# IP1 JOURNAL #
This journal documents both my technical progress with Z brush, Maya and Unity but equally my research and development into areas that really excite me.

3rd October/ Week 1:
Technical progress:

This week I have been working through a Maya project whereby I modelled, rendered and animated a mini rocket. The modelling involved me morphing primitive 3D polygons into the desired shape with the help of Mayas modelling tools. The rendering was done on the Arnold renderer and involved using various types of lighting to create a realistic outcome. Finally the animation was fairly simple but allowed for me to understand how it all worked together.

R&D:

This week I created a mind map of ideas that interested me ***(insert mind map), as shown below. The overall arching concept that really interested me was the divine feminine, and the power of the feminine. This led me into researching into the cultures that worship female deities: Ancient Greece & Egypt, Cuban Santeria religion (a branch of the Yoruba Nigerian religion) & Hinduism. I also researched/ watched music videos which depict the powerful sensual female soma, mainly in the funk/soul/hip hop genre.

10th October// Week 2:

Technical progress:

This week I started the Maya 2023 essentials training LinkedIn course ( as recommended by Anthony from CG), and spent a long time making sure to thoroughly complete all the exercises. This course, although slightly tedious, was extremely useful in terms of holistically understanding how to use Maya; from modelling, rendering to animating.

R&D:

This week I started gathering many images/references for my divine feminine concept. I began researching into Ancient Minoan wall art, which is quite different from the typical Ancient Greek style that most people know. I found the Ancient Minoan artwork to resemble Ancient Egyptian, especially in the anatomy of the female and male figures: broad shoulders, narrow hips, more pronounced buttocks and generally more muscular. I am particularly interested in this Minoan period of Ancient Greek art/sculptures as it is more stylised and has not been celebrated enough! ( of course in my opinion).

Following on from the Minoan style art, I began to research more into Ancient Egyptian queens and female prolific figures such as Nefertiti and Ankhesenamun.I definitely want to delve deeper into the history of these two Egyptian queens. I was also particularly interested in the whitewashing of Ancient Egyptians. In many films, such as “the mummy” and Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra , the Ancient Egyptians are played by white European actors who are wearing darker face paint/foundation and black curly wigs. Due to this, not only is Black African history wiped off the map, but the west has essentially tried to claim ancient Egypt as its own history.
I found a very interesting computer generated image of what the ancient Egyptians could have looked like based on an ancient Egyptian painting and statue. Both the female and male had dark melanated skin and Nubian features. This is something I would love to make sure I depict accurately when drawing upon any references to an ancient Egyptian queen in a 3d model.

Note to self: Michael Jackson music video “remember the time” depicts model Iman playing an Egyptian queen and Freddie Merphy as the Pharaoh. Make sure to rewatch this video as the dance routine and visuals are particularly relevant to my R&D.

I also gathered images from and researched more into the Cuban Santeria religion, which is a branch/ derivative of the Nigerian Yoruba religion. This religion has both Yoruba and Christian roots. This religion is very interesting as it marries both polytheistic and monotheistic beliefs into one as they believe in female dieties such as “Yemaya”, the goddess of the sea, but also in the Virgin Mary & Christ. Not only are the depictions of the female dieties inspiring, but even more so the higher priestesses, who are generally shown in white clothing, a silk turban, smoking a large cigar. They perform many rituals, and they are called “mambos”. They also perform voodoo and believe exorcisms, trances/ rituals. These are concepts I definitely want to research into even more.

I did some research into the female Hindu dieties, however this research was cut slightly short as it did not inspire me as much as the above mentioned. I may flesh out this topic later on during the year.

Finally, I rewatched some of my favourite music videos, eg. Kanye west-flashing lights, fade, Beyonce- partition, tecehnotronic- pump up the jam, Michael Jackson- pretty young thing. “Pump up the jam” an 80s dance music video is particularly inspiring, not only are the visuals crazy/flueroscent/ intense but also the dancing is very energetic. The movement and aesthetic vibe of the videos is something I want to try to incorporate in any animation work I may do.

With all this research, I created a large moodpboard of all these reference pictures on pure ref.

17th October// Week 3:

Technical progress:

This week I planned to start modelling a female human face. I am really interested in learning how to animate/rig an entire human female body with the goal of eventually creating a realistic dancing figure.I went about about this in two ways: first in Maya and then in Z brush.

I began modelling the human face in Maya using polygon modelling and following a female human face reference (following a flipped normals tutorial). After hours of struggling, I only managed to model the profile of the model and I really struggled with extruding the polygons correctly without creating a lop sided model. Although this modelling was tedious and did not product an end result that I was happy with, I am now more confident with Maya hot keys, and just navigation in Maya.

R&D:

In terms of my research and development, I played around with the AI image generators using the concepts that I had been researching into last week. I used DALLE 2, starrynightai, nightcafe , and I was really interested in the results.
Not only were these tools very interesting for character generation but equally for environment generation. I was particularly interested in the ancient Babylonian/egyptian and greek environments. The results were very atmospheric and serve as a unique starting point for environment design. I also decided to generate mermaid/misty/tropical/wet environments ( inspired by singer Sade music video “ordinary love’).
The AI generator had an interesting response to my prompts of “high priestess”, “trance”, “ritual” and produced some very trippy images.
Although some people on the course had their doubts about AI images and described them mainly as a gimmick, I found it really exciting, as a way to visualise all my ideas into one image. It worked almost like magic! Although not all the images were exciting, a lot of the images served as a starting point of some really unique/interesting characters and environments.

24th October // Week 4:

Technical progress:

After giving up with Maya to model my face, I attended Ashli’s class and managed to pick up Z brush fairly quickly. After having learnt Maya, Z brush seemed a lot less daunting. I first created a human female skull, always checking my reference skull picture (front and side), to ensure my model was accurate. I became familiar with the tools “move”, “clay build up”, “trim dynamic” and “smooth”. I also learnt about “dyna mesh” and how to increase my subdivisions to help with the seamlessness of the model.

After having created the skull in z brush and acquiring a basic understanding of the female head, I attempted my first female face, from scratch, following a YouTube tutorial without using a reference, I did find this more challenging than the skull, especially the mouth and nose region, and ensuring my face looked feminine. I found that my model became more masculine the more I fiddled around with it.

To work on…
I want to work on improving the female face and next time I may use a reference of someone I know as their face may be more familiar to me. I also am visiting an archeological museum in Athens this week and may use some of the sculptures as references. The stylised Ancient Greek sculptures have always been very interesting to me.

R&D:

This week I am going to see my family in Athens, and I am hoping to visit the archeological museum. I will be taking photos of many sculptures/statues but also wall paintings. As I will be away for the week with no access to z brush, I will use this week to focus more on R&D and developing my portfolio.

31st October // week 5:

After visiting the archeological museum in athens, and attending Adams class on the importance of silhouettes, I decided to study the silhouettes of the statues/ minoan wall paintings that inspired me. Although the theme of my project is focused on the feminine, I was really interested in the male "kouros" statues, which depict a young adolescent male boy. I was more focused on the stiff/rigid and powerful stance of these statues. I also explored the "korai" statues which depict the young females, however, due to modesty, these figures are always depicted wearing a long dress and therefore this did not show their nude silhouette very well.

I really liked the long curly hair of the kouros models and may keep this as a feature of my final models.



I even did a quick rendering on z brush of the kouros torso and hair, as shown below

I also did a study on the body types featured on the minoan wall paintings; the exaggerated large thigh and buttocks muscles, paired with the tiny waist and long curly hair. Again, although these were all male figures, I was more focused on the style of the drawing.


7th nov // week 6:

After having explored the Ancient greek statues & paintings, i felt as though I had not seen enough of the female figure, so I looked towards some Egyptian art. The Egyptians had many powerful female figures and show through their depiction of women ( broad shoulders, same height as men and their stance) that women were not seen as submissive.

I looked at the statue of Pharaoh Menkaure (Mycerinus) and his Queen, shown below


This statue really interested me as the Pharoah seems to be almost supported by his queen, as if she is holding him up. The queen is only marginally shorter than the pharoah, and her shoulders are very similar in width to her male conuterpart. I responded to this with my own micro storyboard, of a possible alternate reality of the queen being sick and tired of holding up her man. *****PUT DRAWING OF PHAROAH AND WFIE

I also looked into the bust of nefertiti, which is the one of the most copied peice of ancient egyptian art, due to its immortal capture of female beauty.


I am drawn to her sleek profile, almond shaped eyes and soft but pronounced facial bone structure. Another element of the statue that was a point of focus was the large crown she wears, which oozes regal nature.

According to the Harvard Gazette, although Nefertiti is often shown as a "powerful and indepedant" female symbol, infact her crown may suggest otherwise. She appears to wear the crown of the Goddess Hathor ( goddess of sexuality, fertility and rebirth), and therefore "elevates her status as a sec goddess, bale to manifest the regenerative power of sexual rejuvination". This alternative story of nefertiti inspired me to explore the sexual nature of the ancient egyptian women.


In order to explore more sensually prolific Ancient Egyptian women, I look toward modern pop culture movies " the mummy", mainly because these were childhood favourites that really shaped the way I viewed female heroins/villains. Although the actresses used were not egyptian and slightly whitewashed, the plot, stances and costumes from the movies serve as a interesting starting point for silhouette work

The fight scene between nefertiti ( rachel weisz) and Ankhesenamun ( patricia velasquez), shows the tension between the daughter and the supposedly "evil" stepmother, a storyline which has been repeatedly recycled throughout history. I found the armour and powerful poses very fascinating as they portray female sensuality and strength. Although the premise of the dance/fight, is for the entertainment of the father/husband, which in itself could be percieved as demeaning, I was more focused on the dance scene itself.

14th Nov/ week 7:

After having studied the silhouettes and historical connotations of the power Ancient Egyptain feminine figure, I was inspired to reserach more into the moving feminine silhouette and progressed towards the study of the female body in music videos.

The first music video I went to was beyonces "partition" music video, which tells the story of a bored housewife who seeks the attention of her husband and fanticizes different ways to seduce him. There were many scenes that fascinated me, particularly where she gets on stage and performs a strip tease/ burlesque type dance.

I captured my favourite silhouettes from the video and combined them into one board.

Not only did the gestures of the dance inspire me, but equally the lighting and textures used. The projection mappping of the leopard print onto Beyonces body almost had an animalistic and primitve feel to it.

I also studied the music video "Fade" by kanye west, starring dancer Teyana taylor. This music video and audio is very powerful, and combines both techno/deep house and hip hop in a beautiful way. The video itself features teyana taylor in an old school type gym, where she wears a sports bra and thong, performing an enchanting freestyle.

I responded to this video by creating my own silhouettes of the most dynamic poses from the video.

Towards the end of the video, teyana taylor and her husband ( in real life), are shown to be amidst a herd of sheep, a choice of the director Kanye west, and teyana appears to have prosthetics on her face to make her into a cat.

"And as for the cat face, Blaze likens the feline motif to Taylor herself. "I think the vision behind that was how amazing Teyana is, and how she's been on the rise, and how she's working, and you are now seeing her blossom into this fierce lioness, this fierce cat," she said. "She has a beautiful daughter. You know, the lioness always protects her baby," she added. "I think it really is about her coming into her fierceness."

i recreated this pose with my own colour pallete as I found it very powerful, and I wanted to celebrate the feline nature of teyana taylor and many powerful sexual women.


hypnotic 1989 house/hip hop house hypnotic video with changing of backgrounds - trance like

album cover art work with female heroins













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