Task 2 - Mind Map & Research

For this moodboard I tried to find and explore examples of weapons and tools that have been fused with other weapons or tools to give the items more versatility and strength.

When researching this topic, I found a lot of examples of weapons that had guns or other firearms incorporated into their designs, such as pistol axes and gun shields. I found these designs unique as they provided a method of ranged combat to a close-ranged weapon or defense, as well as also giving the option for a much more deadly attack by firing the gun in a close-ranged battle. I think I could use this combination to create a weapon design that could take a pre-existing melee weapon and give it more versatility in a long-range battle.

I also decided to look at some weapons that had been combined with vehicles, being rideable machines that can be used to cause damage and destruction, such as fighter jets and battleships. I thought these designs could be useful to look into because they fuse mobility, offense and defense into one object, allowing for lots of experimentation and varying functionality in different circumstances, such as tanks that sacrifice fast movement for intense firepower and sturdy defense. This could be interesting to experiment with if I make a weapon design that incorporates a vehicle as I can decide what parts of the design are more essential for its function and test different results by altering the strength of the different parts and assessing how I feel about the design.

Overall, I think creating a combination weapon would be an interesting choice to explore for this project as I will be able to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of adding and removing pieces from different weapons, affecting things like weight, power and precision, which I could definitely explore quite broadly due to the large amount of differentiation that can be found across all types of weapon. I also think this idea definitely fits into the theme of 'Fusion' as I will be taking two or more weapons and fusing their unique strengths to create a single new weapon.

In this moodboard I explored different fantasy and mythological creatures that in some form fused two or more species into one creature.

Some of the designs I found most interesting when making this moodboard were the creatures that took one animals body and applied multiple heads onto it, such as hydras, chimeras, Cerberus and Medusa. I find these designs to be very otherworldly due to there being no naturally existing animals on Earth with more than 1 head, making them some of the most threatening and fantastical in my opinion. Furthermore, a design incorporating multiple heads would be very easy to experiment with when generating ideas, simply taking an animal's body and putting other animals heads onto it to find what works and what I could develop further. It would also be very convenient to photobash due to the simplicity of the method, allowing me to get quick visuals for how different designs could look.

Something else I noticed when making this moodboard was a common addition of wings to existing or already fused animals. Wings were present in many examples, including chimeras, pegasuses, manticores, griffins and harpies, making these creatures appear more threatening and mobile, being able to maneuver easily on both land and in air, but also has the ability to make them appear demonic or angelic depending on how the wings are drawn, such as the manticore's spiked, red wings giving it a very devilish aspect in contrast to the pegasus's feathered, white wings, making it look pure and holy. This could be something I can incorporate into a creature design to easily display the creature's tone and whether or not it is a demonic threat or a more docile animal, as well as being a simple way to incorporate more detail and elements into my design. It would also be a very good topic to research, due to the variation which exists in the wings of different species of real birds giving me lots of options to find and analyse.

I think that creating a fusion between creatures to create a new mythological animal could be a very good path to follow for this project as with so many different kinds of animal, I'll have nearly limitless options for what I could create, being able to pick and choose different animals and different parts of animals that I think make an interesting and unique design. I also think it fits very well into the theme of 'Fusion' as I am taking multiple creatures and fusing them into one, using their different elements and aspects to create something entirely new.

This moodboard showcases multiple examples I found of characters in media that consist of two or more characters being fused into one. I placed the characters that fused into these designs at a smaller size around their fusions.

One thing I found in these designs which I thought was interesting was the common theme of fused characters appearing slightly mutated or inhuman. This can be seen in multiple of these examples, such as the fusions from Steven Universe with multiple eyes and conjoined arms, as well as some more deformed instances, such as the zombies from The Last of Us, losing most of their facial features and taking a more staggered stance which shows how the parasitic fungus controlling them has deteriorated their bodies. I will probably take these design choices into consideration if I create some kind of fused character design as it makes it very clear this character has been infected by or merged with something and will help connect the design to the theme of fusion more visibly.

Something else that I liked from these examples was the different interpretations for how character elements could be preserved or altered into the new forms. Some of the designs drew heavily from only one character, like Dark Bowser at the bottom who is mostly identical to regular Bowser, save for a change in colour palette as well as altered eyes and hair. On the other hand, characters like Dusk Mane and Dawn Wings Necrozma in the top left incorporate one character's design into the other more visibly, taking one's sharp, dark body and rearranging it to appear more like armour. Another interesting example is the Amalgamates from Undertale who's designs are much more literal fusions as some are simply comprised of edited versions of sprites from other creatures. This shows that to fuse two designs, I have the freedom to experiment with keeping the design closer to one of the components, or trying to merge their characteristics into a more all-encompassing form which would give me some good opportunities when finding what does and doesn't work well when making character designs.

I quite like the idea of coming up with a fused character design as I will get to experiment with features that aren't explored much in standard human designs, like extra limbs and larger, more superhuman forms. However, it would be difficult to create a design for a fused character without either first coming up with at least two original character designs or using pre-existing character designs, which could negatively impact my project in terms of time management or originality and creativity.

In this moodboard, I collected images that displayed environments of fused genres, such as cyberpunk, medieval fantasy and steampunk.

The fusion between fantasy and medieval was one of the examples that stuck out to me in this moodboard due to how it blends reality and fiction. For instance, in the image on the left with the wizard tower on the hill, a sailboat can be seen, contrasting the fantastical magic of the wizard tower with more primitive human technology. If I choose to make a fusion environment, I think I should try to incorporate two very visible elements of each component of the fusion in order to make the theme much more readable. I will also be able to explore notable elements or props from the themes to find ideas that could make an environment more interesting or unique.

Something else I liked about these examples was how lots of the cyberpunk and steampunk examples were taken from a low point of view looking upwards. This really helps to make the surrounding buildings and towers appear much taller as well as feeling more immersive due to the height of the camera being about eye-level. If I make an environment based on an area often inhabited by lots of people like a city I will probably try and replicate this perspective to exaggerate the height and powerful presence of the surrounding structures to make the image pop and stand out more.

Overall, I think an environment with a fusion theme could be quite a visually interesting path to go down, however I'm not sure how much I would be able to experiment with and create enough unique ideas to base an entire project around one.