This weekend I have been sketching ideas for some outrageous gargoyles. After a meeting with Lisa and Joel, it became apparent that i need to consider my work more from an illustrators point of view, as well as for my costume brief. After showing my sketchbooks, I was advised to steer away from safe orignal gargoyle designs and really come up with something not seen before and special. I was shown the work of Sanna Annouka, who illustrations are simplified into their basic shapes, creating an image that was uniform and decorate. After seeing these, I wasn't convinced that these illustrations would really help me with my sketching. I understood the concept of simplifying my sketches and focussing on line rather than adding lots of tone, however I found Saana's illustrations a little too sterile and not the sort of decorative illustration i am interested in. Instead I have been looking at images of real animals and thinking of ways to exaggerate their key features to create some truly grotesque looking gargoyle creatures.

Aside from these sketches, I have been doing some test models for textures that I will use on the final gargoyle sculptures. I started playing with blue polystyrene and pva and sand, which create a great stone-like texture. It will be unlikely that i will use the polystyrene for my final sculpture due the fact i like to sculpt rather than carve, and the material itself is very expensive. I have been looking at experimenting with making shapes out of cardboard and the results surprised me, as the final result turned out to be very strong and durable when covered in the pva sand mix.

See Sanna's blog here: http://www.sanna-annukka.com/home/