This project was a test in creating two characters that would oppose one another; good Vs. bad, benevolent Vs. malevolent, and so on. 

I ran through a few ideas and the one I finalised on was this: the deer and the dragon.

 

My original concept was the idea of an ancient dragon that brought water to a parched land and asked only for a return of half of the harvest produced in the area. The creatures living there grew greedy and attempted to kill the dragon so he could not take away the water and they would not have to share their food The dragon, angered, would give the creatures one more chance, however, his conditions now were that he required the sacrifice of one young maiden each year.

Many centuries later, the land is left with no young maidens to send and they instead send a young buck with his antlers sawn off under the pretence of a doe, in the hopes he could kill the dragon before it would realise and come to destroy them all.

 

 

My concept for the deer was a fairly lanky, non-threatening appearance. I wanted a body shape that could easily be mistaken for male or female depending on whether the horns were showing or not.

My concept for the dragon was a mix between eastern mythology and western mythology. Eastern myths often have dragons as spirits of water, and their body shape reflects something serpentine and flowing which I wanted to show in his design. The western influence comes in the form of the amount of limbs he has, as well as the deviantion from the typical eastern 'lionhead' designs and the inclusion of wings (even if they are almost vestigial).

When I played around with their colour palettes, I had a few things in mind. For the dragon I wanted to represent water and air, despite him being the 'bad' character so I picked lighter, brighter colours for him. For the deer, I wanted him to be more like wood and earth, so I picked a darker set of colours. 

This also served to switch the traditional expectation of 'good' colours and 'bad' colours, as techincally within the story they come from, the deer's kin began as 'bad' and the dragon as 'good'.

The deer maquette turned out very much how I envisioned it would, with a simple shape between male and female, but without lacking detail which is, in part, thanks to my choice of Super Sculpey instead of heavy plasticine.