My final pieces for this project consist of a comic based on the American folk tale 'Tailypo', a children's book based on the Chinese and Japanese Baku creature, a concertina book based on the Inuit folklore of the Urayuli, and a pyrography piece based on lumberjack folklore. The objective of my project was to create a series of final pieces based on monsters and creatures from around the world, drawing inspiration from the aesthetic of the culture of origin.
I think the Tailypo comic was a successful piece. Since it was a modern American folktale (as opposed to Native American), I looked at the modern American culture for aesthetic inspiration. Comics really took off in America, perhaps more so than in other countries, so I immediately knew I wanted to do a comic. Having researched how to lay out a comic, I feel the final piece works, and is readable. I decided not to add colour to the comic in favour of showing off the line art. Both a coloured and a black and white solution would have fit in with the American comic aesthetic.
I love how the Baku book came out, especially after rushing to have it finished in time to take it to the London Book Fair. I did the entire thing digitally, though I had the pen set to pressure controlling brush size to emulate a brush pen. I used watercolour textures to give a painted effect. The backgrounds were left blank in the style of much of the Chinese and Japanese art I found within my research. I based the faces of the nightmares on Kabuki masks. As a result I believe this piece fulfils the objectives of my project. However I am not entirely happy with the artwork on some of the pages. I think if I hadn't been in a rush to complete the book for the London Book Fair, it would have turned out much better, but I am glad that I got to take the book to the fair, as it is my favourite piece from this project. I am considering re-vamping it after the degree. I think if I was to do it again I would use traditional media, and touch it up digitally rather than working digitally from the start.
I also created a plushie using printable fabric, based on the toys I saw in the Pitt Rivers Museum from China with painted on features. Some of the colour rubbed off where the fabric got creased, and I think the overall shape is a bit odd, but I do actually like how it turned out, and I think it is a great method for a modern version of those old Chinese toys.
Obviously, the Baku pieces are intended for children, and I think I got it right. I wanted a couple of the illustrations to be a little creepy, which ups the age a bit, although that is really subjective.
I originally wanted to do a series of lino cuts for the Urayuli piece, based on Inuit folklore, however I thought they would take too long, and didn't make the illustrations as clear as they might otherwise have been. Lino cuts is also not an area of illustration I particularly wanted to go in to, so having some in my portfolio would have been counter-productive. I decided to do a digital piece instead, but I wanted to incorporate a texture I had developed within the lino cut, and use simple, flat colours. I originally made up my own colour scheme, but I have since changed it to try and make it look more inspired by the black and white Inuit art from my research.
I had fun doing the pyrography for the piece based on lumberjack folklore. I spent ages trying to think of a style that would represent lumberjacks, but being unable to come up with a good one I settled for materials instead and bought some plywood. I think the piece is lacking something. I wanted to make the background darker, maybe with some woodstain, but didn't have any to hand, and was a little afraid of ruining it after spending so many hours carefully doing the line work. I still think it seems un-finished, and I would have liked to do a series of pyrography pieces rather than just the one. If I had more time I would definitely revisit this piece to develop it further.
In conclusion to the above, I believe I have fulfilled my original project objectives. If I could go back and change anything, it would be my time plan. I underestimated how long each piece would take me, especially Tailypo, which took close to two months, and therefore I did not make as many final pieces as I would have liked. I realised too late that when I set out to make as many final pieces as I could fit in to the time period, I would be forcing myself to compromise on the development stages, which could have been a lot mroe comprehensive. I think I was over ambitious with this project, but I'm not entirely unhappy with the results, and in fact I think that my practice from now on will essentially be an extension of this project.
The best thing to come out of this project is working with my best friend on the Baku book; I can't write very well, but she is an amazing writer. She wrote the Baku story for me, with some help from her sister, and I just did the drawings, and it was a very successful and easy collaboration. I had suspected for some time (and the Book Fair confirmed for me) that I wanted to go into self publishing. I explained this to my best friend, and asked her if she would like to team up and collaborate on infinite projects in the future and she said yes. I really look forward to working with her to create self-published books (along with any other illustration work that comes my way) after the degree is over, with no deadlines with the threat of bad grades or failing hanging over them - only personal deadlines.
