This project simply began with a Brief and list of novels to
choose from. The task was to create at least Ten Illustrations to accompany the
text of your chosen book. A cover for the book was also required. After some
thought I chose “James and the Giant Peach” by Roald Dahl as it was one of my
favourite novels as a child. Also I struggle with reading and by choosing a
shorter book that I was familiar with I was relieving myself of a lot of unnecessary
stress.
I already owned a copy of the book, so I began reading it straight
away. I read the book twice and also listened to an Audio Book version. I bookmarked everything I found interesting in
the book with sticky notes. This was to help me in the future, I had an idea of
what I would illustrate but it would be useful to have everything noted and
easily accessible. I find working like this really helpful in the long run as
everything is easily available.
Alongside this I began to research the basics of Illustration
and depicting text to image. By doing this I began to realise what parts of a
story would be illustrated and what would not. Illustrators tended to focus on
more important parts of the story whilst ignoring the les visual aspects of the
story.
The target age of the book needs to be considered before
creating Illustrations. The book was intended for children between the age of 4
and 12. The broad gap is because there are two copies of the same book, a picture
book for young children and a novel for slightly older children. This left me
with quite an open audience to work with. As long as it was child friendly then
it would be ok. I do think my final illustrations are more appropriate for the
older children in that range. I think this is because illustrations for young
children tend to be a bit softer in tone compared to my Illustrations.
After reading the book I decided to watch the movie interpretation.
I was in two minds weather or not to do this in case it influenced my
development work. In the end I did watch the movie but I wasn’t too impressed.
The animation was good and I liked the character designs but there were too many
changes to the story in my opinion. I think it was good that I watched the
movie but looking back it really didn’t help me with my development.
Mid-century is an Art Style I have been looking into for
quiet some time now. I wanted to incorporate this style into my Illustrations.
I looked into a lot of different examples and tried to understand how the style
was applied. I thought it would be good for me to work in an entirely different
style for a project as it may broaden my horizons artistically. I also thought
the narrative of James and the Giant Peach would suit this blocky look.
When I began my artist research I firstly wanted to look at
the work of other illustrators who have worked on James and the Giant Peach. They
were Quentin Blake
and Nancy Ekholm
Burkert. By analysing their work I was also trying to understand why
they chose those parts to illustrate and how they interpreted the text. I also
wanted to understand how they differed in their interpretations.
As well as the Book Illustrators I also looked into more
mid-century by studying the work of Charley
Harper, Tove Janson,
Maurice Noble
and Robert
Gillmor. Looking at their Illustrations made me realise how imported
colour can be to an image, especially to a blocky style like mid-century. I was
also trying to understand their techniques as guidance for when I would attempt
working like this. Most of their work was painted but the block work of Tove Janson
was achieved through printing.
To have a choice of reference I looked at contemporary
children’s book Illustrators Shaun Tan
and Julie Morstad.
These Illustrators both use a lot of sombre colour palates in their work. I
found very interesting as the imagery still looked colourful but very well
thought out. At this point I was also trying to understand how Illustrators
translate text to image. I realised that the story peeks are almost always
depicted as they are the most important parts of a story.
The bug characters in James and the Giant Peach are very important
to the story. I wanted them to have interesting designs but before I started
drawing I looked at the actual animals they are inspired by. I did my research
by looking at some books and appropriate web sites on the internet. The
reasoning behind this was that if I understood the animal then I would be able
to make a more interesting design. While I was reading up on the animals I was
also making some study sketches to use later as reference.
As the finals needed to be saved in CMYK I wanted to find
the difference between CMYK and RGB. It was a small change in colour as CMYC is
better for printing whilst RGB is better for digital display. Although common knowledge
it’s still an important Fact to know when handling digital images.
I realised that the illustrators I had studied were illustrating
peaks from the books they work on. So I wanted to go through my book once again
and choose the peaks I would illustrate. I narrowed my choices down to ten important
points in the story, which I then book marked in my copy of the book.
Character design was where I really started to think how my
finals could look. This was a fun process where I got to visualise the
characters I had been reading and writing about. I got to play with my ideas
and try to visualise the narrative. I had to think about the audience at this
point as the characters would have to be child friendly. As most of the characters were insects I tried
to make them look less animalistic and more human in appearance, whilst still keeping
features of the original animal. I used the same style for all of these designs
so the characters would look more natural together.
Once I had finished designing characters I wanted to play
with a Mid-century style. By using gouache and acrylic paint I could achieve
the flat look which is associated with the style. Firstly experimenting with
the mediums and colours I soon stared recreating my characters in this style. Despite
looking good and being fun to produce I felt a bit unhappy with the
experimental paintings. I was losing too much of my style by working this way.
I know the goal was to work in a different style but I dint feel comfortable
working like this. After some thought I decided to scrap the mid-century look
altogether and work in a similar style to my character designs.
Choosing colours was made simpler by my experiments with mid-century.
I realised how important colour can be to an image. Before this I personally
used quiet dim, washed out colours but I began to work with brighter tones. I
also found colours which worked well together. I wanted to use earthy tones for
my illustrations but keep a bright colour selection to blend into the
illustrations. I felt this would also appeal to the audience as they would be
young children.
Thumbnails were also used in my design work. To get the illustrations
looking right I used a process of elimination, discarding the thumbnails that I
did not find appealing. They wear all very rough but that’s all I needed as I
was in the very early stages of planning.
After thumbnails came the mock ups. This is where I combined
bits of thumbnails or redrew them in a more clear depiction. These would be
used in the production of my final pieces, so I wanted them to look right.
Again they looked quite rough but I only wanted the composition and basic shape
of the illustration. Theses sketches would be incredibly helpful in the next
stage of development.
I found doing the illustrations was made much easier with
the use of my mock ups. For my line work I used a light box, which meant I
could use the mock ups as a guideline. Although most of them lacked detail they
provided enough to base the illustrations on. When the line work was completed
I used water colour paint to colour the finals. I used the same colours I had
found in my earlier experimentation. The colours were a bit off in some of the
finals but I still liked the results, I used Photoshop to enhance and clean the
finals. This was preparing them for final entry and making them look their
best. I repeated this process with my book cover design.
This project has been an interesting one for me. I have gone
through spats of enjoyment and struggled in parts if I am to be honest. What I
have learned about colour will be incredibly useful to me for a long time and I
think some of these finals show my best use of colour. The character designs are
another aspect I’m happy with. I think they work well together and were satisfying
to draw. I have also learned about the construction
of a professional illustration. This would include the importance of bleeds, CMYK
and different scanning techniques. The experiments I did with Mid Century were
an eye opener to using different approaches and use of Mediums such as gouache
and acrylic.
Overall I have enjoyed this project, I have learned a lot
and am happy with the final outcomes.
