odd one out
Odd one out
DOCUMENTARY 15 minutes
SYNOPSIS
A short documentary about Adam Johansen, co-owner and head designer of the OSCAR and BAFTA award winning prosthetics company Odd Studio & his journey to success.
Portfolio
Production Illustrations + Sculptures
This sculpture was used for the opening image of the documentary. In the context of Adam Johansen’s story, this sculpture was to be portrayed as though a teen Adam had sculpted it.
Leading up to this, I did some research and studied photographs of Adam’s sculptures and work for Odd Studio. I focused on his stylistic choices and how realistic his creatures look. I especially focused on one particular sculpture which he had made specifically for the doco. My claw sculpture needed to emulate Adam’s style and ability but it also still needed to look as though it had been sculpted by someone who isn’t a professional just yet.
Hence, I wanted there to still be some flaws whilst showing this artist’s potential. I kept that in mind and crafted this piece as though I was approaching it from the mind of someone trialling different sculpting techniques.
I embodied Adam’s realistic style to add emphasis to his journey, as at this stage in the documentary, he was still honing his craft. I decided to experiment with varying techniques whilst I played around with scale and skin-like textures.
These are images of different stages when creating the sculpture, and above is a still from the final cut of the documentary’s opening scene.
Next up are my illustrations which were also used as set pieces. This particular scene was set in an art class. I had to create various pieces which looked as though a bunch of different art students had sketched the same stimulus.
With a focus on form, I embodied different approaches and styles to portray human anatomy. In my own artmaking practice, I’ve always been focused on realism rather than abstraction, however my job here was to create different art styles as though different artists were drawing each piece. All up there were about five different pieces. This was a fun challenge as I got to experiment with different ways I wouldn’t normally sketch.
On the left is Adam’s version of the stimulus, whereas on the right are two completely different approaches and styles.
It was also a lot of fun to choose a different art style for each actor. Featured here is actor Ryan Scott with his character’s art piece, which was also drawn from a different angle, dependent on where his character was sitting in the class. Below are final stills of this scene in the documentary. If you look closely you can see me on the left as one of the art students too!
I also got to create various pieces which were again to look as though different artists had drawn them. This meant experimenting with different materials as well as techniques. Some I used watercolours for, other oil pastels, and some charcoal. I’m also ambidextrous, but usually use my right hand to draw. But for this, I even used my left hand for this artwork of the gorilla, just to switch it up a bit so the style looked a bit more rough and expressive. Using so many techniques was how I best tried to create a visible difference between different age brackets, styles and ability levels.
One of my favourite parts of this project was attempting to draw from the perspective of an artist at different stages of their life.
My job here was to create artworks from different stages of Adam’s life. I did a vast series of artworks that ranged from a young child’s amateur level all the way through to a late teenager who is almost a professional. Here you can see different artworks which eventually adorned teen Adam’s room. The works vary from cartoonish figures to more detailed studies of anatomy, form and realism.
I know with my own artmaking, not only have I grown as an artist over the years but a lot of the things I draw or paint have always been inspired by where I’m at in my personal life. This was something I also wanted to be reflected in Adam’s art journey.
After speaking with the director Celine Hernandez, we decided upon having different focuses for Adam’s different ages. For example, when drawing the skeletons in the leftmost image, I imagined Adam would’ve drawn this at about age 12, and at this stage I imagined his art style reflecting an interest in shapes and characters. Then when illustrating the rightmost artwork, I imagined Adam drawing this at around age 16 or 17, so I demonstrated more detailed shading and crosshatching techniques that an artist would try to master at this stage of their ability. I wanted to have both the subject matter and the techniques used to mature and adequately show artistic progression throughout the years.
I had many discussions with Celine about what actually went into Adam’s journey as an artist. We delved into Adam’s practice over the years and his fascination with certain characters and animals, which would go on to later shape his successful career and creating his own creatures.
The final piece I worked on for this project was this sketch of a creature Adam had especially created and sculpted for the documentary.
First, Adam created the sculpture and then Celine asked me to draw it. The illustration needed to look as though it teen Adam had come up with the original concept art, and this would be inspiration for Adam to later create this character after becoming successful in his career.
This was definitely an enjoyable challenge, as usually concept art is what is initially created. It was such an honour to draw this piece that Adam had designed. I really wanted this particular artwork to showcase a teenaged Adam’s artistic understanding of tone and depth, which could later correlate to his professional understanding of form in a more three-dimensional capacity. Since it was also a stand out featured piece, I used markers and charcoal rather than just graphite so that it would have a slight salience when filmed.
Below are images of Adam’s sculpture and my artwork of it, and then Finn Middleton, the actor who played teenaged Adam, acting as though he drew it and stuck it on his wall.
