For this project we had the freedom to base it on a subject of our choosing. All whilst considering the form, format, process and medium to put towards the final product. I based my project during the era of Mesopotamia and special the most well known king of its time Ashurbanipal. On the British museum website it states…

“Ashurbanipal was king of the Neo-Assyrian empire. At the time of his reign (669–c. 631 BC) it was the largest empire in the world, stretching from Cyprus in the west to Iran in the east, and at one point it even included Egypt. Its capital Nineveh (in modern-day Iraq) was the world’s largest city. This is at a time when the Greek city-states (like Athens and Sparta) were still in their infancy and Rome was just a small settlement.

Ashurbanipal wasn’t modest about being the king of the Assyrian empire – he called himself ‘king of the world’! Quite a claim, but given the size of the empire, it wasn’t far from the truth.”

What fascinated me most about this king was the lion hunts that he took part in as further stated on the British museum website…

“As part of his military training, the young crown prince was taught to drive chariots, ride cavalry horses, and develop skills such as archery. He also learnt how to hunt lions. In Assyria lion hunting was a royal ‘sport’. Although this perhaps seems cruel to modern eyes, killing lions represented the king’s ability to protect his nation against all that was wild and dangerous in the world.”

On this basis I wanted to do my project about Ashurbanipal and his relationship with these lions. As it was also thought that lions were almost god like in their symbolism towards all things chaotic and evil.

These battles between Ashurbanipal and the lions was all documented on multiple series of reliefs which is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material.

-RESEARCH-

For my first hand research I looked into Assyrian ancient history as well as going to the British Museum in London to see these reliefs first and other sculptures first hand.

Whilst doing further research online I also found images depicting what Ashurbanipal’s kingdom might have looked like when it was in its full glory.

I was also looking at the language used during that time with many remains of clay tablets with script on it known as ‘Cuneiform’ which is one of the earliest languages known.

This gave me an idea of how I might start creating imagery for this project. As I wanted to depict the story of Ashurbanipal and the lions I thought it would be interesting to create illustrations as if they were themselves on fragmented tablets of clay.

At first I was just drawing from random imagery I found based on Assyria, more so just trying to figure out what kind of visual language I wanted to put out for this project as I knew I wanted to step away from the more realistic appearance of drawings from previous projects. I then wanted to create more of a narrative that showed this relationship between this king and these lions.

Whilst talking to a tutor we discussed how in these reliefs characters of more importance such as Ashurbanipal and lions were depicted in a more surreal way which may be because they wanted them to appear more god-like, where as commoners or other animals had a more realistic appearance to them. However, as the lions in the relief where shot by arrows or stabbed by a sword they became more realistic in appearance as shown in the images below.

I wanted to play around with that concept but instead of with realism I’d use colour as a way to purvey a beings importance within the story. More so the lion’s going from a god like symbol; to this mortal animal.

So with the colour I wanted to depict Ashurbanipal and the lion in more unnatural colours to show that they’re not of this earth. And to depict characters in a more realistic way by using a more neutral palette of colours.

And as the narrative goes along and you see the lion and Ashurbanipal battle, and as Ashurbanipal defeats the lion it returns to its more realistic appearance to show that it was always a mortal creature. Whilst Ashurbanipal retains his unnatural colouration.

I originally had the surreal looking lion with a red and brown main but whist I was putting the colour into the image of them fighting I decided to change the lions main to the same colour as Ashurbanipal’s own hair to create the feeling that they were like each other in this superiority.

I also wanted to convey the idea of the structure Ashurbanipal was wanting to maintain within his kingdom and the chaos that the lion brought with it in the backgrounds of these characters. With there being more order on the side that Ashurbanipal stood at; and more loose/less structured shapes on the lions side.

In this illustration after the lion has been defeated it returns to its natural colours. I also started drawing some of the foliage depicted in these reliefs as Ashurbanipal’s kingdom grounds are described to be like gardens or eden.

In this final illustration, I wanted it to represent what Ashurbanipal might have strived for in his vision. Being the lion defeating king who brought prosperity to his kingdom as well as to provide for his people, hence why the back ground depicts crops of wheat which are thought to be one of the first kinds of agriculture to appear on the world.

 

-Animations-

To bring more life to these illustrations I wanted to create some short animations which showed the interactions between Ashurbanipal and these lions. The first animation was going to be of a man shooting with a bow and arrow. And so I drew on 14 different pieces of tracing paper; layering them up as to see the motions of different components going on.

I then scanned these drawings into photoshop where I created a timeline out of each layer to make this animation.

I then wanted to animate a lion running towards Ashurbanipal.

I wanted to the lion animation to have a similar colour palette to the first photoshop colourations that I did of the lion. So when creating the frame animation I had to add additional layers to colour each individual shape that makes up the lion.

Lastly I wanted create something that had a combination of all the previous drawings I had done to create what would look like a relic of this story between Ashurbanipal and the lions.

I feel like this project worked well in trying to explain a story. I took it upon myself to try switch up the style slightly as well as expand my use of colour which is something I haven’t done a lot in previous projects but I feel like through this project it has allowed for more possibilities to my work in future projects.