The Scab Man

You can read the poem "The Scab Man" here: http://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/13sgrh/the_scabman_poem/

Whilst working on my larger comic I decided to do something smaller using traditional media.

Sticking with the theme of dark storytelling I chose the poem The Scab-Man by IPostAtMidnight.

I started with some simple character designs:

For the victims I imagined a teenage girl and a young boy. I originally drew full pyjamas for the girl, then realised it would flow better if she were wearing lighter clothes as the Scab Man looks for Scabs on bare skin. I haven't decided what colour schemes to use for them at this point but I'm considering pink pj's for the girl, blue for the boy, the girl maybe red haired and the boy darker in complexion. I considered having them brother and sister but I felt it would be easier to work with if it were two separate people in separate scenes, so I want their colouring to help define them as separate.

For the Scab Man I thought it would be nice to have some input from the author of the poem on his design. After the first sketch, I thought the face was a little too chubby to be scary so I sketched an alternative head with some of the features switched around on a thinner facial structure. I sent these sketches to IPostAtMidnight and asked if they were similar to how they imagined the character when they wrote the poem.

Their response was: "Love it! Especially the popped out eyeball! He's got a very orc/goblin/bloodthirsty-Grinch feel to him. Even if you think the first one was too cute, I think that's kind of cool... mixing a bit of cute with a lot of grisly can make things so twisted. But I do like the second head, too. The strips hanging across the mouth/cheek are an excellent touch. And don't worry about how I imagined him, I'd much rather see what you saw in your head."

It was very nice to get feedback from the author and I decided to keep the first design, but switch some of the facial features a little.

Thank you to IPostAtMidnight for letting me use their work to draw from.

Colour Photographs

In a previous post I talked about how Dave McKean uses collage and photos in his work. From this, I decided to take photos of specific colours to correspond with each of  the seven rooms in the Masque of the Red Death.

The colours are: Blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and black/scarlet. I'll post the photos in that order.

I plan on printing these out and working them into my sketch on the cardboard as a collage.

I spoke to my tutor again about my ideas and she suggested that I look at reference photos for the gothic architecture and other objects for the illustration sequence I am planning. I hope with this advice I can make my drawings seem more expressive of the era and atmosphere I will be illustrating.

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE

I have chosen to research the animations of William Kentridge as I feel they are relevant to my work. I am very interested in animation, but I tend to make cleaner animations using computer software. His animations are very interesting as he uses traditional media such as charcoal and coloured pastels to draw one frame, then wipes the surface and draws onto it again creating many layers of history as his animation progresses.

This is the first animation of his I watched called "Automatic Writing". I was instantly impressed and wanted to simulate his working processes in my own drawings. I would like to create an animation in his style but for the moment I am planning on using charcoal in a way similar to him in my A1 sized "Masque of the Red Death" comic board.

Key features of his work include the use of erasers and coloured pastels which stand out against the majority of black and grey from the charcoal. I think the theme of aged and layered images with a lot of history is also apparent in the work of Dave McKean, and this is the appearance I want to have in my large comic using traditional media as opposed to computer software like I normally would when making a comic.

Masque of the Red Death Comic Strip Plan

You can read "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allen Poe online at this website: http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Edgar_Allan_Poe/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death_p1.html

I have decided to tell this story by splitting up my A1 card into seven boxes. Originally, I considered having an A1 piece of card for each panel but I decided it was impractical and too time consuming for initial research.

Each of the boxes will feature the seven rooms described in the story; the blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and black/scarlet rooms.

Here is a rough sketch to illustrate my idea.

I want the story to start at the first panel where the masquerade is happy, showing the orchestra in the second panel, moving through the rooms as they start to notice the intruder and in the last panel I want to show the ebony clock chiming midnight with Prince Prospero lying dead at the Red Death's feet.

As the descriptions of each room in the actual story are very brief, one of my tutors suggested that I take pictures and draw from them in order to plan the layout of each room as I find it easy to draw from pictures, even though I have an idea of what I want the rooms to look like.

DAVE MCKEAN

For my narrative project I want to look at illustration and animation, so my tutor Ann suggested that I research the works of the illustrator Dave McKean.

 

 He is well known for his comic strip works such as Arkham Asylum as well as working on books for children like "Wolves in the Walls" and "Coraline".

There is a distinctive dark theme to his drawings and even his illustrations for children are quite "creepy".

 

One of my favourite books is Varjak Paw, which has very expressive and simple black and white (and sometimes orange) illustrations that serve the story well.

Unlike most comic artists, McKean relies heavily on traditional media, often using ink and collages with old photos to create quite warped and disturbing images.

 

The materials he uses result in a worn or aged effect which aids the telling of dark stories by setting a dark atmosphere and draws the eye in.

After a discussion with my tutor about McKean's works, Ann suggested I use traditional media like him to create an illustration, as I am mostly computer based when I draw, especially when producing comic strips. I have decided to make a comic strip on an A1 sized piece of card. I wasn't sure what story to base it on, so Ann suggested I look at one of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories "The Masque of the Red Death" which fits in with the theme of dark storytelling.