BA1a Insect Character Sheet

My character sheet for my insect. As you can see it displays horse-like qualities, whilst still retaining the exoskeleton, three body segments and six legs that many insects have. While I would like the insect to run like a horse would (rendering its middle legs useless), the insect still displays the jittery movements associated with its tiny counterparts.

BA1a Insect Bodies

Creating insect body silhouettes was interesting. Knowing that insects only have three body segments, six legs and can be pretty much any shape otherwise was interesting. I wanted to create something imposing, the sharp edged form suggests aggressive characteristics.

This first silhouette looked a little too ant-like, form not strong enough.

I liked the assertive qualities this form suggests, being that is it quite aerodynamically shaped. This would make the insect more maneuverable at high velocities.

Over-paint of the previous silhouette, I kept the same exo-skeleton style as used in the leg designs. I feel like this design lacks depth and interest.

Colour swatches of body design.

BA1a Insect Research / Inspirational Imagery

The contrast between the vibrant yellow and deep black on this insect is a similar colour scheme to what I had in mind for my designs.

The hair on this wasps legs would look great on my insect design.

Dragonfly - http://animalia-life.com/image.php?pic=/data_images/insect/insect4.jpg
Wasp - http://7-themes.com/data_images/out/72/7019479-bee-insect.jpg
Grasshopper - http://www.top10listland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/grasshopper.jpg

BA1a Notes on Lighting

This is a photograph I took in Manchester recently. There's a lot going on in this image concerning lighting.
1. Reflection: The slightly warped reflection of the building opposite to the center building is being produced by light being reflected almost perfectly off the smooth glass.
2. Diffused reflection: This can be seen on the grey panels dotted about our subject building. The rough surfaces are reflecting light, but in to many directions to produce a clear reflected image.
3. Absorbtion: The dark surfaces under the subject buildings protuberances are both absorbing light.

BA1a Notes on Composition

 This image is a still from the animated film Tekkonkinkreet. I find the composition of this piece interesting, it clearly makes use of divine proportion. You can see there is an increasing amount of information further into the spiral, when it is applied to the image.

 A painting by the renowned Feng Zhu, one of my favourite artists. It is apparent that the artist has followed (however unintentionally) the hexagonal grid method; to increase interest in his artwork.

 The cover artwork for 30 Seconds to Mars' album "A Beautiful Lie" surely uses a root 3 hexagon grid. With the grid applied, it can be seen that all three arrow points line up perfectly. The skulls aso fit perfectly within this grid.

BA1a Insect legs colour

Having decided on a style of exoskeleton for my insect I began to paint over and add detail to my silhouettes. The legs in the last image turned out better than the rest, I put more thought into their functionality. My first limb iteration to the left was the simplest, I liked the idea of my insect having a cracked exoskeleton.

My second leg design has a little too much going on for it to be taken seriously, with the two smaller balls removed it could make more sense.

Though this design appears almost entirely impractical as a leg, it could work as a wing. I tried to keep the style of exoskeleton constant.

This leg design is my favourite, it looks like it could actually function. I will definitely be using this in my final design.

BA1a Insect Limbs

I selected parts of my Alchemy creations that I found interesting and attempted to extract them. Painting in Photoshop I was able to create several interesting insect leg silhouettes. Though some of the limbs I have created appear impractical...