Pans Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro is also a really big influence for me because it's characters are so similar to my "Leshy" character. The character I'm referring to is the faun.
His obvious features; The horns, goat like ears and pale complexion are incredibly similar to the Leshy's characteristics.

I've spent the majority of my time looking at artists such as Jordu Schell, who is a world renowned sculpture and model maker with in the film industry. I really love his style, he's a rare talent because he is part of a handful of people that are asked to make physical models for film production; it's mostly all done in 3D software. I've done an in depth analysis of his work in my book. What really jumps out at me in his work are the eyes of the models! they're so lifelike it's scary. 

He uses a very diverse range of materials including ones that I've never had the opportunity to use at college. Materials such as silicone and latex for the skin and texture! If I'm to take anything away from his influence it would be the expression he captures in the eyes of his characters

In addition to the previous research I also looked at Henry Selick's Coraline. I studied the model making techniques and styles of the stop motion in the previous project, I still find the character and set design really inspiring now. The things that really jump out at me are the elongated limbs of the characters, it gives them an elegant and aesthetic feel. Also the sets are incredibly detailed, I was surprised to discover that these sets we're in fact tiny, knowing this now I can really appreciate the amount of time and skill that's gone in to creating them. I hope that my model and set will reflect a level of skill that can be appreciated by the viewer.

On the way

I spent the day researching into the Mythology behind the Leshy, I discovered that it comes from Slavic myth. Tomorrow I'm going to explore it in more detail. I've also built a basic picture of the Leshy's characteristics and form. It's very nature based; it's beard is made from grass and vines, it's pale with golden eyes and has hooves and horns. I'm going to us this information and build onto it using my own ideas. At the moment I'd like this model to be scary and sinister/Gothic, mainly because it's features would really compliment that sort of character

Leshy interpretation

I've also researched into examples of characters in stop motion/animation films such as Madame Tutli-Putli, Corpse bride and The nightmare before Christmas! So much life and spirit has been captured in the characters in these films, I'm hoping they will inspire and influence me to make my model as alive as possible; I'm going to achieve this through the use of expression, posture and costume.

Madame Tutli-Putli

Corpse Bride

I think the main things I need to consider at the moment is the scale of my model and also where it's going to be set, what environment? how big will that be?
I'm going to continue to focus on the research side of this project for the time being. Next week I'll move on to my primary research where I'll go out and photograph relevant references which will aid me during the design stage.
I'm really relieved that I've settled on a character! I can now get stuck in with this project! 

Pinterest is really good for research! I'm finding so many great examples of modelmaking

What kind of character??

Now that I know I'm going to specialize in character and set design I need to decide on an idea. I don't have much time on this project, it goes on for 6 weeks and it's already the Wednesday of the first week! YIKES! *puts skates on*.
To save me the time of making a character profile I'm going to choose a creature that already exists in myth. I want this character the be obscure, I don't want it to already exist in visual media. Characters such as Medusa and a the Minotaur have been done to death. I managed to find exactly was looking for by googling "cool mythological monsters" and I got some really weird ones!

Vodníci, Czech Republic/Slovakia
 "Have you ever felt something strange at the bottom of a pond? If you’re not sure what it was, we suggest the Vodníci, a breed of underwater ghouls who dress like vagrants and proudly store human souls in cups. That’s right — after you’ve been drowned by a Vodník, your soul is eternally doomed to his cup, the creature’s one prized possession. When a Vodník isn’t busy killing swimmers, he will often spend his time leisurely smoking tobacco, loitering, and playing cards at the water’s edge. Sounds like a fun guy to us!"

I like the idea of this character, there's a lot of opportunity to get really gothic and dark with the designs and model creation. Also he's not very well known (in this part of the world anyway) I could really make it unique!

I also really like this guy!
Leshy, Eastern Europe
"A Leshy usually appears as a tall man, but he is able to change his size from that of a blade of grass to a very tall tree. He has hair and a beard of living grass and vines, and is sometimes depicted with a tail, hooves, and horns. He has pale white skin that contrasts with his bright green eyes"

In regard to materials and experimentation this charterer really jumps out! 

At the moment I'm definitely drawn to the Leshy creature. I'll need to do in depth research into this creature and the culture/history behind it if I'm to understand it fully. I'll also need to research into model making/set design itself so I can get a good idea of how this character will be created.

Decision time

Okay, after juggling loads of different idea's for FMP (Final Major Project) I decided to settle with a simple character design/set design project. I found it really difficult to decide because I'm unsure of my specialist area, do I want to do character design? concept design? illustration? Animation? hence I came to the conclusion to create something that embodies all of these areas. However after completing a short animation/stop motion in the last project I decided I wasn't at all keen on the process of capturing the motion of the characters, but I thoroughly enjoyed making the models and sets! I'm confident that this is where my main strength lies.
My Sets in the last in the last project-
They consisted of a boat made of card then painted with acrylic and a coral reef interpretation made out of hot air gunned polystyrene! (I'm not sure what happened with the picture layout?) I also made tentacles out of plasticine, you can see the pulling at the boat and protruding out of the reef.