Project One: The Twits 

I started the summer off by writing my own module brief, I wanted to focus on children's book illustration to educate myself on publishing. I started with The Twits because it is a shorter story which I thought would be an easier way to ease myself back into projects. I wanted to focus on diversity and representation in this adaption of the story. 

Brief

A short mini brief for this project

I chose to do the Twits as my first project because it was a childhood favourite, I always enjoyed the gruesomeness, gross and sinister vibe of this story. I describes the story of the Twits as a couple who are as ugly, as mean and as despicable as each other. the first half of the story describes the relationship they have as husband and wife. Each chapter relates to one of their pranks they play on each other, "the glass eye", "the frog", "the wormy spaghetti", "The funny walking stick", "Mrs. Twit has the shrinks", "Mrs. Twits goes ballooning up". The second half explores the main hulk of the story. We learn this couple has a grim back garden. They have a dead tree in which they cover in glue to get birds to make into pie. They also have a monkey cage where they have trapped a monkey family and make them stay upside down all day. 

Mrs Twits appearance however is discussed a lot, she is described as being an ugly faced woman, who has ugly thoughts, with yellow teeth, "nothing shone out of Mrs Twits face". Her main descriptor is her glass eye and walking stick which she hits dogs, cats and small children with. Mrs Twit is also described as only being ugly because of her ugly thoughts, she became uglier as time went on. I imagined Mrs Twit as a fuller figure, with mostly grey hair, with deep wrinkles, moles, boils and a monobrow. In my version I tried to not imply that being fatter or having wrinkles etc were ugly, trying to pull on her ugly thoughts. I also imaging her in a grubby, dirty outfit. 

Mr Twits appearance is briefly discussed, he is described as being a hairy faced man, big bushy beard with pieces of food in it, spiky hair in his ears and nose at an age of 60 years old. When reading this book I imagined Mr Twit as being a thin, tall, frail older man, I imagined him like on of those scary bony men in a pub who talks to himself. I thought of him having a gaunt face, with grey hair, with sun spots, boils and wrinkles. I also imagine him as being in a constant state of anger, confusion and rage at everyone and everything. 

For Mrs Twit I took inspiration from a few neighbours who I would personally describe as having ugly thoughts. I chose to illustrate her with limp frail hair, a few noticeable moles and a chunky monobrow. With their characters I tried to have a few key features to keep them recognisable in their different illustrations. 

For Mr Twit I went with a more reserved approach, picking up on his creepy aura, i read Mr Twit as being someone who stares a lot, who is pale and has a redness to him. His main characteristic is his long filthy beard. 

The four Vignettes I designed were for the chapters "Mrs Twit goes ballooning up", "Mr Twit", "Mrs Twit" and the "glass eye".

These are the mock-ups, I took text from the PDF of The Twits, I used photoshop to put these together alongside some traditional methods.