"That Dragon, Cancer" Statue
high dynamic range
I want to make a statue for That Dragon, Cancer as fan art.
[ame="
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3k6FViYKtY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3k6FViYKtY[/ame]
I'm going to try to keep this succinct.
I want to ask any Polycounters out there to help me with this, since I don't have the proper bearings for how I can express visually what the game is about.
I don't know what it means to be a parent. I don't have experential knowledge on that, so I am very open to understanding and listening to what ya'll parents have to say.
This will require some vulnerability, but I trust you guys.
// What I want to express
Trying to figure out how to smash both "hope, what is means to 'love Joel'" and "suffering" into one visual cohesive statue.
Most of my initial sketches of what I think the statue generally looks like is more expressive of a parent trying his best to assuage the suffering of his child. Nothing that's obvously hopeful. I want to stray away from that, but the emotion is clear from those gesture poses.
To me, I keep expressing the "dragon" as this black substance dragging the kid away, almost like a tar that can't be cleaned up. An ever present thorn in the side. That's all I immediately thought of as an effective means of keeping it amorphous, but visually clear.
What do you guys think is working? What suggestions do ya'll have? Any critiques?
[ame="
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3k6FViYKtY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3k6FViYKtY[/ame]I'm going to try to keep this succinct.
I want to ask any Polycounters out there to help me with this, since I don't have the proper bearings for how I can express visually what the game is about.
I don't know what it means to be a parent. I don't have experential knowledge on that, so I am very open to understanding and listening to what ya'll parents have to say.
This will require some vulnerability, but I trust you guys.
// What I want to express
Trying to figure out how to smash both "hope, what is means to 'love Joel'" and "suffering" into one visual cohesive statue.
Most of my initial sketches of what I think the statue generally looks like is more expressive of a parent trying his best to assuage the suffering of his child. Nothing that's obvously hopeful. I want to stray away from that, but the emotion is clear from those gesture poses.
To me, I keep expressing the "dragon" as this black substance dragging the kid away, almost like a tar that can't be cleaned up. An ever present thorn in the side. That's all I immediately thought of as an effective means of keeping it amorphous, but visually clear.
What do you guys think is working? What suggestions do ya'll have? Any critiques?
Replies
Going to try to knock out more sketches. These are a little too preliminary.
Looking into emotional Renaissance statues for reference.
I saw that note you wrote about oil trails and the dragging/tugging you wanted to portray, and I thought that it would be interesting if you would consider including Futurist influences to portray it. Look at 'Unique Forms of Continuity in Space' by Umberto Boccioni. Futurist sculptures in a nutshell aims to visualize force, speed and sound to create dynamism.
Without going into too much detail, the Futurist movement glorifies conflict (hence, their portrayal of invisible clashing forces), war, and embraces death with open arms. Though this contrasts with your portrayal of a mellow scene, in irony it represents how we often describe a cancer patient's experience as an ongoing battle, fight and war.
I recommend you look into it even if you decide not to use it. Personally I find the black gooey substance is too literal of an interpretation for cancer. Keeping to forms is most likely your best bet for statues and Futurist sculptures is one pathway that you can explore to represent it.
Obviously I'm a big Futurist fan here
More sketches before I slept last night
Yeah. Its an abstract expression of unseen forces like sound and speed. All the molecules clashing etc. If you've seen videos of motion sculptures (e.g a dancer leaves abstract trails as she dances, eventually creating a sculpture), you can trace its roots to works like 'Unique Forms of Continuity in Space'.