Saturday 7 August 2010

THE CHARACTERS




Still need tweeking here and there.. but they make me smile..

based on the characters in the Hobyah story

HOBYAH!!

Title:     English fairy tale: Hobyahs
Author: Joseph Jacobs [More Titles by Jacobs]

(Collected and edited by Joseph Jacobs)

Once there was an old man and woman and a little girl, and they all lived in a house made of hempstalks. Now the old man had a little dog named Turpie; and one night the Hobyahs came and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off his tail." So in the morning the old man cut off little dog Turpie's tail.

The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off one of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off one of little dog Turpie's legs.

The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off another of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off another of little dog Turpie's legs.

The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off another of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off another of little dog Turpie's legs.

The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off another of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off another of little dog Turpie's legs.

The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off little dog Turpie's head." So in the morning the old man cut off little dog Turpie's head.

The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" And when the Hobyahs found that little dog Turpie's head was off they tore down the hempstalks, ate up the old man and woman, and carried the little girl off in a bag.

And when the Hobyahs came to their home they hung up the bag with the little girl in it, and every Hobyah knocked on the top of the bag and said, "Look me! look me!" And then they went to sleep until the next night, for the Hobyahs slept in the daytime.

The little girl cried a great deal, and a man with a big dog came that way and heard her crying. When he asked her how she came there and she told him, he put the dog in the bag and took the little girl to his home.

The next night the Hobyahs took down the bag and knocked on the top of it, and said "Look me! look me!" and when they opened the bag--the big dog jumped out and ate them all up; so there are no Hobyahs now.


[The end]
Joseph Jacobs's English fairy tale: The Hobyahs


I must add that the book I have, the story I have related my images to is a lot less like a grimm fairy tale.. It was a story book I grew up with, and it is only at this point that I can see the horrible side to it, netherless it does not reflect within the illustrations I have embarked upon creating for this childrens book.

The Image above it one I sketched out as an illustration for the book, I forget who inspired me now.. Im sure Ill remember in time and make a post. :) I may or may not use it yet, Ive been playing with all sorts of mediums, I like this pencil sketch tho..

HELLO BLOG!

I had forgotten to update you, or more like I havn't had the time! After previous posts whereby a discussion was made to develop characters, i drew a blank, initially.. now I may or may not be onto something, but I feel like its got something that my degree work was missing. 
It all happened at once.. I was looking over my journal, and thought about how i had based it primarily on the combination of mixed media and computer generated art. Over my final project, I eased of the mixed media, relying on illustrator and photoshop. When I look back on them now, I feel they miss something, Im not saying im not happy with them, just that maybe I'd like to experiment again.. in a different way...

..

I have been in ore with Oliver Jeffers, now owning most of his picture books, im infactuated with his illustrations.. I tried my hand at some painting.. which, well, didnt quite work out, obviously! haha.. im a maker! I then, as always flicked through a few of Finelli's works, and read through her recent ' Sometimes I think, sometimes I am' and thats where it started. I went mad one day with a full sketchpad and a box of acrylics and watercolours. I didnt care how the paper came out, as long as it had paint on it. 

..

From here I had looked over an aray of childrens books, and was still puzzled with where to start with mine.  So... I dug out a collection of books from my infant school, I found the one and only reading book, which was confiscated of me, strictly because I had drawn my FIRST character, a little man, on the centre pages! This book was not for drawing in i was told! 

I directed my first character on this very man. I knew he meant something to me once as a child, so it made sense to use him as my direction.
I first did a rough sketch, and then cut out body parts - legs, torso, arms etc.. out of the painted papers... these were then scanned in and a drawn head was added.. and finally..

a childs interpretation..
my interpretation :)