I visited Horniman museum in London for my primary research. The museum has a great collection of taxidermy and as “tainted” characters in the book turn into beasts, comprising of various beings, I thought it would be a good place to start. I didn’t feel like sticking photographs from the museum in my sketchbook would be of much use, so I developed them as much as possible. I took patterns, silhouettes and textures and combined them to make interesting pages.

I visited Windsor Great Park to photograph the landscape and work more on characters’ environment, but soon realised that I was more interested in nature textures, such as leaves, grass, bark, water ripples, stones, etc.

It occurred to me, that because Unstable is really dangerous, those travelling or living there will want inconspicuous clothing, that is almost a camouflage, so for that reason I created these textile pieces based on my research.

To begin the project, I picked out some quotes from the book and illustrated them. I concentrated on descriptions of the Unstable, as I wanted to set the atmosphere and show where most of the events take place.

Final Major Project

For the Final Major Project I decided to design a costume for one of my favourite books, Havenstar by Glenda Noramly.

Essentially, it is a fantasy story: the world is split into eight stabs of land, suitable for human survival – “The Eight Stabilities are islands of order, surrounded by disfiguring, corrupting, lethal Chaos”. The Unstable part of the world contains areas in which humans will change form and become “tainted”. They will no longer resemble human form, but a combination of various beings. What interested me in this idea, is the complete freedom of imagination. There are so many possibilities to research not only the characters, but the environment in which they live in and the effect it has on them. 

My challenge would be to create an original costume, suitable for a fully developed character. For the time given, I would like to not only create one item of costume, i.e. a robe, but the full outfit. The whole idea of “creature-creation” was partly influenced by the first project, Inglorious Beasties where our main goal was to design a fabric print, so I don’t believe that it was developed extensively. Perhaps I will use the book and the characters as a vehicle on which I will present the idea of Inglorious Beasties in an entirely different light to the previous project.

Repulsive and Seductive outcome.

As the character I’m designing for has a rather nasty, selfish and vindictive personality, I came up with an idea that is similar to “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - Gray’s rotten personality is reflected on the painting, whereas Bettina’s will be on the dress. The dress will not only be her “shroud” (as it is made from a piano cover) but also burned, frayed, distressed and covered in maggots to imply her putrid soul.

Below is the concept for the costume. I thought that the costume has not only support the character, but be in the context of the story - the book is set in 20’s, so I included some iconic 20’s style features, such as thin straps and drop waist.

These are some of the pages from my sketchbook. I used quotes from the book to inspire the visual research and development.

My new project is called Repulsive and Seductive; this is the statement of intent:

“Requiem for a Mezzo” by Carola Dunn. Character: Bettina Abernathy

I will be working towards creating a costume for one of the characters in the mentioned book and I will research and develop ideas that will support my final outcome.

Essentially, the book is a murder mystery, set in the 20’s. Having read the book, I picked out quotes that reference character’s personality, key events and details of the murder (Bettina Abernathy is an opera singer that is murdered). I will begin working from these, illustrating interesting ideas and branching out to other areas, i.e. furniture. When Bettina is murdered on stage, her body is covered with a piano cover, which is a concept with a large potential.

Quality photoshoot of the “Inglorious Beasties” outcome.