I went on a trip to Leeds in order to gather primary research for my project. My first stop was Tropical world, where I was hoping I would be able to take more pictures of insects and bugs because I feel as though their joints and features are vaguely reminiscent of robotic joints! Unfortunately there weren't much bugs or insects out when I went and I wasn't able to get many good pictures of them. I was able to get some pictures of butterflies with a similar pattern to that of my moth character, but I sadly wasn't able to get too close to see all the different textures and details. 
I was able to get a fairly good picture of the gecko on the glass, and I can see the details in his scales/skin which I think are a really interesting texture. In a way reptile skin is like an interlocking system, similar to that of chainmail armour. 
I like the picture of the turtle too, I think their shell looks very geometric and almost like a shield. Its an interesting concept to me that people associate geometric shapes alot with more modern day things, like buildings and robotics, and yet we're able to see plenty of geometric shapes in naturally occurring things; i.e: animals, cliffsides, leaves.

After Tropical World, I moved on to Leeds armouries, where I took pictures of different intricate patterns on the armours. I really liked seeing how they layered the metal so that whoever was wearing the armour were still able to have a good range of movement. 

Seeing the different designs made me wonder about why they cared much about the different designs of armours and weapons when they were usually just for battle. Why do they need to look nice? There was actually an exhibit on about that concept while I was there...

In the exhibit there were a variety of guns with extravagant designs, from being made of solid gold to intricate engravings on them.

The butterfly gun really caught my eye, Its completely impractical and is made purely to look beautiful despite being a near deadly weapon. They took a machine built purely for killing and turned it into a spectacle that is interesting to look at. It feels almost arbituary, making the morbid beauty in death more apparent to people

While walking through Leeds I became fascinated with how nature is intertwined throughout the city. An interesting looking plant growing out of some grass, a tree planted all alone in the middle of a concrete city, a dandelion growing from the gaps between a brick despite the space being so impossibly small. Even with humans and technology everywhere nature still tries to hard to make itself apparent, sometimes even breaking THROUGH concrete for us to see. I hope to capture something similar to this in my final piece in the way that we should tone down our usage of technology and pay more attention to our surroundings, take the time to notice the bugs on the leaves, the moss growing on bricks and the vines growing up the side of buildings. 

I also found this interesting looking building while out exploring the city, I thought it looked rather dystopian or maybe reminiscent of a fish in a way.

Here's a little sketch of what I IMMEDIATELY imagined the building as when I saw it.