Snail's Art

part 1
so here's how the project started

first we taken to the student lecture hall and sat down to listen to a woman tell us a story. we were told to bring sketch books and draw as she was speaking. so we listened to, what I must admit a somewhat long and not very interesting story, about a girl going to visit her grand mother and the tale of her adventure. and we drew along to bits that jumped out at us, characters, places and what not. until finally she stopped talking and we were then given the brief that explained fully our task.

these are some of the sketches I did for the day task

The fist thing I did when I sat down to work was listen to the recording of what was read to us and try to find a bit I thought could be fun to draw. I settled on a short segment of the story describing a wedding between two lovers that was interrupted when a shape-shifting white stag, turned into a boar and killed the groom.

This I thought could be the outline of a much better story than was told to us, so I re-wrote it, to expand on the characters and setting best I could. I admit i am not much of a writer but non the less i came up with a first draft i was pleased with. knowing I would never use this story again i decided not to make a final copy as, this being and illustration course and not an English one. I didn't want to waste more time than was necessary.

I had the main parts of the story and main scenes I wanted to draw so I started.

for inspiration I watched- princess Mononoke, Game of thrones and the original snow white, among others.

I always watch films when I get to long hours work. I find it helps get the creative juices flowing, provides inspiration, is something to help keep the mind from getting bored, and is an good way of keeping track of how long you've been drawing for, I have quick break half way through and then a longer break at the end of a film.

and so I worked on. I took a somewhat mathematical way to do this project. i made spider diagrams of everything i new as fact from my now re-written story and let my imagination fill in what was left. when illustrating I find it best to explore within the facts. if i know the date in which the story took place or how the characters are described, then i know what must be in the sketches and indisputable facts. its what isn't written I can play with at my hearts content.

example: if I know for a fact the "witch was an old hag who's skin was like bark" I can play with the concept of what sect the witch hailed from or whether her skin was literally bark or figuratively. if she was ancient or just very old. did she have blonde hair, black hair or no hair, how big is her nose?.

Most of the time I've worked this out in my minds eye before I put pen to paper, but its still I can play around to see if it looks better.

I started with the setting. knowing where and these people are from would directly influence how I drew them. so logically that was the fist step. I didn't just randomly draw bits of setting, I identified key points of relevant setting, such as the wedding and the town, and drew around that concept