Summative Project Report

Final Designs

Feedback

What is your question?

Outline what the question is and how you will be answering the question in the essay.

In context and themes. have a paragraph explaining Lovecraft in-depth and how he is relevant Lovecraftian themes.

Restructure Chapter 4 reflective part.

Is it correctly Harvard Referenced?
Point, Evidence, Explain
Every point you make you need evidence and then you need to explain it.
Make sure you paraphrase what you're copied.

Do you understand what this essay is about? Is anything unclear?
Make a contents page and do sub chapters for each point you make.

I still have a lot of changes to make. The most important is to reference all the quotes and information I have in my essay.

V&A museum Trip: Videogames Design/ Play/ Disrupt

This weekend I went to V&A museum to see Videogames exhibition. The reason I go there is they included Bloodborne in the exhibition. I really enjoyed it, I gather some primary research from this exhibition. As a student who really want to do game in the future this trip is very beneficial, it is cool for me to see in the last 15 years, broadband, social media and innovations in digital tools have revolutionised how games are created, discussed and played. This exhibition explore the creative processes of eight trailblazing contemporary games and their makers- from a large AAA studio crafting cinematic blockbusters, to an independent team telling intimate and personal stories. Sketchbooks, prototypes, code and digital tools from the desks and hard drives of the designers offer a glimpse into their ambitious, cutting-edge work.

THE LAST OF US

SPLATOON

BLOODBORNE

We fight as a nameless hunter in Yarnham, a Victorian city crumbling into chaos amid disease, madness and death. Bloodborne's story combines variously recognizable elements from authors H.P.Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Bram Stoker(1847- 1912), especially Dracula(1897), and large- than- life attacks of the characters and enemies draw their inspiration from Japanese manga and anime traditions.

   

The character designers at FromSoftware illustrated early ideas in notepads that would be developed into full designs. Shown here are the first iterations of characters including the Hunters, Doll and the Maneater Boar. They illustrate the attempts at producing the level of horror that director Miyazaki envisaged. Alongside these creatures are ideas for the intricate weapon designs that are an integral part of the combat in Bloodborne.

The character designers at FromSoftware illustrated early ideas in notepads that would be developed into full designs. Shown here are the first iterations of characters including the Hunters, Doll and the Maneater Boar. They illustrate the attempts at producing the level of horror that director Miyazaki envisaged. Alongside these creatures are ideas for the intricate weapon designs that are an integral part of the combat in Bloodborne.

Bloodborne

"Video games tend to have a rocky relationship with Lovecraft," Super Bunnyhop noted. "They love the imagery and style of his horror, but the underlying tones that set it apart are a bit hard to convey with traditional mechanics."

After all, defeating unknowable god-like creatures as a mere mortal is completely at odds with the fatalism Lovecraft was so know for. But Bloodborne handles this differently. Yes, you can slay giant monsters and unholy beasts, but ultimately mankind remains intrinsically screwed by its amoeba-like lot at the bottom of cosmic food chain.

"Bloodborne manages to keep it subtle in a way even the official games do not," Super Bunnyhop stated. "Although mechanically you can still overcome the odds and defeat the villains in Bloodborne, the narrative endings reinforce that Lovecraftian sense of smallness, with each one revealing your character being played by the hands of greater powers."

In typical Lovecraft stories, the unreliable narrator is warned by "isolated backwoods people who the author intends to be susceptible to superstition," a cliche that remains common in horror today (and popularly satirised in Cabin in the Woods). In Bloodborne, however, the worship of terrifying otherworldly gods is the dominant religion in Yharnam. "A reversal of that concept makes for the biggest twist in how Bloodborne uses Lovecraftian horror."

Bloodborne's status-altering Caryll Runes are a reference to Lovecraft. "In Call of Cthulhu, the language of the Old Ones is not efficiently spoken. Instead, it is transcribed as runes memorised in the mind," Super Bunnyhop explained. As such, the player uses peculiar stone runes to influence their power.

Indeed Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories involved alternate realms that could only be accessed in dreams, a common theme in Bloodborne where the player goes to the "Hunter's Dream" to level up and replenish their supplies. Later, they'll go to some nightmare planes as well.

"By having different names and rules than the official Cthulhu mythos, it can still work mysteries," Super Bunnyhop explained. "That descent from Bram Stoker to Lovecraft had me so excited because it seemed in an instant that the game's universe suddenly got larger and more complicated than before. And isn't that the point? Cosmic horror is all about realising how much more there is to the universe than can ever be experienced by all of mankind's accomplishments."

"The 'Souls' game's formula, with its brutal difficulty and its vague but concrete lore, does an excellent job at prodding the player's morbid curiosity. And so does Lovecraftian horror. In both cases, you're going to end up confused and terrified by what secrets you uncover."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-10-how-bloodborne-honours-the-legacy-of-h-p-lovecraft

Bloodborne Behind the scenes

Tetsu Takahashi, the 2D designer from FromSoftware said he tried to depict the dear or panic people feel when faced with the unknown, or something they do not understand. In this period without advanced medicine, plagues and disasters would fall into those categories. He also depict the darkness that is born from a damaged psyche.

Artist Reference

I brought this book call 'the art of horror' by Stephen Jones. There is a chapter talking about Lovecraft. I selected some artist from it, I think I can take inspiration from these great illustration and use it in my practical work.

Prompted by the release of a new edition from Titan Books, here's a squint at one of the illustrations for Shadows Over Innsmouth. This was the first done by Dave Carson, Jim Pitts, and Martin Mckenna, working together in 1993, each on a separate section of the image.

J. K. Potter

 Weird Tale

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18th.^[2] The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom would go on to be popular writers,

'For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset’s gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep

Where the rivers of madness stream

Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves

In the meadows that shimmer pale,

And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.'

Howard Vachel Brown

Practical Review 2

So I started to sketch some pattern on my sketchbook to give me some clue what element I want to add for my character/ monster design. I summarized some theme and elements from Lovecraft in order to inspire my practical work. I drew a lot of different eye sizes and variants tentacles. These patterns can use on my character, like monster cover with tentacles or eyes. 

I haven't decided what my monster looks like. To be honest I have never drawn a non-human like monster before. I think I will try it out by putting all the pattern on and see how it goes. overall I am trying to imagine something our mind not suppose to understand. At the same time I don't just want to create Lovecraft monster, but also want to create characters like from video game. I also want to draw something I familiar with, something I feel comfortable drawing. They will be base on human figure and adding a bit of element from Lovecraft.

How To Keeps Sane

Life confusion, mental breakdown. I found Jordan Peterson's speech about how to keeps us sane that very useful. I think chaos is like a nature thing, and sanity is more like a survival strategy. Maybe this explain why people have the idea of go crazy time to time. We need daily routine to keeps us sane.

People need to know what to do every day, people have to have a routine.

70%~80% of our life consists of those things that people do every single day that they repeat. Those are often the things that people think about as the trivial elements of their life.

People need a structure and predictability, you need more of it than you think just to keep you sane. 

Sanity was a consequence of being properly structured internally. From psychoanalytic point of view you’re sort of an ego, and that ego is inside you, of course it rests on an unconscious structure. But the purpose of psychoanalysis is to sort out that unconscious structure and the ego on top of it to make you a fully functioning and autonomous individual.

The reason that you’re saying as a fully functional and autonomous human being is not just because you’ve organized your psyche. The reason that you’re saying if you have a well-organized unconscious an ego is because other people can tolerate having you around for reasonably extensive periods of time and will cuff you across the back of the head every time you do something so stupid that people will dislike you permanently if you continue. So what people are doing to each other all the time just non-stop is broadcasting sanity signals back and forth. Like you smile at people if they’re not only behaving properly but behaving in a way that you would like to see them continue to behave. You frown at them if they’re not.

You’re blasting signals at other people about how to regulate their behaviour. So partly what you’re doing with your routine is establishing yourself as a credible, reliable trustworthy, potentially interesting human being who isn’t going to do anything too erratic at any moment. Everyone else is around there tapping you into shape making sure that that’s exactly what you are and that’s how you stay sane.

What happens to people too if they don’t have a routine and they get isolated is they start to drift and they drift badly because the world is too complicated for you to keep it organized all by yourself. So we outsource the problem of sanity, because sanity is an impossibly complex problem. So the way that we manage the incredibly complex problem is we have a very large number of brains working simultaneously on the problem all the time.

Phobia

Phobia - extreme type of fear

            - Great lengths to avoid

            Extreme, unreasonable, irrational fears——interferes with daily life

Mental disorder

The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder (DSM):

-     Social phobia/ social anxiety    Fear being negatively judge or embarrassed in a social environment.

-     Agoraphobia.   Where you experience fear in situations where you feel you can’t escape.

-     Specific phobia.   Afraid of a specific object or situation (phobic stimulates).

You probably know that it isn’t rational, but your brain just runs through the most dangerous and unrealistic situations, making it feel more and more real.

Physical symptoms:

Heart starts pounding, your hands start to sweat, and your breathing get shallow. You might have a panic attack.

Why do phobias develop?/ Cause

More likely if family member has one.

Phobia usually develop through trauma. Whether it’s one you personally experience, or one you witness. These situations ruined every future interaction. These usually occur in early childhood (7-11 years old), and this is why you can’t remember why you have phobia. It may have happened so long ago but your response is ingrained in the way that you live. 

Treatments: (tailor to individual)

Meditation and relaxation techniques. To help calm down around something scary

Cognitive behavioural therapy. To help rationalize your response. Mindful that fear is irrational.

Exposure therapy. Face your fear.

Practical Review

Base on my feedback I decide to change my practical idea. I was looked at the art book 'the art of horror' , it include many of horror movie posters. I was thinking about create some book cover for Lovecraft novel. Now I decide to look at video games rather than movies. I want to look at one of my favourite game 'Bloodborne' or some other game which have Lovecraft aesthetic like the new game 'the call of Cthulhu'. Compare to movies I think I am more familiar with video games. Also because I am into concept design and character design, I think it will be more benefit for me to look at games.

I hear there is a videogames exhibition in V&A museum at the moment and they include 'Bloodborne' which is the game I want to investigate. I will choose a day travel to London and check that out, it will give me some idea what I want to make for my practical and information about bloodborne.

This is for my previous practical idea. A poster sketch with many green writhing feelers.

Cthulhu Mythos

Humans can't imagine things that they haven't seen before. I think the core of Hovercraft's world is about face to Unknown. Some believe exploring the unknown is grand but in Lovecraft's world this grand is meaningless.  

This essay will focus on the Cthulhu mythos by H. P. Lovecraft

What is Cthulhu Mythos?

COP 3

Aspects that need defining:
-How dear affects art
-What makes us scared
-Question
-What makes horror films successful

Aspects that need expanding
- Goya the civil war
- How does culture affect the scariness of art

Other notes:
- How scary things have get scarier
- investigate banned films Verses the Mark &Dines Chapman
- Women in horror films

Ending

I chose this topic because of I have suffered from mental illness this year, it is very helpful that I can use this project to learn more about the illness and try to find help from it. I have done different research by looking at the website and reading books and magazines, most importantly talking to my GP and people at mental health service. It is less stress and helpless when I understand the problem. I have also talked to someone who also has the depression problem, try t capture how they feel when it happens and then I decided to draw it down in my sketchbook, I want to show that kind of sadness through my drawings. I not only hand-draw but also try collage and other mix media in my sketchbook. I only produce my work when I am feeling low and depress to express my feeling better, turning that despairing, hopeless message into art. It was a bit painful at the beginning, but it is a good way to release the stress as well. Do not want to communicate with others is also a symptom of depression. Therefore it is better to use a pen to write it down or draw how I feel. After some treatment I was feeling better and lighter, but also I started to see my drawing is less dark and moody. It is a whole different experiment to draw some dark, depressing drawings. My emotion is different. I am not quite sure that the depression helped me in my art work or destroyed it. But I am glad I have this experience.

More Artist Reasarch

JOHN PILSON

Mr.PIckup

2000

LIZA MAY POST

CINDY SHERMAN

Study Task 9

1.A variety of sources (Books, Booklet, Website,Mangezines)

2.Work with different media.(Hand-draw, Collage, paper cut)

3.Disussed with GP, counselling about mental health.

4.Explore the reasons behind mental illness.

5.Is having metal illness will help artist produce work.

6.Capture the lifesytle of who suffered from mental illness.

7.Observe people who suffer from mental illness.

8.Look at some artists like Munch, Van Gogh...

9.Turning the massege into art.

10.How mental illness would effect artist and their work.

Artist Reasrach

British artist Gemma Correll who suffer from depression but she illustrated her problem in a funny way. I very respect this artist that she can find humor from sadness.

Study Task 8

Peer Review Action Plan

I intend to visually and practically investigate ➜ Mental Health (Depressive Art)

In order to do this I will:

Primary Research	Identify, collect, record and evaluate visual material from the following sources: -The Aesthetics of Disenagement -stylist.co.uk -boredpanda.com
Secondary research	Draw, photograph, record and develop my own visual material through the following activities: -Draw how I feel when I am stress or low
Media & Processes	Visually and practically explore my subject using the following media and processes: A zine ---mix media of: -Collage -Hand-draw
Context	Contextualise, reference, analyse my work in relation to the following practitioners/disciplines: -Communicate a lifestyle of depression -How depression effect artists work

Study Task 5

I intend to illustrate use with feelings of depression, anxiety and stress. I want to draw or collage in my sketchbook to try show that kind of mood which is despairing, sad and helpless.I will only draw when I feeling low and stress, to see how emotion can be effect my art.

I will explore some artists work like Munch and Van Gogh.I need to go to gallery or museum to find some more can be relate to this theme.