PROJECT: PEOPLE OF GU-HUAAN

Before talking about what this project entails, I’d like to evoke how a series of circumstances brought it to life.

In March 2013, I decided to break from my lonely wolf digital artist habit which consists of interacting mostly with other artist homologue via my computer device. And for that, I looked for local aspiring concept artists/ illustrators alike me with whom I could sketch, exchange ideas, challenge and motivate each other with the sole purpose to make our art skills greater. And, after several weeks of searching for potential interest in web base art community and email exchanges, I was leading a group of 5 motivated artists. We all agreed that between our meet ups, we should work on common assignments which would be art directed by one of us on a rota basis.

The assignment “People of Gu-Huann” was my idea and under my art direction. However, it was in fact more than a study task that I was offering but purely and simply a vision on the manner we could not only develop our skill set, but also ensure that the flow of creativity would keep flowing. I understand that the key for a unique and exceptional design isn't only about how good are your art skills but equally, how much knowledge you've got on your subject matter. Throwing a random assignment, fort weekly, for study sake may have its results for a short while. However, the idea here was to create an assignment with a fictional narrative which would relate to the previous assignment(s) – A story. This would have for consequences to force us to invent or reinvent objects, life, situations, places, pushing our imagination further by opening infinite possibilities into an imaginary world which only “us” had the power to model through our designs.

Another very positive aspect of it, was the great source of knowledge we would gain from it because building a fantasy world still needs to relate to the understanding of the real world we're living in and therefore our general knowledge on the subject matter will highly benefit from it, as much in design than in the creation of the brief. 

Sadly, the group study dissolved too early and my vision for those assignments didn’t see the light amongst us. However I’ve been continuing working on it and the following posts are some of the work I made so far which is connected to that project, including the supporting docs I created at the time and submitted to the group, making the assignment more purposeful and interactive.