Thesis, ptIII - Kraken

The third piece of five in my senior thesis pieces, featuring illustrative costume design based on myth. The theme for this piece is taken from the Kraken of Norse legends, the rarely seen, colossally large octopus/squid type creature.


The oceanic warrior:

The Kraken is another well known fantastical critter, though I think some portion of it's commodity in the past few years was because of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Anyways, this one proved a little tougher for me in terms of research and pulling the culture in with the costume design. My main method of researching was trying to find cultural depictions of the creature in question, but for the Kraken and the Norse peoples', they were very much a warring, vocal history sort of people I think. At least they weren't usually to be bothered with paintings or wall carvings or anything like the Mayans or the greek were.

Most research and references I found were from what stories managed to be recorded, and from the jewelry that has lasted through the centuries to show designs, patterns, faces, and runes. Tying in all of that along with the costume outfit and the location, I wanted it to feel Norse with the boat and the leather skirt and arm pieces seeming like a squids arms. The pose, with the figure's back to the viewer, is also hinting towards the Kraken which few ever lived to see and tell the tale. It also meshes with the colossal and giant squid, the almost never seen deep sea creatures, so I didn't want the figure's face to be seen.