The Jekyll and Hyde effect

When thinking of a chimera, I always think of two separate composite parts. Hence why the idea of superheroes appeal to me in trying to abstractly define a chimera. The way they always have this dual personality, one being their plain, normal (perhaps a bit dull) selves and the other being this fantastical creature with super human abilities and powers. The same goes for the idea of superheroes and villains, Good vs. Evil, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde etc. All would be nothing interesting without their balancing counterpart.

Illustrator Assignment for Digital Media

This is the end product of the first Adobe Illustrator brief that we were assigned, I created it using the Blob Brush tool and coloured it by using varying gradients. In hindsight I should have used a much smaller stroke for the outline but overall it's not too bad for a first attempt.

Collage is key

Collage work and the idea of a chimera are intrinsically linked and I was lucky enough to stumble upon the works of a great artist that uses the medium to create amazing pieces. The artist's name is Lou Beach and in fact many of his collage pieces could easily be defined as chimeras themselves. My personal favourite work of his is his series of animal heads photoshopped onto human bodies, very surrealistic. The other images are just of my own musings of how to make my own photomontage.

Homages to ...

In trying to stay away from the literal meaning of chimera, I went to several mixed media blogs to salvage what I could from them in terms of relevant and interesting research. In doing so, I found all these various pictures of shrines made from different found objects and decorated with illustrations. The diverse range of materials and sizes (some of these 'shrines' are made from matchboxes believe it or not)relate directly to the brief because of the nature of their random construction.  I especially like the 'Man's Ruin' one because of the use of the tacky plastic dolls and dice, it has a real rockabilly feel.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction

Whilst researching the various connotations of the word 'Chimera', I came across this picture of a mouse being used in medical research to grow a replacement human ear. I thought I would post it purely because it's not something I would have ever thought related to chimeras; but it manages to put a positive spin on them, when generally they would be considered 'bad' or deformed.

First thing I thought of when I saw the word 'Chimera'

Even though we were warned to stay away from the blatant meaning of the word 'Chimera', I couldn't help but think of nothing other than a series of Yoshitaka Amano's illustrative works, not surprisingly also named 'Chimera'. I love the 'monsterous' feel to the illustrations, primarily done in muted tones of black, brown, white and beige.

First horrible attempt at a 'Chimera in a bag'

These 'chimeras' made out of the random crap lurking within my bag are all from our first class working on this brief. I was going for fluidity and billowing shapes. 

A list of the random things in my bag that I used:

Can of coke

Pritt stick

Granny scarf

Wooly'snood'

2 books

Aloe Vera vaseline

Steel ruler

Ancient battered charcoal pack

Pencils/pens

Bourjois lip stain(don't ask me what a lip stain is)

Keys

Lip gloss

USB stick

One of a million notebooks I have on the go at the moment

Brick(some people call it a phone)

More individual photos: