More bleedin' birds...

I've got birds falling out of my eyeballs, they're everywhere.

More stuff!

Here is the finished page of the village where the girl lives, I've had a little fun exploring different tone, cant choose one though :S.... I used a combination of watercolour and acrylic paint, pencils and different papers to create the scene, this is my preferred way of working.

Original piece...

Brightened dramatically on Photoshop...

Brightened lots and also increased the contrast by miles, love how rich the colours are..

Darkened the image, a lot. I think this below may actually be my fave, it looks haunting and dark (obviously) which is just what we want!

WORK IN PROGRESS...

...Houses for the village...

Just in the process of experimenting with some townlike village scape sort of thing, this is just the basis, I need to add different textures and papers to give it more surface and a touchable quality...

BIRDS

Crows - THE HARBINGER OF DOOM! These beasts act as a sign, a warning of bad things to come, so what better type of bird to include in the gruesome little horror story that is Little Red Riding Hood...

Other animals to roam around the forest

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More Little Red Thingys

Layouts, page ideas, experiments, etc...

Backgrounds

Little Red Riding Hood (AGAIN...)

Mixed Media cakes for the basket Little Red is taking on her visit to Grandmother...

Below is the part where the wolf appears at the grandma's door and convinces her to let him in...

Stuffy stuff stuff

More things I've been working on towards the completed book, I'm exploring darker imagery to reflect the whole feeling of the original disturbing tale - no fluffy pink princes thankyou very much, need to play about with creating a book which shows the true severity of the story and the moral, my aim is to not lose the historical significance of this classic tale.

Charles Perrault - Little Red Riding Hood

Probably the most oldest written version therefore credit to Perrault for that, as this is the only version i can find where the plot seems disturbing and not full of hope and happiness and a bright ending. It shows children that making silly choices and trusting too openly can in fact, have its major problems, this particular version is my favourite as it holds the sense of history of the tale and is also a strong morality lesson.

Perrault's version is the one which i will be illustrating, I am going to include all of his type including the whimsical, entertaining and engaging end page, which is the moral. This reads:

Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way.
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty, so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, or charming never mind!
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth—
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!

Absolutely brilliant, I wish I had come up with it. This sums up the whole point of the story and ties it all together in a really clever, playful way yet the message carried is actually strong and impacting.

Gustav Dore created the illustrations for Perraults version in the 1800's. Here are some of the images, I love the black and white and the creepy lonely darkness of the imagery.

the girl meets the wolf, sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness. Nice scale of characters.

This is the section of the book which baffles me the most and i understand the censorship issues which have come from this well, this is the part where the girl takes off all her clothes and climbs into bed with the wolf, very strange if you ask me, why did she take off all her clothes?

And roarrrrrrrr, she's dead.