I began this project by researching the main story points for my given brief, Grendel from Beowulf. At first I printed out a synopsis, highlighting the key roles of Grendel in the Beowulf film from 2007. This would give me a starting point to explore him as a character. For example, I found that he was a strong, malformed, troll-like creature who hid away in a cave, attacking King Hrothgar's mead hall due to his hypersensitive hearing. He is also the son of a water demon and is half human. I wanted to play around with the idea of redesigning him. Following this, I watched the film and took some more screenshots for visual reference, as well as compiling some image boards of Grendel taken from other artists' interpretations.
Many of them simply depicted Grendel as a large strong sharp-toothed beast, and had little reference to his other characteristics like his hypersensitive hearing. Therefore, I researched more around the fantasy genre, looking at characters from Lord of The Rings, The Witcher, Skyrim, and World of Warcraft. This helped to broaden my view of grotesque creatures used in fantasy films and games.
I noted the key features of many of these beings, such as: Distorted and patchy flesh, exposed bone and spines, odd proportions, thin hair, teeth and claws, odd posture and almost slightly animalistic. I was then able to categorise Grendel and followed this by looking at descriptions of him in text, from the Beowulf poem (AD 700-1000) and the 1971 book. All of this initial research allowed me to pinpoint the 'rules', letting me piece together characteristics and features that would suit him as a fearsome antagonist.
Many of them simply depicted Grendel as a large strong sharp-toothed beast, and had little reference to his other characteristics like his hypersensitive hearing. Therefore, I researched more around the fantasy genre, looking at characters from Lord of The Rings, The Witcher, Skyrim, and World of Warcraft. This helped to broaden my view of grotesque creatures used in fantasy films and games.
I noted the key features of many of these beings, such as: Distorted and patchy flesh, exposed bone and spines, odd proportions, thin hair, teeth and claws, odd posture and almost slightly animalistic. I was then able to categorise Grendel and followed this by looking at descriptions of him in text, from the Beowulf poem (AD 700-1000) and the 1971 book. All of this initial research allowed me to pinpoint the 'rules', letting me piece together characteristics and features that would suit him as a fearsome antagonist.
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