Reading into Myths

Water

Fire

Ground

Air

Bently, general editor P. (1996). The Hutchinson Dictionary of World Myth (Helicon Arts and Music). United Kingdon: Helicon in association with Duncan Baird. various pages

Researching Myths and Deities

I decided to initially research all the different deities so that I could make an informed decision about which ones I might want to utilise to inform my design. The Hutchinson Dictionary of World Myth had all the deities listed from different cultures, so I included all the relevant examples to the elements as part of my research.

From this research I will see if I can find any of these deities represented in art so that their visual representations might inform my designs. I will see if I can find more detailed decriptions of them, or even see if some have appeared in films (as Thor obviously has).

This other information I came accross I found quite useful, such as including horns to represent fruits and grains, maybe for the ground deity. There was also information of the use of animal representation in myth, which might lead me to include an animlaistic element to one of my deities.

Obviously whilst written decsriptions are informative to my designs, I wanted to try and also find pictoral references of as many deities as possible. This way, I can understand how the better represent elements of the deity in my designs.

(All following images)

Ions, V. (1974) The Worlds Mythology in Colour. Tha Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd: Hong Kong

Goodenough, S. (1997) Egyptian Mythology. Tiger Books: Uniter Kingdom

Greek

Goodenough, S. (1997) Egyptian Mythology. Tiger Books: Uniter Kingdom

Egyptian

The Near East

Egypt

Persia

Greece

Chinese

Scandanavia

Rome

North American India

Japanese

15th March

From my research so far, I find the aesthetics of Japanese, Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythology the most appealing. I think they each have elements of design that would translate well into a viable prosthetic makeup for film. I also like the Persian pantheon, but there is much less information about it and in relation to the Egyptians they have very similar design elements.

I know need to narrow down all the figures and representations of the relevant dieties from each pantheon and then decide which element to pair up with which pantheon.

Below are the deities i've found so far with their matching element and pantheon.

Japanese

Water: Ryujin (Dragon King of the Sea), Watatsumi-no-kami (god of the sea)

Ground:

Air: Fujin (God of winds), Raiden (thunder),

Fire: Kagutsuchi, Amaterasu (sun goddess),

Egyptian

Water: Hapi (Nile God)

Ground: Geb (god of the earth,

Air: Shu (god of the air), Hather (sky goddess/cow), Nut (sky goddess, daughter of Shu),

Fire: (hawk as a symbol of the rising sun), Ra (creator sun god),

Greek

Water: naiads (nympths of watercourses), Poseidon, Eurynome (dea nymth), Cocytus (river of wailing), Clymene (sea nymph), Galateia (a nereid (sea nymph), Metis (an Oceanid, sea nymph), Thetis (a nereid, sea nymph), Proteus ( a sea god), Pontos (embodyment of the sea), Scylla and Charybdis (pair of female sea monsters), Amphrittrite (sea nymph, wife of Poseiden)

Ground: Pan (woodland deity), Demeter (goddess of harvest/fruits/spring and grain.), Eurydice (dryad - tree nymph), Gaia (the earth,

Air: Aither (the bright upper air, elemental deity), Eos (the goddess of the dawn), Aeolus (the keeper of the winds), Calais and Zetes (winged heroes),

Fire: Hephaistos (forge and fire), Helios (sun god),

Roman

Water: Father Tiber (god of the river), Nereus (sea-god), Nereids (nymphs, daughters of Nereus, Neptune (god of the sea),

Air:

Fire: Vulcan (god of fire, volcanoes and thunderbolts),

Ground: Ceres (goddess of fertility and crops),

All the examples I found give the names and often some backstory of the deities relatives, but give almost no information regarding the deities appearance. This is something I will have to research further after I narrow down my initial decision making as to which deitied I actually want to pursue.

Some of the writings were accompanied by images of the deities, which could be very informative and helpful from a design point of view. I also need to consider whether I will interpret the design or keep is as true to character as possible.

I think these images of North American/India sculptures give great inspiration for colour and shape design. While they don't give an obvious outline for an immediate character, there are obvious colour schemes that could be incoporated into a design to represent this culture.

Similarly, these mosaic images of Roman myths have distinctive qualities that could also be used to interpret the design of a character. Its not just about the characters features and shape, but using tones like the ones in this mosaic could also help translate the character as Roman.