ADAPTED TEXT - DANTES INFERNO [ RESEARCH + DEVELOPMENT WORK]

Because I've been a little preoccupied with finishing all my animations in time for asessment the past few weeks, I havn't been regularly updating my blog. As a result Im going to have to back-track a bit to upload all the source research and sketches i did for the project.

DANTE'S INFERNO

The epic poem written by legendary italian poet Dante Alighieri was first introduced to me by a friend of mine who knows I have always had a huge fascination with the history of Christianity. I've always known of the poem, but never really knew much about it. Let alone read it. He recommended i give it a try, because it is one of the most defining and influencal pieces of religous literature of our time. He figured it would be right up my alley.
Even though it is considered fiction, Dantes visions and descriptions of the nine rings of hell were so dark and real that many people of the time believed it to be fact. It helped define our vision and notion of the Christian Hell.
I downloaded the entire text, but because of the old linguistic style ( and the fact that its an italian translation ) I found it much to dificult to read, so i read a condensed version in contemporary language. I became more and more fascinated by Dante's dark and thaught provoking world.
Soon after the we recieved the adapted text brief. I immediately jumped at the oppertunity to do my very own adaptation of this epic piece. The timing couldn't have been better. Since I want to be a concept artist when after I graduate, a project about character design and concept art was really apealling to me. I have always been interested in Narrative and how it relates to characters, so the narrative tutorials with Keith Tutt were a great exprerience.
I knew it was going to be ahuge undertakeing to adapt such a big piece of literature, and it was at this point that i started to do research and dig up on existing adaptations and animations based on Dantes inferno.


DANTES INFERNO: AN ANIMATED EPIC



This was the first animation I came across. Its called DANTE'S INFERNO: AN ANIMATED EPIC and was directed by Mike Disa and written by Brandon Auman. The plot revolves around a story loosly based on the original text. However in this version Dante is a Knight who faught in the Crusades, and did some terrible things and now finds himself trapped in the inferno. I decided to buy it and watch it for reference to how they imagined and represented Dante Alighieris visions. The result was a visually striking movie.
Each circle was animated by a different animation team, resulting in different art style for each circle ranging from manga to more traditional animation. Some of the world's leading animation studios contributed to it ( including the team behind ghost in the shell, one of my all time animations ).





The animation took a very dark and bloody approach, and the different art styles really got me thinking about doing something similar. I also really liked they took Dante, who was only a poet and turned him into a sythe weilding anti-hero. It used a lot of artistic liscencing to great effect.

TRAILER


I learned shortly after that the animation was actually based on an up-coming video game relased by EA and developed buy Visceral Entertainment. I emmediatly watched the trailer and developer dairies for it, and eventually baught it on its relaese date.


my copies of Dantes Inferno animation and game


DANTE'S INFERNO XBOX 360/PS3




I checked out some artwork for the game, for ideas and concepts and a lot of it was really amazing. A lot of care and thaught had clearly gon into into bringing the inferno and its creatures to life. Just look at these concepts:


Gates Of Hell



Limbo



Limbo


Dante


Greed Hoarders


Virgil

This Design for Virgil Inspired the design for my version of Dante. I wanted him to look like the dante in Gustave Dore's original etchings. This picture inspired my very first concept for Dante:



The first ever rough sketch that would later develop and manifest into something much greater.

I completed the game for research purpouses, and it was so wonderfully crafted and designed, that it really did inspire me, and give me a ton of ideas for characters and environment concepts. Here is a trailer:




Me doing some primary hands-on "research" ahem... no seriously it helped a lot!


Me looking exhausted after killing Cerberus the guardian of the circle of Greed.

After Watching the animation and completeing the game i was intrigued as to how they crafted the story and designed these amazing locations and creatures. i Found a whole series of Developer Diary videos that really shed some light on the creative process and the people behind the game.

DEVELOPER DIARIES:



This developer diary really inspired me to start working on my own vision of Hell. From the very beginning I knew I wanted soemthing that wasn't quite as dark, but at the sametime i wanted it to be serious. I started to veer towards a comic-book style of drawing. The characters would deliberately be chunky, beefy and almost out of proportion.




ARTIST: WARNE BARLOWE

Wayne Barlowe is an established concept artist famed for his visions and paintings of hell. He released a book title Barlowe's Inferno full ofhis sketches and paintings. He also worked on the Dantes Inferno game and designed the circle of Lust. Here are some of his pictures:









ARTIST: GUSTAVE DORE

Gustave Dore was the first artist to illustrate the inferno, and his etchings are still most commonly ascociated with the poem.