literal

Literal Illustration: The man in Black

In this project we were doing the opposite to conceptual illustration, literal illustration. For this we were given an audio recording from 'The Man in Black' stories, in which we were told to illustrate a front cover, book spine, full bleed illustration and a vignette for these book form of the story.

The Dead Drummer

This audio tells the story of two sailors, lost in Salisbury in the late 1700s or early 1800s in the middle of a storm at night. We learn one of their names is Matthew and the other is Billy Boy. They eventually find an inn and try to bargain a way in for a discount, luckily the inn master allows them to stay for free to support the sailors defending England in the Neopolic wars. The three men crowd around the open fire and introduce themselves, the Inn masters asking the sailors about the war and about themselves. Eventually we learn that Billy boy is being haunted. While at war his drummer boy was murdered. Billy telling the story that they were attacked at a moment of weakness by bandits, Billy boy running away while the drummer is killed. A short while later the roar of thunder makes Billy jump, prompting the Inn master to ask what is wrong with him. Billy boy reveals his secret, that there were no bandits. Billy boy was the one who killed the drummer boy who objected to stealing money from the boat they both came from. Billy reveals he hasn't slept in days believing he is safer at sea then on land because the drummer boy is a "land demon". The Inn master and Matthew have a smaller conversation while Billy falls asleep, both of the end up helping Billy to bed. Matthew takes pity on Billy's fear and gives him a knife to protect himself with. Later on the Inn master goes to check on Billy Boy, he quickly returns clearly shocked about what he saw. Matthew asks him to tell him what happened but he's reluctant. He eventually tells Matthew that Billy Boys throat had been slit from ear to ear using the same knife Matthew placed with him.

The next morning while watching the undertaker bundle Billy's body away Matthew learns the Inn master has paid for the undertakers service. The Inn Master, Mr Brand appears behind Matthew. When Matthew asks why he paid the undertaker, Mr Brand reveals that hed lost a son to the war, Abel Brand. Who played the drum, the same name and job as the drummer boy. The story dwindles out there and it is eluded Mr brand avenged his late son.

Thumbnailing

Progression thumbnails

After some feedback, I decided that having the closeup of Billy murdering the drummer boy would make for a good full bleed. this was inspired by the line "six inch blade in his chest". I experimented with close cropping the scene and then pulling the viewpoint back. I thought that with the size requirements for the full bleed a knee upward composition worked well. I also wanted to play on the closeness of the action of killing the boy.

I thought that for the vignette the drum with a blade sticking out of it would be a cool idea, a vignette being a simpler illustration to go alongside text in a book. I wanted this to be a reference the drummer boy dying, something that would make sense when you got to that page and learn about the killing.

Bodies and book covers

I made some initial book covers for my story, these were inspired by Victorian cloth bound books for children, it was in the brief for these covers to appear as being cloth bound. I was inspired by a few Hans Christian Andersen covers for mine. I enjoyed how simple some of these illustrations are but they're elevated by the techniques used while drawing them, materials used, I also mocked up some bodies to improve my full bleed. i was inspired by Jarvis cocker and the Ghastly Tinies book by Edward Gorey. I like the slender almost non human look these overly tall skinny models have, i wanted to push his proportions a lot. For the drummer boy I chose to interpret him as being a teenager, around 14-16 as older teens would've been listed to fight. I thought a shorter, pudgier build made sense. For Billy Boy, hes mentioned as being quite strong, so i referenced older, muscly, grumpy men. This really helped when drawing out bigger versions of each illustration.

Hans Christian Anderson: Victorian book covers

I like the intricacy and beauty in Victorian book covers, there's something so appealing in these covers, i feel that this book cover idea would work for an older character which is what I imagine the man in black is.

Jarvis Cocker

For my interpretation of the man in black I thought of Jarvis Cocker photographs from the 90s, the way the photographs play into his longer limbs and more theatrical gestures is how I imagine MIB to be.

Getting Inked

Here I inked my Vignette out for the first time, I really enjoyed how it turned out. I thought that having blood coming out of one side of the drum and giving it an asymmetric look would be interesting. I used the scribbling technique for the blood as in feedback people thought it looked creepier.

Practicing for the final piece

I really wanted to push certain emotions out for the characters, the drummer boy is in shock and pain while Billy Boy is excited. I also tested lighting here. I decided that night time worked best as we predominantly only shown these characters at night. I thought the light source should be from behind Billy boy and come from the moon.

Vignette

Full bleed

Book cover

Spine

Mockups

This ended up being the outcome, sadly my original pieces I was going to submit got ink spilled on thein which seeped through the pages. In a haste to at least submit something these are what I presented. I liked the idea of focusing on how I could use light and scale with a limited palette. Hence the lack of colour except for the blue of MIBs suit.

Time for a makeover

Call it love for the project or the lack of sleep leading up to the hand-in, I decided to give my hand in a little re-work. I liked my concepts a lot, I thought I had a decent understanding of the text and I really wanted to give it my best shot.

Vignette

I felt that my vignette was fine however on the mock-ups it looked too dark to decipher what it was.

Book cover

When I was looking at the original front cover design I had drawn, I thought that the curved frame that the man in black was seen in looked a bit like the rounded windows you might see in Victorian architecture. This again worked well with my initial idea to reference Hans Christian Andersons book covers. This also informed how the man in black himself and his desk and chair would look. I depicted him in a striped Victorian day suit, I included a top hat, normally this wouldn't of been worn inside however I thought that it elongated his character while following natural tall proportions. I referenced tall models and thought of how the proportions of standard furniture would look. The ornamental border I created using a handmade stencil. It fit however the stencil and window overlapped, I decided to incorporate this and made it appear as though the border and window were designed that way, imagining the viewer was looking into the window at the man in black writing the story.

Spine

The spine is relatively simple, it follows the design choices I made for the front cover. I drew the blade and the drummer boys drum at the top and bottom of the column as little hints to the story.

Full bleed

In my first thumbnails for this project I picked up on the idea of this being a more intimate scene. Alas not a romantically intimate scene, thankfully. I wanted to get that closeness and power divide back in this new version. The drummer boy is supposed to be terrified he's been stabbed with a six inch blade in his chest. While Billy Boy is trying to savour this moment. The intimate nature of stabbing someone meaning you're close up in their face, I tried to make it look like the Drummer boy, Abel is trying to push himself away like that'd help. The place in which the drummer boy is killed is never mentioned. However we know it happed while Billy Boy was away serving, I thought that killing the Drummer boy on land away from anyone would make sense for the story.