Blurring the Lines
From two of the creative minds behind Fringe, JJ Abrams and Joel Wyman (JWFRINGE, JHWYMAN), comes the next great sci-fi drama, Human. According to Joel, I know to think of it as Blade Runner if Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer were police officers and partners. So is it man and machine, man versus machine, man in the machine, or machine in the man? What happens when our creations become self aware? Could an android feel more, be more human than his human partner, know people better than his partner knows himself? Here's hoping Human will "Blur" these lines, questioning what it is to be human and if our creations could become so like us that they essentially are us...or something like that.
The new blog Human Meanings, by @AimeeInChains (of Fringenuity fame), tells me that one officer staunchly believes that the human cop, John Kennex (Karl Urban), is to be blamed for the deaths of other officers, and that Dorian (Michael Ealy), the android partner, is unwanted. I wonder if that's because John lost his previous partner or if it's just a resistance to change. Maybe it's a fear or loathing of that technology. It seems he was seriously injured. Maybe he's part mechanical due to the injury and has a complicated relationship with it, being sustained and fixed by tech but hating that he has to be.
It's not a new concept for sure, but what is? I'm sure with Joel Wyman at the helm it will delve deeper than usual, veer off in breathtaking directions, and give us characters to care about. Many aspects of what it means to be human will be explored. Of course I haven't the slightest idea what shape the story will ultimately take, but there are so many intriguing possibilities. I hope the show will last and give me actual inspiration for another design out of a love for it and not just a theory.
Okay, I think you've had enough of me yakking away. You came for the knife, which I named Blur. (Now I'm thinking of Lrrr from Futurama.) I wanted to go with Shade, but that doesn't really have anything to do woth what I so far know about Human. This is what I designed having little information and having seen only a few pictures . (And I thought my Fringe tribute knife was difficult.) Just as a little explanation, though not sure you need it if you read the above, the shape of this came about after a lot of trial and error. As a comparison, the Fringe knife formed naturally from elements of the show and, even though it was more complicated, overall the Human knife was more difficult. It was ridiculous how often I erased unpleasant lines.
The three V's in the center are what I could make out from set pictures. It seems to be the police logo. I chose to color the lines a red as a running theme here of humanity. Flowing from the logo is a curved line that intertwines red and blue, with blue representing the coldness of machines. This was changed from the original, where I had wrapped red around the line. It looked odd when I finished it. The word "Machine" has "Man" in it, so I colored that red, also, following the man in the machine idea. And then you've got "Human [2013]." Pretty obvious what that means.
Finally, that heart in the background was a complete accident. I wasn't even going to bother with a background anyway since I had already spent so much time on the knife anyway. It was a bit off, so I fixed a line, but otherwise it wasn't changed much. Had to keep this happy accident because you can't have a Joel Wyman story without a little (or a lot of) heart.
Original: March 25, 2013. For more designs, please visit Shiny Dangerous Things.
Here you can see ghosts of the mess I made while trying to figure this one out. The unfinished drawing on the right is from a set picture of the Quick Volt sign.
0 comments:
Leave your thoughts.