Design #02 (other designs will be uploaded in next few days)

The Face of Another (他人の顔, Tanin no kao) // Movie Synopsis

The story follows an engineer, Okuyama, whose face is severely burnt in an unspecified work-related accident. He is given a new face in the form of a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality. He was warned  that the mask may change his behavior and personality so much that he will cease to be the same person that he was.

Keyword: monsters act like people, people act like monsters.

Anyways the 2 important keywords are monsters and people. Hence, I want to create a “creature” in half monster and half human form. This can be interpreted as a human in monster’s form or monster in human’s form. This interpretation best suits the movie quote which goes “There are monsters who act like people and people who act like monsters.” (this is quite similar to the famous quote ‘the glass is half empty or half full?’) It depends on the one’s perspective.

Hence, the composition I eventually produced is made up of upper body parts- human and the lower body parts-octopus (which considered ‘monster’ to me due to its weird/eerie looking shape). And the legs of the octopus, each holding a normal daily things such as pots, teacups, garden pails, flowers, kitchen utensils and etc. This is to show the human side of the creature. I also insert a kitchen area as the background of the whole composition to gives off the idea that the monster is disguised in human form, doing normal daily stuffs just like any other human beings. (I thought it should not have been mattered whether the character in my design is a female, as the quote was directed to his girlfriend, which noticed the changes in his personality.)

Initially, there was a kitchen in the background. But I discarded it as it seems out of place. Below are my discarded/rejected ideas:

Anyways after consultation, I realised that I should change the character in my design to a male instead of a female, as the main character in the movie is male. Also, the octopus seems too ‘octopus-ish’ and my intention was for it to look like a monster. Hence, I create another draft for design #02 as shown below;

Since the main character in the movie disfigured his face due to a burn, I intentionally placed a skull instead of a normal human’s head. And the main character’s personality began to distort and change, creating a monster inside him whenever he wears the “life-mask”. Hence to represent his monster soul that trapped within himself, I inserted the eerie-looking tentacles that pours out from the hollow eyes.

The rest part of the design such as the suit and hat, is just to further reiterate that it is a guy, based on the movie itself.