changing roles

I talked to my group and I told them that I think that too many of us was spending time on character so I wanted to try something else like the gathering aspect of the game.

I like painting plants and flowers anyway and felt like I would find this part of the game interesting therefore would get more out of it.
I researched what kind of plants are on Haida Gwaii which i mostly a variety of berries and mushrooms but they also ate seaweed,  crabs, fish and small mammals.
I would like to think that the Haida tribe got given a journal by the British which has all the information about everything the player can gather.
here I painted strawberries, mushrooms, a crab, salmon-berries
i tried to show the beauty of all the object just like how the Haida tribe saw nature.

salmon-berries

http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/edu/ViewLoitLo.do;jsessionid=16B695CCF4033AFFE5841657BB7759E5?method=preview&lang=EN&id=9794
http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_nwc3.html
http://namethatplant.wordpress.com/category/west-coast-native-plants/
http://www.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/eflora/FungiofHaidaGwaii.html

Wolf tribe

The native Indians respected the wolves greatly as they had many similar traits. Both live and hunt in packs with a ranking system and both choose a mate for life. They feel that they are so connected to the wolves that they called them there brothers.

I want to make the wolf tribe in between wolf and man
so i will do research on wolfs and human poses to merge them to see what happens, i will also research werewolf in different media.

http://www.spiritsofthewestcoast.com/symbol/the_wolf/2/
http://wildwisconsinwolves.omeka.net/natives
http://animals.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/mammals/wolf/

Wolf tribe leader

Even though I like the pose and the upper half of the character but I'm not happy with the bottom half of the character though if i get chance I would love to come back to this and re-do this.

Wolf tribe ideas

Haida research: native language

http://www.native-languages.org/haida_culture.html

I also looked at the Haida language especially animal words and colours so I would be able to integrated the native language into the games.

Going back to research

I decided to go back and research more about the Haida tribe so even though the game has fantasy element i would feel like our game had been rooted from cultural and historical ideas

i continued to be inspired by the masks not just because of the god references but the artwork.

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/haida/havwa01e.shtml
- this link explained to me the reputation of the Haida tribe as bloody warrior who battled in canoes giving the idea of sea battles
http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/haida/hapmc01e.shtml - as well as emphasising more on the gods and animals they worshiped.

I even had my own idea for the narrative being about a Haida tribe's man going on a quest and in the process finding that the British are coming to destroy them and their culture. In the process of this the main character either becomes a spirit or gets guided by the spirits to return to his tribe, build up the tribe and the army ready to fight the final battle.
I even went as far as looking up if the Haida tribe believed in the dead to make my story believable.
http://www.native-languages.org/rulers-dead.htm

with beliefs shows that the dead would watch over them my story will tie in well if the group like my idea

My wolves and werewolves

wolves and werewolves

I firstly went and looked at werewolves from different TV shows and movies to get ideas about  how to form the body and what the tribes appearance would be.

i looked at a variety of shows and movies including: 

• Being human (US and UK)
•  An american werewolf in london 
• wolfblood
• teen wolf
• hemlock grove
  
  
  
  
  

as well as looking at wolf photos.

Native American Indians

I wanted to get an idea of how the characters would look so I browsed hairstyles of the native Americans to get an idea of their identity.
link-https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=native+american+hairstyles&rlz=1C1NIKB_enGB507GB507&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=-uBfUprFBeqw7Abhy4GoBg&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=705&dpr=1

but these are some of the images i picked out

so I tried to recreate them in my own artwork

Even though I didn't finish all the heads i liked experimenting with hairstyles to add personality to the character straight away.  

ideas from the Sainsburys art centre

after looking around the Sainsbury's art center today and when looking round I took inspiration from  different objects such as the galleon, staffs from different countries such as Africa.
I like the idea of the main character would travel to different countries and collect artifacts.

Our game design idea

our team got together with all our information we had gathered and we came up with the idea of our game.
Keeping many historical elements like culture and location but have a supernatural element in the game as if we were seeing the world through the their eyes.

To make the game more supernatural each tribe will worship one god more than the others so much so that they start to transition into the spirit they believe in.
Our character will come from the Haida who respects the killer whale the most as the live near the sea and respect them greatly, giving them a sea theme to their tribe.

The enemy must be a tribe that overthrows the balance of nature through gluttony and pride. We also thought that bringing the Wendigo into this tribe will give them a scare factor towards the audience.

We also were committed to the idea at emphasizing how they relied on nature and that it was wrong to unbalance it.
we set ourselves a tribe each to take care of Joe took the tree tribe, I took the wolf tribe, Dan is doing the wendigo tribe and Alex was doing the Haida tribe.

Haida Gods

When looking at the Haida tribe I first went into looking at the masks themselves and what they represented.
http://www.spiritsofthewestcoast.com/category/native_american_masks/ -this website showed a variety of masks to represent different spirits so it would be easy to identify the character each person was playing in festivals and stories. some are quite simple mask portraying only one animal or spirit but then other masks are able to open up to revel a secondary mask. http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/haida/haama01e.shtml- also another website explaining the representations of masks

The raven is one of the Haida's main god they worship, who's personality may seem good at times but underneath he sent have mischievous tendencies to get what he wants. the raven was said have created lakes and rivers as well as create man creating divisions between animals, humans and plants. http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/firstnations/haida.html

Other gods I found interesting was the coyote another mischievous god who was very nosy, so much so that he had one eye in the sky so he can keep a watch on everyone and the wendego a creature never completely seen who apparently can make the air turn cold and has a hunger for human flesh which an never be satisfied.-http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/native_american-mythology.php

these websites gave me insight into their culture, stories and language which will flesh out our ideas of location and give a better impression about how they lived. http://www.native-languages.org/haida-legends.html , https://mrneely.wikispaces.com/Haida+Tribe

when I looked online at the Sainsburys art center to get an idea of the place before visiting the center. there was a variety of objects on the website. i looked at interesting animal pieces such as this llama from Peru and the hippo from Egypt

BA4 artifact

BA4 project: to make a game design document

For this project we have to work in teams of three or four to show teamwork as well as being able to stand out individually.
We went to the Sainsburys art center for inspiration for our game concept to use as a starting point. We found many intriguing artifacts but the object that we was most interested in was a mask made by the Haida tribe from North america.
The Haida tribe are a mixture of bloody warriors and nature lovers as well as having a rich culture full of spirits.