Kicklesnifters

In lumberjack folklore, Kicklesnifters are small creatures that live in men's beards. This piece was sketched roughly into a sketchbook, transferred to tracing paper, and then from the tracing paper transferred to a piece of plywood. I then used a pyrography tool to burn the design into the wood. I chose pyrography due to the origin of the creature being lumberjack folklore.

I like how the face came out, but I'm unsure about the rest. I would have liked to make the background darker, possibly with some woodstain, but had none to hand.

Final Bakus

  

So I spent 6 and a half straight hours in the studio printing the books. The printer in there is SO SLOW that it took all those six and a half hours of having the printer entirely to myself (minus 10 minutes to let one person use it, and 20 minutes to let another person use it) to print 5 copies of the larger book and 13 copies of the smaller book. Rather disappointing, after having paid ridiculous money for good quality paper, expecting to print about FIFTY copies, at least, in that timespan. But at least I now have lots of spare paper, I guess.

I took one of the large books - for demonstration purposes - and all 13 smaller books to the London Book Fair. 12 of the 13 smaller books were given away, along with my bigger book at some point or another. The other large copies will be sent to my best friend and her little sister who worked together to write the story.

They will also each get a plushie - final photo.

In the Pitt Rivers museum I had noticed that there were quite a few Chinese plush toys that used simple shapes and painted on features. I had some fabric that could be passed through an ordinary printer, so I printed an image of the Baku onto it, sewed a backing of felt on, and stuffed it. The colour rubbed off along a few creases, which I think is due to the fabric being designed for a different type of printer, but all in all I think it worked out well, and I actually kind of like the effect.

Another Spread

Plushie

In the Pitt Rivers museum, I saw a lot of Chinese toys made of fabric with painted on features. They used very simple shapes, and relied on the details to give the animal identity. I've decided that both this, and the fact the Baku is a children's book, is good reason to make a plushie. I also have some fabric that can be put through an ordinary printer. So yay!

So here the design, to be printed on one side of the plushie. The other side will be plain felt in order to save costs (the fabric was expensive!) but otherwise I would have made the plushie two-sided - the other side being the back view of the front half.

Nightmares

So these are the nightmare monsters. I carried on the white-details thing into these pages. The faces are based on designs of Kabuki theatre masks :D

Last Page...

Random Page...

Yeah, I almost never do images in order. This is the last-but-one image - a double page spread. I decided to try out something similar to the title on the cover on the text. I think it works well on screen, but time will tell when it gets to the printing stage. Will have to take the .psd with me to print just in case I need to make last minute changes on it.

 Added a nightmare for the Baku to chew on.

Baku Cover

An entire day spent staring at the computer screen working my behind off and for what?

For Photoshop to crash, take my previous save with it, and lose 5 hours worth of work, that's what.

So I just did the cover. I spent ages agonising over the colouring, but I've decided a bright and simple colour scheme works best (and will allow me to have at least a little bit of sleep while trying to get this finished)

Can't help but feel disappointed that I should have had at least double this amount of work done today, but on the other hand the more I look at the cover design the more I like it. I think it's the white details that do it :)

This will be a wrap-around cover. The face and title will be on the front, the fold is around the shoulder-area, and the rump and logo/URL/names are on the back. I particularly like how the title came out. I'm using neutral beige as a background, dark lineart and a lot of watercolour textures to link it back to traditional Asian art. I think my custom "font" (I'm using MS Paint to put the letters in order) works well.



Just the front cover:

First Page Progress

So far so good on the first page of the Baku story. I'm going to continue this piece - this isn't the finished outcome, this post just serves as a reminder that it currently looks fine as is. I'm afraid of overworking this page, and if I do I can just come back to this point.

The Urayuli

In Inuit and Alaskan folklore, the Urayuli, or "Hairy Men", are transformed children who got lost in the woods at night. They are described as having long arms and large glowing eyes. The idea of this piece was that it would be printed and folded into a tiny concertina, between 5 and 9cm tall, to show the stages of a lost child becoming a Urayuli.

1st frame: A child in a hide coat.
2nd: The coat puffs out to become fur, the child is slightly taller.
3rd: Taller again and antlers starting to appear. Their arms are now dragging along the ground.
4th: Growth spurt! The face is now obscured by fur.
5th: Fully transformed.
6th: The child finds others.

I wanted this piece to be inspired by the style of Inuit art, which uses mostly stark black and white. However, I had the image in my head of a style more suited to children's books. Whether this combination works or not, I'm not sure, but I definitely like the outcome.

I was originally going to do a series of lino cuts for this piece, but after printing a few test-cuts I felt they weren't good enough to justify using them for a final piece. Instead I have used a digital style with no shading and simple shapes. Only the texture I have overlaid offers range in tones. In my test lino cuts, I created a texture very similar to the one in the fur on this digital piece. I think it works better digitally.

I may come back to this and make a more lino-cut-ish, Inuit-ish version, but for now I am happy with how this came out.

Update: Which colour scheme looks best? Darkened this one, and upped the contrast, and fiddled a bit, trying to get a more "Inuit-y" colour scheme.

Fiddled with layers and thresholds for more of a black and white look, with a hint of colour and tone still in there so no everything is lost. Better than the one above.

Rawhead and Bloody Bones

"Rawhead and Bloody Bones, Steals naughty children from their homes, Takes them to his dirty den, and they are never seen again."

A single image piece I've been working on. Though it is of a finished quality currently, I may still come back tot his piece and change a few things. This is the first piece I've ever done entirely digitally, with my new (and first) graphics tablet. Yay!

Bloody Bones is originally a British (or Irish) monster that has been adopted by American folklore, who lives either by water, in a cupboard, or in the pipes under the sink. He steals naughty children, or can turn them into dirt or spots of jam that their unknowing parents will clean away. He is variously described as a burn victim, a man covered in scabs, a boar with missing pieces of flesh, or any other ugly, deformed or disgusting description. I liked the idea of giving him a boar skull for a head, and I drew some celtic knots to tie back to his origins.

Tailypo Line Art

Long time no blog! Been working on the Tailypo line art, among other things.