Practice

So! Finally started on the new project. I've watched and read all the tutorials my teacher provided me with, and I thought I'd try a ball bouncing on the spot as my first practice. It's not perfect so i'm going to have another go in a minute, but thought I'd upload this one before I forget about it!

Character Synopsis

This is the character synopsis/biography I have written for Huwawa:

He is the Guardian of the Cedar Forest, the home of the Gods, as appointed by the God Enlil. Having no mother or father, he was raised only by Utu, the God of the Sun.

An enormous beast, part lion and part bull, with horns, a magnificent mane of fur and long, sharp claws. He is essentially a 'good' and peaceful being, but as he is sworn to protect the forest, he will attack any who mean harm. He also has the terrible magic of seven auras at his disposal.

His eyes are as black as the emptiness of space, and it is said that to meet his gaze is to face a sudden death - Huwawa knows this is not true, but the rumour causes mankind to avoid him. He has become a very lonely creature, and for want of companionship he may be too willing to trust a stranger.

This eventually leads him to fall prey to Gilgamesh's trickery, and though he pleads for his life, he is killed by the king and Enkidu. 

Refining Huwawa

I sketched the few different designs I mentioned in the last post, and have found that the body of a lion is the one I am most comfortable drawing. Lions also appear to be often used as a guardian figure in the art of Babylonia.

I also re-visited the Mesopotamian rooms in the British Museum, as well as the Assyrian rooms (which I didn't even realise existed before!) - I got much more from it this time. I sketched the designs I saw of jewellery that was depicted as being worn by Kings, mostly, but I thought it fitting for a mythical guardian beast. The jewellery from Mesopotamia is made mostly using gold and lapis lazuli, as well as carnelian, silver, green bloodstone and red limestone. Much of the jewellery is beaded.

I was particularly interested in how animals and monsters were portrayed. There was a monster being killed by a king in one piece which appeared to be part lion, part bird, and had long ears that pointed upright. I have tried sketching Huwawa with bird features such as the scaled legs and talons, but I find it very difficult.

There was also a statue titled "Colossal Guardian Lion" which had cuneiform engraved all over its body, mainly the sides - I considered having Huwawa's name written in Cuneiform on his body, but then thought that it might make him look a bit too "My Little Pony" - and while I love those toys, they are hardly terrifying to behold. I will likely have his name in cuneiform on an amulet worn on one leg instead.

There was a beautiful statue titled "Ram in a Thicket" which I hadn't noticed the first visit - it's horns and parts of its fleece were made from lapis lazuli, and the rest of it was mostly in gold. Many of the statues of bulls also had gold horns. I certainly am considering the beautiful dark blue for Huwawa's mane, and gold for his horns - or at least his fur shall be golden-blonde, in any case.

I then started looking at the skeleton structures of lions and bulls, as I think a combination of their features could work nicely for this character. I will probably take the lions mane, powerful jaws and front legs, and the horns, sloping back and hind legs of the bull - and the tail on both animals is much the same!

Research and Influential Characters

Having found little from the book itself, I turn to the internet. Basing my searches on what little description of Humbaba there was in the epic itself, I have looked at lion's eyes and paws, eagles talons, and the tusks and horns of various animals.

Then I thought I ought to find out more about ogres. This page provided useful information on the creatures: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ogre
This fits in with the idea that he was very tall and humanoid in appearance, as well as many ogres being depicted with tusks or horns. They are also generally very broad, with long muscular arms and often a big belly.

This page http://monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Humbaba mentions the beasts "look of death" - which gave me the idea to make his eyes completely black, as this will give him an eerie, haunting appearance, as well as the fact that black is usually symbolic of death.

On this site http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html very near the bottom of the page, there is a paragraph on Huwawa. It describes him with more dragon and lion like features, which puts a more animal-like picture in my head.

This page http://www.blackdrago.com/fame/humbaba.htm also suggests that he took the form of a huge fire-breathing dragon.

So there are many different ideas to play with designing this character. When researching him I was reminded of several different characters...

Beast from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" - a humanoid beast with tusks, horns and huge claws! He was designed using aspects of various animals.

The Creatures from Lionhead's "Black and White" PC games - anthropomorphised animals who grow huge and can cast miracles to help or hurt humankind.

Mufasa from Disney's "The Lion King" - beautiful character design, much more cuddly looking than Huwawa ought to be but a good point of reference for a cartoon lion nonetheless.

The Guardian Beast Keroberos from CLAMP's "Cardcaptor Sakura" - a ferocious winged lion in his true form, he is a character I have always loved. I have considered giving Huwawa wings as there are many winged lions in Mesopotamian art, but decided against it as it may overcomplicate the character's design.

Haku in his dragon form from Studio Ghibli's "Spirited Away" - a beautiful dragon, part fur and part scales - the mane and bird-like legs are of particular interest to me for this project.

I will come up with a few designs, perhaps one more humanoid, one more lion-like and another that is based on the idea of him being a dragon.

Animation and Design

After reading this terms project brief in class, my first thought was that it seemed like a good place to start - character design, learning an important part of the process of pre-production. It sounded fun. Then we were presented with 3 envelopes titled 'Film', 'Games' and 'TV'. Naturally I went for the film envelope, and on reading the contents inside I found the character I am to design is a monster called Humbaba (or Huwawa) who appears in the story "The Epic of Gilgamesh".

This appealed to me instantly as I find mythology and fantasy very interesting, though I know nothing of history, so I will need to do plenty of research on the time period and such. He will probably be a challenging character to design due to the mixture of human and animal features.

The first research I did was to read through the page I was linked to in the project description: http://www.math.uic.edu/~ronan/Gilgamesh

"they will undertake an epic journey to the great cedar forest where they will challenge Humbaba, the guardian placed there by the god Enlil."

It seems that Humbaba has a relatively minor part in the Epic, and very little was written about him on this page. Apart from the quote above, the only other thing it says about him is that he is terrifying, and that he has seven "auras".

I suspected my mum would have a copy of the book, so I called her up. She did have one, and so I borrowed it with the intention of reading the whole thing - however I found the language was hard to understand, and so i skipped ahead to the chapter involving Humbaba in both versions of the story - which are quite different, but both end up with poor Humbaba dead.

Unfortunately, there was not much description of Humbaba's appearance in the book. He is at one point described as an ogre, later it is said that he has tusks, the eyes and paws of a lion, and eagles talons. Curiously, it is also suggested that he has both big AND little feet. I'm not entirely sure how this is possible. At first I thought it may be because he is quadrapedal, like a lion, but on viewing the couple of illustrations of him in the book, he is depicted looking much more like a man than a beast. He is also depicted with a big, curly beard.

I then visited the Babylonian section of the British Museum hoping I might find some art of the character there, but sadly, no luck. What I did learn of the time period there is that there is a lot of use of gold and vibrant blues and reds, particularly on things like jewellery. A lot of their art contains animals such as lions and oxes, and the men are always drawn with big, curly beards - the same as the illustrations I had already seen in the book.