We've all heard that before, and continue to hear that throughout our lives, applied to many different things. Poetry, photographs, watching other humans to see if they are lying, or to see the truth in their words.
I have to to realize just how important this sentence is to an artist. There is something there, behind eyes, that tells us a soul is within. A light. A glow. A burning desire to live. Our bodies are really just shells, and our eyes are no different. Yet the thing that fills them is so intangible. It is hard to grasp exactly what makes us look human.
In 3D space, I can not simply click a button that says, "Add Soul" ,although imagine how wonderful that would be! Instead I have to study and analyze everything in the eyes. The pupils, cornea, iris, the small beads of liquid tears hiding within the eye's duct. The way in which light plays off of each anatomical surface. Reflecting and refracting. But yet sometimes after all those things are done, we still miss the point. We can not quite grab that element that breathes life into the puppet.
I am in that stage right now. Togo as a character is very complex. And his eyes will tell many things about him. All the struggles and pain, his own selfishness to be accepted, yet his monstrous nature that he is unable to contain. The task ahead of me is large. How do I show all of these things? An eye is an eye. We have all seen them illustrated in anatomy books. By themselves they are mostly all similar. Yet when that eye is in a persons head, it completely changes.
Togo is also not completely human. He is slightly frog like. And so that complicates this further. Changing the eye to become more frog-like makes him more into a monster, when the point is only to make him vaguely frog like.
So I will continue to experiment and analyze, over and over. Trying to find that which makes us look alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment