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Zombie Critters
leaf
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Part of my statement which I'm still working on.
This is for my 3rd year sculpture course, and is our second project into the course for a gallery showing, which I'm pretty excited about. We're pretty much left to our own devices, and it's all self motivation for what we make and why. http://www.calicocritters.com/ (actual calico critters website, if you're not familiar with the toys)
Continuation on what I want to work into the rest of my statement: I want to expand on the personal landscape thing, and then go on about my own comments and feelings towards consumer culture, as this was the other part of my idea for making this. What I feel is the inherent sickness of trying to instill brand loyalty/recignition onto children as young as these toys are meant for. Which is around 4 year old girls and up. These things are fairly pricey for being small felt covered plastic figures, and I would guess this would have been roughly $40-60 or so, if I hadn't been given throw-away display table extras.
It's not so much a comment on the product in particular, just the culture around that sort of thing. I also want to articulate myself so it's not just HURR CAPITALISM BAD. So I'm still working on the rest of the statement.
om nom nom (probably my favourite scene I came up with for this, there's something extra disturbing to me about the little guy munching on the torn up leg)
There's going to be a red light inside that house for a hellish glow, also to illuminate the torso that's torn apart on the bed inside, and the thrown around furniture inside.
Another thing I decided to add after/while taking these photos were cut-up plastic bits to the windows as broken glass, to give the impression there was a struggle of sorts leading up to the mess inside the house. I also wanted a way to draw people in to look through the windows, rather than just lifting the roof off (which they will still be able to do I suppose). But I thought adding a few extra touches plus lighting inside the house might (hopefully) invite people to peer inside to see why it's glowing red.
So, thoughts or suggestions on refining the execution or concept?
Anyways I wasn't sure if another thread is worthwhile, but I notice this forum is very centered around 2d art, and I thought some 3d might be interesting. Don't get me wrong, 2d is great, my primary thing is drawing and my newly acquired love for painting (badly). As a side note, you can see the very base of my friends wooden sculpture. It's this thin, rickety roman dirge looking sort of thing, which is motorised with flailing wooden arms which make drawings. Watching the thing sway and creak away eerily with the oddly staggered hits of its pencil on the paper is just amazing. I'll ask if he's cool with pictures or videos being taken, because it is definately worth seeing I think.
Edit: Added the red light because that was bothering me so much. The red bleeds out of the houses cracks a bit more irl, but this is about as close to the actual colour as I could manage. Holding still at 1/15th f5 iso1600 was tough![:\](https://forums.penny-arcade.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
To show what I mean with the broken glass.
Yeah I kept trying to lighten up the ground to make it show better, but I was afraid it would all start to look bright and overly happy, and I thought the ground had a serious potential for distracting away from the zombies and trees. Same reason I kept the house sullen and dark, I wanted to keep (or instill) a sort of sullen mood, and make the light inside the house the point which draws you in to look closely through the windows. Variety in shades I can see though...which I guess is entirely different from light, haha. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind for my next project.
These are my dreams, these are my fantasies. Everything I make is an expansion on my own internal fantasy landscape.
This small 2x2' square happens to be about the thought and my imaginings which came to me while working in the toy store. What would happen if these childrens toys would begin to rise from the grave? Possessed by some unholy craft, with an insatiable ghoulish need to feed? What type of depraved scene of cute devastation would we be privy to?
This small 2x2' square happens to be about the thought and my imaginings which came to me while working in the toy store. What would happen if these childrens toys would begin to rise from the grave? Possessed by some unholy craft, with an insatiable ghoulish need to feed? What type of depraved scene of cute devastation would we be privy to?
This is for my 3rd year sculpture course, and is our second project into the course for a gallery showing, which I'm pretty excited about. We're pretty much left to our own devices, and it's all self motivation for what we make and why. http://www.calicocritters.com/ (actual calico critters website, if you're not familiar with the toys)
Continuation on what I want to work into the rest of my statement: I want to expand on the personal landscape thing, and then go on about my own comments and feelings towards consumer culture, as this was the other part of my idea for making this. What I feel is the inherent sickness of trying to instill brand loyalty/recignition onto children as young as these toys are meant for. Which is around 4 year old girls and up. These things are fairly pricey for being small felt covered plastic figures, and I would guess this would have been roughly $40-60 or so, if I hadn't been given throw-away display table extras.
It's not so much a comment on the product in particular, just the culture around that sort of thing. I also want to articulate myself so it's not just HURR CAPITALISM BAD. So I'm still working on the rest of the statement.
om nom nom (probably my favourite scene I came up with for this, there's something extra disturbing to me about the little guy munching on the torn up leg)
There's going to be a red light inside that house for a hellish glow, also to illuminate the torso that's torn apart on the bed inside, and the thrown around furniture inside.
Another thing I decided to add after/while taking these photos were cut-up plastic bits to the windows as broken glass, to give the impression there was a struggle of sorts leading up to the mess inside the house. I also wanted a way to draw people in to look through the windows, rather than just lifting the roof off (which they will still be able to do I suppose). But I thought adding a few extra touches plus lighting inside the house might (hopefully) invite people to peer inside to see why it's glowing red.
So, thoughts or suggestions on refining the execution or concept?
Anyways I wasn't sure if another thread is worthwhile, but I notice this forum is very centered around 2d art, and I thought some 3d might be interesting. Don't get me wrong, 2d is great, my primary thing is drawing and my newly acquired love for painting (badly). As a side note, you can see the very base of my friends wooden sculpture. It's this thin, rickety roman dirge looking sort of thing, which is motorised with flailing wooden arms which make drawings. Watching the thing sway and creak away eerily with the oddly staggered hits of its pencil on the paper is just amazing. I'll ask if he's cool with pictures or videos being taken, because it is definately worth seeing I think.
Edit: Added the red light because that was bothering me so much. The red bleeds out of the houses cracks a bit more irl, but this is about as close to the actual colour as I could manage. Holding still at 1/15th f5 iso1600 was tough
To show what I mean with the broken glass.
Yeah I kept trying to lighten up the ground to make it show better, but I was afraid it would all start to look bright and overly happy, and I thought the ground had a serious potential for distracting away from the zombies and trees. Same reason I kept the house sullen and dark, I wanted to keep (or instill) a sort of sullen mood, and make the light inside the house the point which draws you in to look closely through the windows. Variety in shades I can see though...which I guess is entirely different from light, haha. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind for my next project.
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I agree with bombs, though.
I also want to see more bunnies, even.
I know! The crazy thing is I had never heard of them until this project was well underway. And whats weirder is I already have my idea/plan for my next project, which features german tanks inside a case. Only my idea calls for them to be fighting giant squid in the sky. But aside from that, the aesthetic I'm going for in that one is eerily similar.
Thought I was being clever and had a new idea, heh. I forgot that in the art world, everything is ripped off from everything else, intentional or not.
The slide seems really out of place, mostly because it's pristine and undamaged when everything else is dirty or torn apart or twisty. I think if you mess with it a little bit to give it that element instead of just putting it on there, it could add more to the scene.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Nice work though.
sorry i meant "pre made" but was typing on my iphone.
the house is my fav part...you made that? props!
Wish you good luck my friend
Story time!
So, let's break down exactly what is here. It's a diorama, of course, with Calico Critters, a pre-school oriented line of toys for little girls (or odd little boys; personally at that age I enjoyed tea parties). These toys are hyper-cute, non-threatening wholesome fun, sold at quite a high sticker price. In the diorama, these have been altered; their cleanliness is gone, replaced with smudges of dirt, worn patches of fur, gashes, and holes which are leaking their stuffing out. The suggestion I'm trying to make is that their innocent nature is gone, and their injuries are not just from an external source but are being inflicted on one another. Zombies are generally seen as putrid, ghoulish, unnatural, and plague-like, being carriers of sickness and disease. So, in my piece we have a combination of these two elements.
So in essence I'm altering a pre-made object, and trying to introduce a twist onto its subtext, and imply that I am making a comment onto the nature of these objects. I hope that makes sense, as that is part of the implication I'm trying to make with this, beyond just "haha cute zombies!" Although the hilarity factor of this is quite important to me as well, but that is just part of what I hope to illicit as a response.
I know it would help hugely if I had titled this piece, which I am still trying to come up with something that is properly descriptive without just spilling the beans, as it were.
I'm not trying to be a dick and degrade your work, I am simply pointing out a problem your audience may have when viewing it. The 'zombie' is a bit of a cliche, and may open up a whole lot of new problems.
Also, zombies are a fictional being. Your topic is fairly serious. While the two can be used simultaneously, the viewer may have trouble connecting a fairly serious topic with that of a fictional, sometimes humorously used creature.
Solutions for this problem? Placing the bunnies in real life situations. Domestic disturbances, murder, rape, incest, armed robbery, etc etc. I think your idea is sound, but it may have just needed to been pushed a bit further.
Again, not trying to be a dick. I understand it is probably too late for you to change anything, but maybe what I said can be of some use for you in the future.
My next project doesn't have much reasoning behind it beyond that I just want to make something visually interesting, but I'll consider that if I end up making something similar again someday.
I like the stuffing coming out all over the place.
But then that means no blood.
My only complaint.