Drafts These figures lacked real humour and were perhaps too blocky or robotic. I wanted a more malleable character, while retaining charcoal characteristics…

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I also made a short stop-motion film with a figure of similar proportions to see where that might lead.

Development