Battle of the Gods, Character Research

I have recently been going to all the museums I can to influence my character designs.

This follows on really nicely from my Natural History Museum drawings, which I really enjoyed doing. So I stuck with the same method of working that I took away from that, which is drawing quickly with graphite, if it doesn't look good draw something else, you can always go back there and draw it later.

The natural history museum was where I picked back up the 1000 drawings quest, as it's my favourite place in London to go to (I've taken a few people here like: "check this place out it's the coolest" and I asked a girl out by saying do you want to go here and draw with me (she said no, but it's ok, I walk around pretty fast when I'm alone so I get more done) and that's because the building's so amazing to look at whilst your inside, all this fantastic architecture housing what's left of monsters from a bygone era, well it just really awes me.

All of the animal based stuff I tried to draw from the Natural History museum, but then I tried a few others out at the suggestion of my friends. The Horniman was a good one for animals and peculiar looking things that live in the sea (good reference for alien based characters), and the Huntarian was good for a few animals but mostly aliens. I called in at Pollock's Toy museum to get some reference for the Bard & co characters. I went to the British museum to get an idea of ancient cultures that would influence my "Ancient Aliens" themed teams and also old school weapons, but then to get a clearer grasp on armours and weapons I went to the Wallace Collection.

I'm so glad I study in London, drawing from photographs just isn't the same as being able to see all these amazing treasures before your eyes. I looked at some stuff on the internet as well, but it was only ever to check odd obscure things rather than what my actual creatures really looked like.

The other good thing about drawing in museums is meeting people, especially being in London, I've chatted to loads of people from outside the country, who tell me about how things are where they're from, which is especially interesting if they are an art student themselves because it's always interesting to compare how learning is handled, sometimes I've been able to try doing stuff that they've been told to do back home and it's been a good technique to know.