Thursday 31 December 2015

Sinbad: Legend of the seven seas - Character Design Analysis

As a child, I loved Dreamworks' own adaptation of the story of Sinbad. When I found the character design concepts on Living Lines' Blogger page I was instantly enthralled, especially by the concepts of the Goddess of Discord, Eris.


Carter Goodrich created an early initial concept for Eris which portrayed her of being, fearsome and extremely dark. Her long dark dress, unflattering, aids this dark aspect. She is unsexualised, making her undesirable and therefore a very fearsome being to contend with.


Seth Engstrom however contradicts Goodrich in introducing a sexual element to Eris, which was later decided to be more effective. This concept art reflects her as being an enchantress, the seductive yet also very evil smile, the lacking of clothes and her robes casting out of her like organic tentacles, showing her ability to exercise control and manipulate what ever she wants, the darkness of the robes connotes that this manipulation is of evil intention, which with the title "goddess of discord" we know to be true.


As you can see in the final artwork, the sexual element to Eris is profound, taken from Engstroms initial art. Her waist is considerably small whilst her breasts remain above average cup size, with dark heavy hair, she comes across as a seductress, especially with the piercing eyes. Her fingers are longer than average and claw-like, yet again exposing this evil element but her longer fingers could represent her ability to take hold of a situation strongly and manipulate it to her own evil accord. Considering the movement of Eris, Engstrom's organic concepts are echoed again as she moves in a ghost-like fashion;


Some body parts distort with her movement in a swiping fashion, which is very organic. This exposes the fact she isn't part of this earth, she is otherworldly, beyond otherworldly because she is a goddess, she controls the worlds. But also I feel this gives her a siren like quality;


In Greek mythology Sirens; "were dangerous yet beautiful creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island." It is highly likely that her appearance was modelled on this myth of the Sirens, considering the story of Sinbad orientates around the sea and its natural, organic elements, even if she is a "goddess of discord" not a goddess of the sea. Sirens usually have this organic appearance/movement because of their relationship with the sea too.


If we compare Goodrich's initial art to the artwork of the Siren, we seen a profound similarity, especially with the organic nature.


Her hair takes on the flowing element that Engstrom also introduced, which enhances her darkness whilst also adding to her sexualisation as flowing, loose hair has connotations of being 'wild' and overtly more sexual.





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