The Last Knight of St Joan

The Last Knight of St Joan is a high fantasy worldbuilding project for a mock animated feature film. I have designed three initial characters based on my research of Renaissance costume and neo-Classical depictions of historical myths, legends and folklores. This main theme of this project is an exploration into the cultural contrast in 16th century, between Christian and Hellenist subjects in art. My protagonist for this project is a Knight from a mythical order of nuns whose patron saint is St Joan D'Arc, and whose home is a secluded monastery where she and other nuns of the order train in a militaristic skillset. The secondary character I have designed is a Satyr who lives in the woodland at the base of the mountains where the monastery is, who forms an unlikely friendship with the protagonist. The final character is a villain; an evil mermaid designed after the Greco-Roman monstress, Scylla.

To design this knight character, I looked at Renaissance armour, and how it moved past pure functionality and took on more aesthetic qualities depending on the status of the wearer. I also looked into the history of heraldry, as I wanted her design (especially her unique coat of arms) to communicate her belonging to an organisation. I felt that symbolism would be an important part of designing a paladin-type character who has strong religious and military ties.

I played with several costuming possibilities other than full armour; below is a sketch of my character wearing a chainmail hauberk, an arming doublet, and more nun-like clerical attire. To the left is an idea for her coat of arms; two fleur-de-lis (signifying 5th-born in birth order heraldry, and also a symbol common to the heraldry granted to Joan D'Arc by the French monarchy) and a shell (a common symbol signifying baptism in Christianity). Behind the symbols is a diamond shape, signifying that the bearer of the arms is female.

The next character I designed is a Satyr from classical mythology. I wanted a secondary character that would starkly contrast to my protagonist and tempt or challenge her pious religiosity with some moral greyness. I decorated his bow with grapevines as a symbol of the Greek god Dionysus, as Satyrs are often associated with this deity.

My final character is an evil mermaid or water nymph based off Calypso, the daughter of the sea god Nereus. I imagined her the ex-wife of my Satyr character, since she is a nymph, and added props such as a mirror, comb and shell makeup-compact to communicate her vanity.

The brief of my next project was to design a tavern for the world of How to Train Your Dragon. I chose a swamp theme, and wanted to design a semi-dilapidated tavern with interesting shape design to communicate its unconventional and off-beat, yet still cozy atmosphere.

I also included a keyframe painting of dragons attacking the tavern owner, and an interior shot of the tavern with some regulars warming the seats :)

The next project is a visual development project for a mock episode of Love, Death and Robots. I tasked myself with designing a fantasy steampunk version of Venice, to be populated with automaton gondelliers.