Research

I have been looking at images and research of Leonardo Da Vinci, his drawings of inventions and the Italian environment within the 15th century. From some of the research gathered, Da Vinci was working within Florence before entering the service of the Duke of Milan in 1482. From the time of service between 1485 to 1490, Leonardo produced his research and designs, from nature to his inventions. For some of his inventions, Da Vinci could only design them as the idea for his invention would be unrealistic at the time, it was only after his death in 1519 that people started to take Da Vinci's inventions and knowledge in. Here are some pictures of his inventions from his sketchbook.

Da Vinci's inventions designs

At this time, I am not sure which design I might go for the assignment. I am stuck between the flying machine and the tank. The flying machine looks like an interesting project to do, as it would be interesting to animate the device within the air, but this will require to create a person as well. The tank's design seems easier to model but it would seem boring for the tank just to be moving and blowing stuff up. It's whether I want to try something with a challenge such as flight it self or stick to the ground with the tank.

The environmental design will be based within Milan since that was the time when Da Vinci began his designs. Because of this, I researched in some images of buildings and the way that Milan is shown from the 15th to the 21st century.

Milan

I'm not sure what I have planned yet for the project but I guess if I was to the tank, I would make animation powerful as it fires its cannons while if I went with the flying machine, I would try and animate with the sense of freedom, since at the time, man couldn't fly. I will have to sort my ideas out and design what I might want, as well as how I might go to creating the idea I choose.