Peter Chung Analysis

Peter Chung Analysis

 Peter Chung did a second show after Aeon Flux based on Alexander the Great called Reign the Conqueror. I haven't seen it yet but I plan on doing a breakdown of the show once I get the chance to watch it but in the meantime I'm going to make some notes about his design process of characters that I really enjoy. 

Looking at the faces for these model sheets of Aeon Flux if we broke down the shapes into simple forms you can see that the faces have a very triangular form to them. The Women's faces here in he above sample are more pointed than trevors in the chin area and trevor contrasts this with a rounded chin that also has more detail in this area both on the chin and the skin surrounding the mouth. 

The hair shapes are often broken down into simple shapes and they help define the shapes of the face into interesting shapes of their own. All of them have a funnel type feel, the size from chin to the top of the head feels very dramatic and gives the characters a very worried, sick, or melancholy vibe about them. The eyes on Trevor are large much like his mouth but not as wide the stress lines around his temples and eyes emphasis his mood and state of mind and the rest of the drawing is left mostly as an empty space to bounce off of.  

When We look at Alexander's design in the first image though we see a totally different approach to design. The character is much more proportional in his face and this along with the unexaggerated hair line and simple hair shapes feels more realistic and more iconic. Definitely more heroic than really any of the Aeon Flux characters. You can tell how he stands his role in the story and the rest of the design is a interesting mix of psychedelic and super hero. 

After listening to the commentary on Aeon Flux I know that he always tries to go against the common tropes and here we can see this sci fi psychedelic version of Alexander is just that, very unique. We get this wide open space and a line going across the figure with a symmetrical costume design that zig zags down his arms, each shoulder holding an eye. Which is interesting to think not having seen the show, does this eye mean the costume is sentient? 

This inspires all sorts of thoughts, what would a character look like with fully sentient armor? What if it was heavy armor? Would the protagonist be able to control it or would it control him? Characters like venom come to mind. The rest of the design is concentrated in the top half of the figure to the waist and arms and then we get big stretches of open shapes in the chest and legs. We also see that the bottom half of the character is decorated with designs that feel triangular in form as they point down to the feet. 

On the back we see how the zig zag pattern on the arms originated from the bigger form that connects to his back and shoulders We see similar shapes of triangles pointing down to the base of his spin which contrasts to a similar shape on the front that goes down his midsection.