Retold Story

The next workshop involved finding a story worth re-telling. One that wasn't already popular and well known. I tried to come up with a story that was little known and many people had not heard of before. I decided to use the tale of "The rat cook". It is a story referenced in the book 'A song of ice and fire' by George R R Martin, where a character is telling scary stories around a camp fire.

The story is a comment on the importance of being an honest host to guests. It involves a king and his son visiting a castle. The king had done 'something' to anger the cook of the castle. Later when the cook was preparing the bacon pie for the king, he secretly killed the prince and put him in the pie and fed it to the king. He liked it so much he asked for another slice. The Gods punished the cook by turning him into a giant white rat that wandered the castle for the rest of eternity and he can only consume his own young to feed. The gods punished him because no matter what the king had done to the cook, it is a worse evil to kill someone you are hosting.

Rat cook story

I thought this story had the right amount of horror and was interesting enough to draw you in to further want to understand the plot. I first did a rough storyboard of the story (below) so I could visualise the important aspects and story changing moments.

This storyboard helped me when looking for the most important parts of the story. Which I then tried to compress into three major events. This was helpful as it turned out the related workshop was based on compressing our collected stories into three individual images to explain the plot.

The first thing I looked at doing when given the workshop was to work out exactly what I want to show on each illustration, allowing the plot to be told, as well as being aesthetically pleasing and understandable. I drew this basic sketch of the characters to get a general idea of character design and layout of each image.

I was pleased with my first attempt of designing the story to fit into three images, and also, the fact we had a time limit to try and get the three designs finished before 4:00 meant I needed to consider time limitations and manage it best I could.

I completed the first image in a good time and felt that I was well on track with my time management. More importantly, I was pleased with the design. I am now getting used to using digital illustrating, and have moved away from this method of creating illustrations. It was nice to go back and experiment with this style again but I think that I much prefer my new styles and techniques of creating art pieces.

The next piece was carefully considered as I wanted the style to look like a children's book illustration, yet the theme contained gruesome aspects that may be inappropriate for the audience of the style. However, I wanted to remain true to the story, as well as send across the true genre that my story is about. I also like the design of the face of the cook in this scene, I feel I correctly ported the menacing and scheming emotions he would have.

I particularly like the stylised design of the giant rat I drew in this image. It fits with the chunky, blocky style of the images and shows emotion as I had hoped; looking pained and terrified at what is happening to him. I also accidentally created a border between the two halves of this

The next step after the workshop for me was to look at how I wanted to continue my designs. I thought the images I created were successful and the feedback I got from the peer group suggested that I should continue these designs too. I wanted to return to my usual style of digitally colouring my pieces, as I feel that for this narrative to be in my portfolio, I want it to truly represent my style and way I work.

I wanted to colour my designs true to the medieval, 'fantasy' style colour palette, such as using natural and low toned shades, mainly consisting of greens, browns, beiges and deep reds. I gathered some inspiration from television shows and films such as Game of thrones and The Lord of the Rings.

Here are some images I collected of clothes and medieval suits that 

I then looked at colour palettes of table tops and food 

I also remembered that there are lots of medieval designs of buildings and objects in the game 'Skyrim' which is based in a similarly fantastical world to the one my story is based on. I will use these collected images for colour grabbing and basing my designs on.

Adam Howling

I scanned in my designs from the workshop and continued to live trace them and expand them so I could edit the lines and make minor changes to which lines would be kept and which would be deleted.  It also allowed me to create layers below the image that allows be to neatly and cleanly colour in my designs.

I spent a long time carefully selecting the colour palette and shades for the image and added the colour to the images. I feel that these improve the designs and add another layer of depth and 'fun' value to the illustrations. One thing that I believe I should revisit again is the violent, gruesome side to the middle image, as the overall design is in a children's book style and coloured in a similar way. I think that this makes the illustrations very simplistic and changes the audience from children to be more appropriate for an older audience. To change this, I could either remove the red blood from the image, or have a more suggestive way of illustrating what has happened to the prince.

I wanted to see what my images would look like in a comic strip layout with a black outline. I wanted to look at different ways of presenting my illustrations, best suited for my portfolio. I feel that these illustrations are different to my usual style of creating designs, as the lines are too inconsistent and less impressive, as they are too thin and dark, which now cannot be avoided when editing, as I would have to change the colour of all the lines at once to do so.

The more i referred to my trip tic narrative, the more I thought about how much I really like it. I think that it is too dissimilar to my usual style, and would be out of place with my style of working, which is usually thick lines and a more stylistic design. I deeply considered aspects such as time management and remaining time before the deadline, and came up with the decision to re-think this brief completely. I decided not to do the three images to convey the story, rather looked back to my very first set of storyboards, telling the story over a set of smaller, less detailed images that involve more emotion, as well as in my own style that I could use for my portfolio. I rethought my designs and stylised how I will   construct this piece.

I decided that I wanted my set of images to tell the story in the form of an animated GIF file. I know how to create them online and have experimented with how to use them. this technique of using illustrations is new to me and out of my comfort zone, which is important, as it can still involve the style of work that I am used to creating, but is portraying it in a totally new way for me.

I looked over my story and decided on the vital points that could be illustrated that will tell the tale without using text. I think that not using text will be a challenge for me and will cause some difficulties, but hopefully the plot will still be clear without the use of words spelling it out.

I looked at how to create animated GIFs and found a website that makes it easy to create them, by importing images and selecting the size and rolling speed of the animation. GIFs are generally used to either animate a very small animation, flickering between a few points of movement, or to scroll through information creating a narrative (usually found online for explaining how to work out computer programmes). I feel that I could utilise this technique and apply it to my own work, which has seldom been done before.

I made this GIF to test how easy it is to make them and how plausible my idea was. I think that it is very doable, and simply requires the illustrations to put into the format.

I think this style is very cool and is much closer to how I work than the style of work that I created the three narrative images are. I particularly like the contrast between the thick outlines and the thinner 'blob brush' tool lines inside the outlines.

I further worked on these characters and coloured them in to refine them a bit more. I like my new design of the cook, as he is snarly and characterised. I feel these designs are true to my style of work and will prove to be a useful accolade in my portfolio.

When considering the designs for the final outcome, I talked to various people for their opinions on their style and designs. I noted mainly feedback regarding the cook and that he did not look 'ratty' enough. I tok this feedback on board and redesigned the cook's face before committing to the final designs. My next step was to go through every image and refine the sketches into the style shown here.

 I also made a decision regarding the background that they should not draw attention away from the main characters. To conquer this I decided to have a style for the backgrounds that involved no thick lines, as well as being mainly colourless. I think that this will work well as I have done work before using this style of outlines focal points and pastel coloured, simple backgrounds as not to draw attention away. An example of this was some illustration work I did in the summer for a driving instructor to use on his website.

 

This work was useful towards developing my tile, as well as helping me understand producing narrative illustrations, as each event drawn in the cars are new developments in the character's learning experience. I learned about the importance of continuity and consistency in designs, as well as how to deal with real world clients. This was overall very helpful and may have a place in my portfolio too.

This was the first outcome of my GIF that I designed and put throughout the GIF generator. I am very pleased with the outcome and feel that it properly portrays my style and capabilities of designing images that narrate a story. I decided on the speed of the scrolling, size of the file and quality of the file. I decided to put the size and quality to the highest possibility and decided on the scrolling time giving the audience time to think and work out each frame in time for the next without it being too long or boring.

My next step was to lay the images out roughly in a comic strip layout that shows all the illustrations in one image. This would make the story was to read and understand at the pace of the audience, rather than having it revealed at my selected speed. Although, I feel that as a comic strip, it does not lend itself to the designs very well, and so I really prefer the GIF format.

I revisited the GIF images and decided to touch up all the areas I was unhappy with. This included a few lines on the chef's hat, reflecting the final form of the rat image so it flows better, reshaping the king in one or two slides and a few more minor things that improve the GIF. I also changed the speed of the scrolling of the images. This is because I showed the GIF to some peers for more feedback and this was one of the suggestions that I agree'd with. However, I may only belief the quicker speed of the images is better because I already know exactly what is happening and the play through of the story, so I showed it to people in my house and they said it was still clear and readable.

Tobacco

The next workshop involved a quote from James the 1st about tobacco. I gathered reference images to do with the time era as well as references to the quote such as when he mentions the 'Stycian', which is a monster from the underworld'.

"A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless"

- King James 1 from A Counterblast to Tobacco, 1604

This image is an artist's impression of Charon the ferryman taking the undead to the underworld to hades. I think this is an interesting area to explore with this piece of text.

The underworld and Hell are talked about lots in The divine comedy, written by Dante Alighieri. In this story, he talks through all the layers of hell and which famous people from history would be where depending on their sins from their lives.

I like this style of detailed characters as it's a little spooky and there is more expression in their face  and stance than would be in real life. I would like to experiment in this detail with some illustrations at some point.

Even if I don't use these reference images directly, they still inspire a feel for the era and timescale of the potential illustrations. They remind me of a dangerous and superstitious time in history, and I hope to be able to translate this through my work.

Other things such as the buildings are areas I need to take into account, for backgrounds and styles of designs need to be historically accurate.

I then looked at modern examples of advertisement for anti smoking campaigns and posters that scare smokers into stopping. I found that the images i collected all aimed to scare smokers into stopping, I would like to add an element of fear to my illustrations too.

This image (below) is another example of fear being used to get the message across to the audience. It had a deathly feel to it and has a very solum colour palette.

I started sketching images of items and references to the text. Such as the tobacco leaf and how it looks before being harvested and prepared for smoking. This is helpful as I can incorporate it into my illustration somewhere if I come across a possible use for it.

I then came up with the idea of using a juxtaposed 'Charon the ferryman' for my illustration, as this will contribute a sense of humour to my work as well as the element of fear I wanted to incorporate. I came up with alternative ideas for Charon's ferry, such as dinghies, speedboats, yachts and various water sport vehicles.

This image (above) is of a banana boat, used on beaches abroad for holiday makers to have fun with and ride on. This would be funny in the context of Charon taking undead souls to the underworld, as there is a great contrast between the idea of the vehicle being used for fun and as well for transportation of dead souls.

Another idea I had was a swamp hovercraft used often in American swamps and shallow waters. This could have the same comedic effect as the banana boat idea.

I began sketching some rough images of possibilities of vehicles and the layout/position on the page for what could work. The yacht idea would also be funny in context of the river styx.

I also sketched how it would look for Charon taking a character by hover boat. This looks more successful in terms of layout and the size of the characters in comparison to the boat, whereas the yacht image makes it difficult to pick out the characters aboard. That would lead the concentration away from the characters, which defeats the idea behind the illustration. I will therefore use a smaller vehicle, focusing more on the characters.

This image (below) is another quick sketch of how I feel the classic Charon is envisaged by most people. I included the smoking factor as well as to give a noter reference to the text. Linking the smoking causing death to the simile used.

I then looked at using as few lines as possible to create a scary and 'weird' looking face that could represent the distortion of the underworld and the reality it would hold. This image looks similar to picasso's style and is a bit strange, I doubt i'd use it any further with this illustration. (Below)

I practiced more using thin lines on Adobe illustrator, as this gives me more freedom to create work in which every line adds to the image and only to use important lines in my work. It is also helpful in sketches because when going over the lines on new layers to work on makes it easier to tell which parts of my drawings are completely necessary.

I think that using Adobe Illustrator and my graphics tablet gives my illustrations a good feel of clarity and cleanliness. I think that if I was to draw my designs by hand, it could lose some of it's style of consistent lines and contrasting colours, such as the powerful blacks and whites on the image above.

After drawing these skulls, I noticed a resemblance to the style of Jack Teagle's work, using thick, heavy lines combined with smaller, detailed marks. I looked back at his portfolio and found some skull painting that were similar to mine.

I like his use of colours being in complete contrast, as well as the use of thin lines used to create more information and bigger lines and shapes used to create outlines and the basis for his illustrations and paintings.

I looked at his skulls for ways to improve my work and to see the simplest ways to illustrate them with as little information as possible and with the fewest lines and characteristics.

I think Teagle's use of colour on these portraits is what makes his work so unique and interesting to see. It shows that simplicity can still be different to other people's versions of simplicity, as well as conveying a design and character easily.

After a few sketches and coming up with potential characters for my illustration, I wanted to look more at my concepts and themes I would really use for this workshop.

I thought that my idea of Charon driving people on a banana boat is funny and has good potential for an interesting illustration. I thought more about the references, so decided to have a giant cigarette as the inflatable banana, suggesting the people riding it have been using cigarettes and tobacco all of their lives, causing their death perhaps.

I then also car up with the idea of the skeletal ferryman smoking a cigarette, with the text being written in the smoke, thus including the quote inspiring the illustration. I think my design makes it difficult to incorporate text easily and I will have to think about this aspect as I go along with the design. There is also space for the text underwater.

Upon deciding what my final illustration should be, I looked over my sketches and initial ideas and decided the design I preferred was the idea of the banana boat ferryman. I think that portraying him as a skeleton gets across the idea that he is a character similar to the grim reaper, being the controller of live and death. I also wanted him to be smoking a cigarette, simply to reference the text further. 

I began by creating the line drawing of the skeleton from reference images as well as the shape of the speedboat. I think the first half of my illustration looked good and suited the style I drew it in. However, when it came to the second half (banana boat inflatable and characters) the style changed a little bit, but upon discussion with my tutor and peers, we agree'd that it did not matter, as there was a contrast in distance between the two parts of the illustration as well as changing either to the other style would ruin the concept and overall look of the piece.

I think that the idea of the characters being ghouly, zombie like people, adds another depth of humour to the image. Their faces and body language are juxtaposed in terms of they look like they could be having fun, as you're supposed to on a banana boat, however, on closer inspection, they have deathly faces and expressions. Another instance in which they are humorous is that they are wearing life jackets.

I think this first draft of the final was successful. I showed it to my tutors and the class for peer assessment, and got some helpful feedback. It was an issue that the big cigarette shaped banana boat was not clearly a cigarette. I think this is because the style requires the piece to be in black and white, that cigarettes are mainly recognisable for the colours they have, such as the paper stem and the beige butt. It was suggested that I should add textures to the flat areas of white. I may consider this when further developing this piece for my portfolio.

Another issue I tackled with this illustration was the fact that the text was required to be in part of the image. As i spent most of my time on the design of the drawing and characters, I had left the text part till the end. And as it was suggested in a prior peer discussion of my work, that me and Alex Strange should collaborate, as both our styles are similar, and it would be easier to collect our work together because we both tend to work on Adobe illustrator and transferring files would be relatively easy. It also turned out he had mainly been working on the text requirement for this workshop, so it seemed our designs could fit together nicely.

http://pdp-alexstrange.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Tobacco

Although i feel that one of the most successful parts of this illustration  was the on the skull, I felt it did not contribute well to the overall style of the image. As the let hand side was done first, and looked a little different to the right hand side, which was done at another time and unintentionally done in a slightly different style, which was compiled of thinner lines and consistent stroke widths. I decided to redo the skull to fit the preferred style. I think this newer version looks better and fits better with the overall theme of humour and juxtapositioning with my illustration.

I looked back over the image as a whole, and with a discussion with Alex, I decided that there was something missing from the boat, as it was part of the drawing that was a large, white area, whereas there aren't many large areas left blank on my illustration, so it stood out a bit. Although I sort of think this works well, I wanted to experiment with potential ideas of what I could design to go on the boat.

I thought that to continue the humour, I could draw a symbol/vinyl image that are used on vehicles by people today, such as on motorbikes and types of cars (Similar to below). I wanted to reference the original text, so looked back over my research and remembered the image of Cerberus, the three headed dog that is said to dwell in hell. I thought it would be interesting to include this in the design as a vinyl that Charon would use.

I looked at line drawings of bulldogs as a reference, and did a quick illustration of how I would lay out the image. I think that it did not work very well and that there was no room for a small drawing with a lot of information in, as the style required it to be simple and not made up of many small lines, so I removed it from the illustration altogether.

Alex sent me screenshots of his first steps in his side of the collaboration. I think that his style of having words flowing as though it were the water compliments my work and has potential to come out as a very successful piece.

Here is another stage in his development that he sent me, showing more words from the quote, I feel this looks very successful and fits in well with my style.

I then decided to refer back to my feedback from the group peer, and looked further into when it was suggested to include textures to the image to make it clearer what items are what, for example, the cigarette was not easily recognised as  giant cigarette. I researched illustrators and artists that use textures to give a more recognisable feel to their work. I found some collage artists and some illustrators but the person I found most interesting was Nadia Shireen. She work on children's book, much as I aspire to do in the future, and she uses photographed textures in her work.

I like the contrast in which she uses both textures and digital work. As my illustration for this workshop is completely done on computer so far, I feel it would be beneficial to experiment with this technique of colouring and give an interesting feel to my piece.

I started by gathering images that properly portrayed what I wanted my images to look like. For example, this cigarette butt is, what I feel, what most people imagine in terms of colours and texture when they imagine a cigarette butt.

The next step was placing it behind my work and trimming the image to fit exactly where I need it to go. I think this works well with the image, but then unbalances the whole illustration, and now requires colour on the opposite side.

I looked over what textures to do on the boat, and all the images I found were spoiled by the speedboats being in water and having splashes on them. I thought more about it and decided to research toy boats, as when they are scaled to fit properly, there won't be any difference to the look of the image.

I also decided that I could not leave the rest of the cigarette are of texture. So I found an image with the rest of the cigarette in, ready to place on my illustration.

Here is a screenshot of where I've resized the toy boat and trimmed it to fit perfectly behind the image of the boat. I think it looks successful and the shape and reflective surface of the toy fits in well with the curvature of my design. I also like the text on the side, as it does not distract from the rest of the illustration but is also subtle and a bit funny.

When I zoomed out to look at both sides of the illustration incorporating the new textures, I was not so happy with the outcome. It may be the contrast between the characters having no colour and then the large areas of texture and greater detail combined. I think there may be other ways to complete my task of ensuring it is clear which part of my images are what they are supposed to be.

I wanted to complete the textured design first, just to see if it would make a difference to my opinion. By adding the lit end of the cigarette to the image (in which i used the texture of ashes and lava, as they had good results when I was researching images, and it was also part of the experimental process) I feel that it seems to complete the design in terms of if i was definitely having textures in it, however, I decided that as I want tho image to be a portfolio piece, I would rather dispose of this part of my work and look back over other methods of making it clearer to the audience.

I completed the collage technique for this image, and although it was not how I normally work, I feel it has given me experience in terms of methods of colouring and editing my work in new ways.

When on further reflection of my work and looking at how it looks and conveys the the messages involved, e.g - That the banana boat is actually a cigarette, I found that I needed to improve how the cigarette looked. I then decided to illustrate the lit end of the cigarette to look as thought it had been burning to make it more recognisable to the audience. I feel i completed this well and that the new design is getting ever closer to being an obvious and easily understandable concept.

The next issue to tackle was to make the butt look speckled and more recognisable. I tried with tho technique of drawing lighter greys but felt this was not enough and was not up to the standard of the rest of the image.

Instead i added shading to the butt to present it as a darker shade as it is in reality, and also shaded the ashy part at the front of the cigarette to make it stand out more.

I then realised that the greyscale shading improves the image, and continued to do the rest of the image. I feel this improves my image and i also like the new textured boat. It makes it look like metal and rustic, as though it is the real sort of boat death would have.

Upon further meetings with peers and tutors, I looked at collaring the lifejackets as practiced before. However, the shades were wrong and I experimented with colours and shades instead.

I felt orange was the perfect colour for this design, so looked for the right shade, which i believe is this one below.

After many attempts at a final I decided this version of my collaborative illustration worked the best for me. Throughout trial and error of different layouts and combinations of possibilities, I think that this image has the perfect amount of balance, continuity of theme and style and is generally an interesting piece to look at. This illustration was highly appraised by the visiting lecturer, Zara Wood. I feel that the use of black and white with some shades of grey makes this piece look very stylised and pleasing to the eye. It is generally very considered and thought out so I would not change any aspects about it at this stage. I believe that I have successfully conveyed the them and with Alex's text, fulfilled the first stage of the brief. I am also happy with the little block orange colours. This gives the image another level of humour involving juxtapositioning and humour in the designs of the characters.