Courses

Damien Tallon

I returned to education to merge my fine art career with the of the world of Stage and Screen. I studied Production Design for Stage and Screen and am already working in the industry with 3 credits to my name, one of my most recent was on the RTE & AMC+ show Kin. I love all things cinema and art and I am delighted that now I get to combine my two loves.

A piece of concept art I did for Four Plays For Dancers by W.B Yeats, specifically for the story The Only Jealousy of Emer. Adapting this for the screen was a challenge, I eventually settled with a real time and animation mix. The concept art here is an example of the art style of the animation.

For my major project I decided to take on designing Herman Melvilles classic Moby Dick, but with a twist. I would design Moby Dick for a Stopmotion feature. Creating the world and stage designs for the stopmotion sets to be built on and inhabit was a new an exciting undertaking. This picture is that of the Nantucket street/docks where the story begins.

Designing for Moby Dick I used a mixture of softwares, the plans and models were drawn and built in SketchUp, the 3D models were imported into Twinmotion to render and finally if terrain was needed they would be finally imported into Unreal Engine 5 to create a realistic rendering of light and elements.

Captian Ahabs cabin follwed the same design and rendering process as the rest of the 3D models. The design for the cabin was to mirror that of a whales skeletal structure, the barrel shape matching the head of a sperm whale. Nets and harpoons hang on the walls the way they hang from Moby Dicks body.

The Peqoud is the Ship in Moby Dick and it is essentially the 4th main character after Ishmeal, Captain Ahab and of course Moby Dick. The body of the ship again resembles the lines of the body of a whale and it also has a large whale skull mounted to the front of the ship. This image was rendered entirely in Twinmotion, the ship built and drawn in SketchUp.

An example of the Nantucket street/dock in night time lighting with small choppy waves and a low lying fog, different signage and lighting show off the many different stores on the street.

These line drawings give an uninterupted image of the space, as well as being easily adapted to make smooth and readible construction drawings, these can be passed on to prop makers and construction crews to then create the world designed.

For my minor project I chose to redesign The Island of Dr Moreau. I decided on a stylished version of the world. In my adaption it is a more technological world than any other adaptations. It takes place on an old nuclear test island, where 90percent of the island is underground. This piece of concept art is my design and take on the compound facility of the island.

This concept art is for the lab for Dr Moreau to undertake his experiments. In my adaptation he is developing androids and sentient AI/Human hybrids. Again a stylished look with each area having its own individual colour markers.

Concept art for Dr Moreaus living quarters are an opulent and macbre space, lush reds and decadent dressings, it shows the mind of more and makes for ominous atmosphere when ever action takes place here.

A rendered 3D interpretation of the compund complex, drawn and built in SketchUp rendered in Twinmotion, the multi-story underground complex is linked via staircases that lead to the diffent levels. The top level would be a studio build and the lower levels would be green screened in using vfx.

A 3D rendering of the top floor of the compound structure, the red light mirrors that of Moreaus living quarters showing this is a place people live but a much less opulent living arrangment.

Four Plays for Dancers, Moby Dick and The Island of Dr Moreau

These 3 projects are ones I found pushed me in my design thinking and also gave me a sense of pride in the outcomes. They gave me the push to grow my skill set and expand my understanding of certain softwares that have given me an added way of designing. Blending the more traditional, pencil and paints with the more modern digital methods is something I find adds to my designs.

The Evolution of the Joker: From Supervillian to Anti-Hero

In my thesis I looked closely at 3 different iterations of the Joker character. I then compared their growth across 3 movies, Jack Nichlson in The Batman, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. I looked at how each character differed in what drives them, compared origins and systemic circumstances. Are these characters speaking to a side of the viewers that the heroes just cant reach or is it not that deep. I really enjoy the research into this subject and found the process of putting together a scholarly work very fulfiling.