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 :)

Wise words

A similar mail sent to Steve Mack as that I sent to Hannah Shaw.

Hello,

My name is Sarah Hilton, I came across your work online when searching children's book illustrations, and was fascinated with your unique caricature designs.

I have recently graduated from Liverpool John Moores and attained a First Degree in Illustration. I have always been inspired by children's book Illustrations, yet I am unsure if my work belongs in this design field. I know how busy you must be but I have enclosed a few samples of my work. I would value your opinion, if your have a spare few moments to look over them; to progress myself further in the Design Industry.

Kind Regards from an aspiring Illustrator,

Sarah Hilton.

And his reply..

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for emailing me! I took a look at your pdf and I really like the 
direction you have. There is a strong consistency in your work and I 
like the textural aspects of it.

I think you will find as you go along after graduation that your work 
will take many different turns. You have the talent, that's for sure! 
Find out what comes naturally and doesn't feel like work to you and 
you'll find your place.

Best,
Steve

Steve Mack - children's book Illustration

I have only recently come across Steve Mack's work. It fascinates me! His use of texture and colour within his illustrations is marvelous.. and they are simple! 

His figures are unique and stylistic, again he has used textures to put emphasis within his images..

He has created a number of illustrations for greetings cards, and produced children's picture books. Maybe I'm just seeing it myself but it reminds me quite of the work of Jim Flora. Fantastic!

An inspiring influence

Whilst I have been considering childrens book illustrations, which I must add, I need a lot more developement with, i began researching into various publishers. I came across the work of Hannah Shaw, who woks for Chicken House publishing. Her work is very much a drawing based medium, and oppositly different in style to my own, her work inspired me on a different level. I wanted to know what it takes to become an illustrator like her.

And so..

I mailed her..

Hello,

My name is Sarah Hilton, I came across your work on the 'Chicken House Publishing' website and was fascinated by your book Illustrations.

I have recently graduated from Liverpool John Moores and attained a First Degree in Illustration. I have always been inspired by children's book Illustrations, yet I am unsure if my work belongs in this design field. I know how busy you must be but I have enclosed a few samples of my work. I would value your opinion, if your have a spare few moments to look over them; to progress myself further in the Design Industry.

Kind Regards from an aspiring Illustrator,

Sarah Hilton.

She replied..

Hi Sarah,

Your work is really nice and has a unique style.
It would work really well for editorial/ advertising possibly even in
child based media/ design.

I'm not so sure it holds the particular narrative qualities often looked
for by picture book editors and art directors and if you do want to
progress into picture books I suggest you work more on characterisation.

Appealing characters combined with a different but saleable illustration
technique is what most art directors look for when commissioning new
talent.

I suggest you do think about doing the following if you really want to
work in children's books:

* Get some work experience in children's publishing. Having been on the
publishing side of things will give you greater insight about the industry
as a whole.

* Work on producing a mock-up picture book with an existing story of your
choice.

* Send the mock-up to publishers/ agents and get feedback.

* Read Martin Salisbury's book on illustrating picture books.

Good luck

Hannah x

And so now a mock up picture book will commence.. whether or not it will come out successful is another matter.. but who knows until you try.. I knew I needed to characterise more when completing my degree.. but when i tried I felt it didnt blend so much with my work.. i always relied upon silhouettes for characters.. so much of illustration today is character based but not all illustrations need it, depending on the field.. I know i want characters within my work, now is the time to develop that.

A smile towards the sun..

As any of you will know, who have onlooked this blog.. it has been a scarcely long time since I even attempted a post. The only answer I have for this has been sheer laziness.. yet.. i have always had the thought in the back of my mind.. to actually do something with myself.. within the art industry, of course! For all present students who read this.. for heavens sake, when you have graduated dont stop there.!. But who am I to give good advice.. 

I suppose what stopped me, if I'm honest is that I know I had developed my own style within Illustration, but I never really felt that my work fitted in a specific field of illustration.. It didn't posses the cliche of an editorial and it wasn't quite suited to childrens book illustration.

I left my head stuck in the clouds from here.. I didn't know where I fitted in.

One thought always stuck in my head.. 

..

..

When I was lucky enough to attend the annual D&AD trip, Matthew Richardson offered me some thoughtful praise upon my recent work - the circus book.. and he mentioned I look into 'Walker books'.

My first thought was book design? Who am I to do book design?

yet the comment has stayed with me, in hope that some miraculous encounter will happen where one day i will infact illustrate books.

Now it may not be my field, but i have always felt my work lacking in characterisation.. so Im going to give it a go..

who knows what will happen..