Chinese and Japanese art styles

Ok , me and Ash have been looking at a lot of Western Art work. We have taken into account that you are not supposed to replicate the original Monkey style, but we have decided to use traditional Western art as a focus.

As I may of already said we've decided to create an animated traditional book, with paintings and figures that kind of movie with the music. We decided to go with this because of the tranquil feel of the music itself. We hope to create pieces with inks, gouache and maybe pencil. Then animate them in after effects or flash.

Over the past year we've gained an interest in not strictly Chinese art, but Japanese too. Though its a Chinese production, we can't really see a fault in using Japanese interests. We're just simply trying to pay homage to Western art in general. There will be an emphasis on Chinese culture itself though.

Here are a few pictures that have inspired, we think the subtle colours and dashes of detail would look picturesque animated in a smooth fashion.


Here's a piece created by Nigesha (Chinese) , I like the subtle attention to detail and spacial awareness of this piece. This is the kind of landscape we would like to use in the book. Though maybe with more colour.




This piece below is by the Japanese artist Hiroshige, who I myself have alot of admiration. Its not really reality, but yet its very graphicaly pleasing, the colours work so well together, its interesting how he's made the warter a multi with just one wash of colour by the look of it.



Now's just to get a final storyboard knocked up.

"Pigsy in space"

Pigsy in space is the second to last track in Damian Albarn's Monkey. Monkey is a theatrical musical performance that has also been turned into an album. Albarn teemed up with a team of Chinese musicians and actors to make a recreation of the classic Chinese tale "Journey to the West". Journey to the West is a rather famous piece of Chinese literature inspiring many knew stories and is still told today. The story follows a Monkey born in a an egg under the sea, he's in a search for immortality, he meets many com-padre's on the way who help him in his search. Pigsy is one of his allies, a slightly lazy character who during the song is distracted by a magical spell as the monkey enters his final duel.

We have been proposed with making a music video for this song, we are thinking about creating piece which pays homage to the Chinese culture and tradition. The brief states not to try and recreate Jami Hewett's current artwork, for the production. The song has a rather relaxing feel to it, quite mellow and sometimes maybe quite sad. We would like to convey these emotions in the music video itself.

Pigsy in Space

To create a musc video for the Monkey track Pigsy in space. Monkey is a knew theatrical production created by Damian Albarn, it follows the story of a Monkey warrior in search of immortality. Pigsy is one of his companions. The strory is an adaptation from an ancient classic called "Journey to the west" by Wú Chéng'ēn, ca. (1505–1580). This bief is part of a competition .

One of my early ideas is that me and my partner Ash Bowles, create a kind of myhtical book that slowly animates itself as time goes on. We are going to start by looking at traditonal Chinese art styles, we're thinking about making it a collaberation of styles , from pencils, to inks to crayons.

Below a picture from an early copy of Journey to the west