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CG Character Development Session 12

Session Review

Shaman King: Yoh and his guardian ghost Amidamaru
This mornings peer review for my reference character image was met with expected responses and I agreed that based from the images I collected in session eleven it resulted in a generic armoured science fiction warrior that started to resemble the Yautja Predator character.

Furthermore after beginning a simple character modelling tutorial on the educational website Lynda.com I had l noted down the procedures of setting the reference images in Maya which was highly valuable for when my I begin production of my own character.

Moreover. after talking to a friend and actually expanding upon my character's background and thinking more of depending on the environment and lifestyle my character had it would highly determine the appearance of the character.

I eventually settled for a nomadic tribal shaman and after noting down the key aspects I wanted to express with my designing redesigned a cultural rich  and more visually appealing character with a simple sketch that will be re rendered into a reference image this time on an A3 sheet in order to draw the accessories with the extra paper space.

A spirit ceremony takes place
In addition, the tribal mask for the character despite having technological attachments, it will be used to invoke and channel the characters ancestral spirits or deities. The reason for this is because in African culture these spirit masks are used for the purposes of invoking the depicted spirit.

After further secondary research, I learned in more detail that a chosen or dancer will wear for either celebration, initiations, crop harvesting, war preparation, peace and for troubled times. The mask is owned by a senior male elder and is owned by the family available to all members of that community including children.  In addition, the masks can be worn in three different ways. The first being worn vertically covering the face or encasing the entire head as a helmet or the other being worn as a crest, resting on top of the head. When worn the spirit would then possess the wearer and the wearer is then able to communicate with the spirit.

A wise man or translator is next to the dancer in order to decipher the message of the spirit these rituals are usually performed with traditional song, dance and music with traditional African instruments. So for my character he wears his mask as a link to his family ancestor strongly similar to the manga and anime Shaman King where each shaman had a guardian ghost to battle and advice them.


References

 http://www.rebirth.co.za/African_mask_history_and_meaning.htm

 https://www.boundless.com/art-history/textbooks/boundless-art-history-textbook/africa-in-the-modern-period-33/traditional-and-contemporary-african-culture-a-comparison-201/the-spirit-world-723-10817/

 http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/african-art/african-art-collection-masks.htm

 http://www.historyofmasks.net/mask-history/history-of-african-masks/

 http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZBXOg30xPaQ/maxresdefault.jpg

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBXOg30xPaQ

 http://www.s94065996.onlinehome.us/cel-galleries/wishlist/shaman-king/sk-wish-grp-3.jpg


By  Sebastian Jones

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