I see this as storyboarding. I struggle with writing and coming up with descriptions for creating Original Characters, but I see it in my mind, so I find it easier to make something for the character, like a room. I like working in 3D because it's easier to mess about with and change.
What I'm making is a diorama: a model room for a character that I'm designing who's a teenage boy. It's themed around an AI zombie apocalypse, but it's not all blue and sci-fi, it's more grungy and run-down. The boy was training to be an engineer at college. Now the AI he was creating is taking over the boy's body, to try and control him, so his body is becoming more and more electronic, while he is trying to resist.
The room is the teenage boy's bedroom that is slowly becoming more electronic as the AI takes control. You see the withering parts of a child being destroyed. It's a bit like when a child is all happy and nice, and then someone negative starts influencing them for the worst... Except here the bad influence is a robot.
I'm making the room out of cardboard, old wires and different types of junk including old christmas decorations, a pill box, old circuit boards and broken bits of electronics. I like reimagining what different objects could be in a miniature world.
I'm not yet sure how this story will end, but I think the boy and the AI might both go down. I am a firm believer in stories that have unhappy endings. Too many stories have happy endings, which is nice for the viewer, but I like to make my audience feel uncomfortable!
My story has changed a lot along the way, and I've enjoyed being able to adapt my ideas, by trial and error. Normally at home I don't let myself change my idea so many times, whereas at LUL I give myself more permission to experiment. At some point it was going to be a 2000s 'scene' room, then a nostalgic version of my room as a child, then an abandoned place where teens hang out. Then it was going to be a horror house with a spooky back story, and then it became this, after I came up with the character idea at home.
This project has been partly inspired by a trip we went on with LUL ages ago to an artist's studio who makes horror props and models, that he mostly made from old junk. Crafts don't have to be expensive - all I've used is old broken junk, a cardboard box and hot glue!
Doing this project I've learned more about my creative process. My mind is constantly running, and most of my ideas came just from listening to all the creative thoughts that flow through my head all the time and acting on them straight away.
I've also learned that I can stay focused on a project over a long period of time, where normally I wouldn't have the patience. I think the routine has helped.
Mentor Susannah says "I was impressed with how changing her idea didn't stop E in her process. Having lots of ideas in lots of different directions hasn't slowed E down: the same box just kept changing and evolving along with her imagination"
Skills learned: Artistic, Communication, Confidence, Leadership, Practical
