A Pungent Character Getting Grit into Imaginary Faces with David Meng In this lecture, David Meng shares his thoughts on how he creates personality and expression in a character bust. He will discuss his thought process behind doing an unconventional take on a traditional creature. The practical aspects of working with plastalina and building armatures will also be discussed. Viewers will get to look, from start to finish, at how David creates a physical clay design maquette for the film industry. 187 Minutes of Lecture Topics Covered: - Trying to design "sideways"
- Materials and Tools
- Armature building
- Practical techniques and tips for sculpting in plastaline
- Creating the major sweep and flow in the forms, establishing attitude from the very beginning
- Making a strong design statement with silhouette
- Balancing extremes and subtleties in design
- Using pose to establish attitude and personality
- Using the lines defined by the edges of forms to affect how the viewer "reads" a character, thus giving it "punch"
- Methods to keep a fresh eye for your work
- Refining sculpture for the purposes of a quick concept maquette
- Finding inspiration in unexpected and/or forgotten sources´
Chapters - Introduction
- Reference
- Tools
- Harpie Blocking Part 1
- Harpie Blocking Part 2
- Harpie Blocking Part 3
- Harpie Sculpt
- Harpie Finishing
- Colonial Finishing
Instructor Bio: Creature Designer and Sculptor, WetaDavid Meng graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2000, with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art, and took Dick Smith's Advanced Professional Make-up Course shortly after. Interested in bizarre, funny and grotesque things from a young age, David had a natural leaning towards working as a creature/character designer in the film industry. After working as a sculptor/designer in L.A., David joined Weta Workshop in 2004 just in time to work on King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia. He has since contributed extensively to many of Weta's other projects, most notably District 9, for which he served as Lead Creature Designer, working on the design of the Prawns. Recently, David's work has been published in The Art of District 9, White Cloud Worlds (an anthology of New Zealand Fantasy art), and this year's Spectrum as well as being exhibited in both Shanghai and New Zealand. |