Visual Language: Line Quality

For this brief I have chosen to study the visual topic of "Classic Horror Movies". I was initially drawn to this theme as I am a avid fan of the golden years of Universal Monsters, the later Hammer Horror films and the various independent examples of horror cinema which stand out such as ALIEN or The Shining.

 Initially, the reference material I used was gathered from film stills and promotional photography found online. This does in some way reduce the closeness to the original object of study. I shall certainly take the approaching Halloween as an opportunity to take some pictures of costumes and characters. I found the brush pen most pleasing. The application of pressure is far more accented by the shape of the brush, then say a common felt-tip. Pressure can be used to highlight or allude to depth, thus making an object such as a face more 3D.

Brush pens also create the opportunity to work on a larger scale. I have found that the minimal feature lines are somewhat reminiscent of Herges' characters.

 I also visually investigated the use of negative space. Above I marked out areas using masking tape to create the form of a towering Gothic ruin. I referred to my own imagery that I took at Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, which was one of the castles from which Bram Stoker took inspiration from when writing Dracula. I intensified detail toward the top of the tower with biro and reduced the detailing toward the bottom. I had chose to do this as I thought a completely dense mess of brick and windows would drown out the simple silhouette of the castle.

In this image I hoped to condense the shape-based information with a conservative use of pencil line. After which I suggested the presence of shadow and hair with close parallel lines. I am unimpressed by the resulting imagery as it looks quite rushed. Perhaps with the following weeks' task I will be able to flesh out this technique by using line to suggest tonal qualities.

As usual I also created several biro studies of characters and events. The above image shows the Invisible man in ragged clothing. Although the film does not show it, the character of the original book by H.G. Wells spent a deal of time subject to homelessness at which point he first improvised his iconic costume. Ball point pens are quite irregular and frequently leak blotches of ink, these can be inadvertently smudged by left handed illustrators such as me. Though this is an obvious draw-back to using the tool I find that it's consistency in terms of line application and it's general flexibility are great advantages to the material.