New Proposal

    After looking into children’s books I have decided to not write my own story but retell fairy tales that already exist. But I didn’t want to do the stories that are very popular such as Snow White or Beauty and the Beast as I thought these stories have been done too much and putting my own mark on them will be very hard as when you say the name people tend to think of the retelling by Disney. So after researching into children’s books I found that different countries have different ways of telling stories; but then I struggled to find a recent book that had collected stories from around the world and put them all together in a book. So I thought I would find fairytales and folk laws from around the world and illustrated them into a series or treasury so that children can enjoy stories from other cultures. I believe that now days with our mixed cultures children don't understand about how diversity is a good thing and not something that should be made fun of. I want children to read this book and take interest cultures and enjoy stories they wont have heard of. 
   But I didn’t want the stories to be any stories; I wanted to find tales that had a strong female character or characters. As most children think of the prince saving the princess I wanted to show the other side where the female is a strong character, however saying that I wouldn’t like to dismiss the idea of the prince saving the princess as the princess can be a dominate charter in this, just not every version of the tale may show it. Though I will have to make sure I am not using stories that only girls will like as I would like boys to read this too. To do this I will have to carefully choose my stories so that the female characters are strong and or that there is another character that they can identify with and like hopefully meaning there not to bothered that the story is based around a princess. I will be aiming the book at children aged 9-12 years.  

Time plan

My time plan shows how I plan out every week so that I will ensure everything gets done. I have created contingency weeks just in case I a ill or I decided I need longer to ensure the work is done to a high standard. My plan may change as I have only gone up till Christmas but I will be repeating part of the plan for each story.  

Study of the human form

    Over summer I decided to study the human form in more detail, I did this because I found my characters were lacking that realism of the body’s structure that made them believable.  I personally think that learning about the human body would inform and help my progress when drawing characters for my work. I found that there was a lot I hadn’t properly understood about the human body and how it moves; this has greatly informed my work as my proportions and understanding of the body’s limitations has become more refined, even though I am still in the middle of learning about this I’m finding it effecting my drawings positively. What I am using is a set of videos aimed at concept artists called the structure of man; it takes you back to the beginning building up the skeleton, then adding muscle and skin in such a way that your mind learns the tricks to understand how to draw it correctly every time.

   Here are some of my drawings showing different sections of what I've learnt so far. 

Skull proportions 

More Skulls from different angles

Adding the shoulder blades

Adding the shoulder blades

Pelvics and adding to the skeleton I have created so far

Story Idea's

     The point of some children’s books is to teach them skills and values to function in an adult society although you can just get nonsense book witch intend to be fun and entertaining. I want to create stories that inform children in an entertaining way. I have had a few ideas on how to do this gathering ideas from stories that exist and things I have heard.

Quotes and points of interest

-‘I am always watching over you, like the sun in the day and moon in the night’ Mario Galaxy

-Fairies [fairies are born from children’s laughter]

-Space

-Family

-Magic [fairytales]

   I really like the ideas of love and friendship because as a child you don’t really understand these properly and I think they are two very important things in life. I think when I wrote my story synopses I will include these within the stories even though they have been done over and over again they are to me really important.

  After looking at what I was really interested in I wrote a few ideas down:

11. Space, Slightly educational because I will be using qualities of real objects in space but this will be woven within a story.

A.      A star travels across space looking for a family and along the way meets a lot of different people, like comet people, moons ect. She finally comes across an empty planet and she begins to cry believing she will never find her home. An asteroid character will then come across her who has travelled alone for years, he cheers hers up. Her family turn up for her, she wishes to take the lonely asteroid with her but he father says he doesn’t belong with us. The boy states its fine because he will see her burning brightly I the sky as he continues his journey.

B.      A star falls to earth and makes friend with a child. She tries hard to fit in on earth with her new friend but she is unable to. Her father turns up for her to take her home to the night sky where she belongs, the child’s says she will keep look out for her in the nights sky and will never forget her.

22.   Did you ever where fairies are born. They are born form a large tree from within its blooming flowers. The fairies keep the balance of this world protecting what is dear to us all. They do this using the magic from the tree.

33.    A girl awakes in a world of wonder and makes friends with some very odd creatures. They take her on a journey through their world. Starts to miss home and begins to cry, the creatures to help but they have no clue how she got here. They take her to a place that resembles a hospital she knows saying the shaman will help. Shaman helps her and she awakes to her mother’s voice. Turns out she had fell and been taken to hospital to check she was okay. It felt so real but she was glad to be home.

Influences

Alien films

The alien films are well known for their female heroin Ellen Ripley, she is the main character in all 4 films and throughout the films. They made her a strong female protagonist that I wish to convey in my work. In the Alien films Ripley is a strong character who grows throughout the films becoming tougher, and although most films with female heroins use sexuality to appeal to the male audience Ripley is the complete opposite and throughout the films she is firm and puts most emotions aside to protect herself and the other. Although in the second film Aliens she saves a little girl and protects her like a mother would this shows her softer side and this will appeal to a female audience. I think Ripley works well as a heroin appealing to both genders because she has attributes of typical male and female characteristics. Although this film appeal to adults and not children I do think I need to consider when designing a female protagonist so that it will appeal to all. They also are very good at gestures and conveying fear using camera angles and lighting.

Alien Ripley

Alien 3 Ripley

Eternal Sonata

Eternal Sonata is a game based lightly on the life of Chopin who drifts between life and after in a world of dreams trying to find which one is reality. The narrative of this game is interesting and tells a wonderful tale where you learn lessons along with the characters. The design throughout the game is well thought and different I want to have unique design to my characters so that there different and not to similar. This game also has a female character that is dominate throughout the story; Ploka is a sweet caring character who has strong believes. I think she works as a character that appeals to both genders because of the others around her; she is surrounded by male and female characters that balance her out.

Eternal Sonata game cover

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

A collection of German children’s tales that was wrote by the Grimm brothers. The collection contains stories that teach the reader morels and lessons through the charters in the tale. These stories do exactly what I wish to do within my work. Except sometimes within their tales they have horrific endings where the main character or someone dies, I don’t think I want to be this harsh; I may have a sad ending but not like that as my audience might be younger. I will take a lot of influence to see how to write my story and how they make them subtly morel.

The complete Brother Grimm Fairy Tales cover

Disney

Disney is well known for its protagonist female characters, which go through a story to learn a lesson at the end. It’s mainly aimed at young girls but some young boys watch it to due to the strong male characters and the adventure they go on. The style is very cute and soft; the stories themselves have very strong morels that are not subtly shown at all. The main story I find has a strong growing female character is Brave, it’s about a Scottish princess Merida who wants to be able to do archery and ride. I think this film with such a heroin could appeal to boys due to her personality and the comedy of her younger brothers. Overall the comic effect of the film makes it suitable for both gender and this is what I will have to consider when writing my stories.

The art of Brave Merida

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli make animated moves that have a deep lesson or meaning. It will either be a lesson that the film points out or a lesson the character learns throughout the story. Quite a few of the Ghibli films have female protagonist. For instance in the film Spirited Away the story is about a young girl who ends up within the spirit realm and has to survive find a way to save her parents and get back home. Chihiro the main heroine is designed to be skinny and sulky but she posses a strong mind and will power, this makes her a good protagonist not because she is pretty like most main female characters. I want to have interesting character that will be liked and come into the heroine roll though personality not looks. All ages love this film from young to old. This is because it’s so unique and has different levels of understanding. The world created for this film is beautiful and detailed compared to the characters; this makes the film stand out. This film is suitable for both genders even though the main character is female, I think it’s because there is another element to the movie the fact the world and story is interesting.

The art of miyazaki's Spirited Away

Another Ghibli film that used a female protagonist is Nausicaa the Valley of the Wind. This film is about a post apocalyptic world where humans have destroyed the environment is taking it back. Nausicaa is princess of her land and is loved by her people but her strong and goes out exploring and collecting supplies for her land. A war occurs when another land tries to burn down the toxic forest to take the world back. In the end Nausicaa sacrifices herself to save the forest and her people as she believes the forest is not bad and without they would die. There is always a strong underlined message within the Ghibli films be it the environment, family or just self worth; these are the messages I want to have in my stories as I believe that they are important to learn.

The Art of Nausicaa of the valley of the wind

La Luna

A charming children’s book that is about a boy going to work with his father and granddad to clear up the moon, they both want the boy to be like them but in the end he does it his own way and that’s fine. It has a small lesson but it’s an important one. It is a children’s picture book aimed at 7-9 year olds, where as the animation that was made of it can appeal to all ages. I think it is good to have a story that could become more just a book. I really like the art style for the book, it is painted in watercolour and has a very charming look to it, and I think this adds to the story and its attraction. 

La Luna

Illustrators and Styles

Brittney Lee

Brittney Lee is an illustrator who creates delicate and beautiful pieces using card and gouache. Most of her work is stand alone images that mainly use females as the main subject.

I personally really like her work as she has such a fine cut and creates images with depth and detail. I take a lot of inspiration from her work as I wish to achieve such a fine detail within my work. Also her colour pallet is always so warm; a lot of her images have an impact of the viewer. Further her work is very decorative and I want this to be an aspect of my work, I want to create images that you sit and look at for a while to take in the tiny details.

Miki Sato

Miki Sato is an illustrator who also used paper but instead she creates her own colours by painting on textures paper, she also uses material within her work to add a range of textures. A lot of her images are surreal and stand alone as images rather than collective work.

I actually think the textures in work make her images interesting and stand out, and they feel less flat. I would I like to try incorporating different types of texture into my own work. 

Kagamine Rin Legendary Witch

This is a music video made for a Japanese song. I really like the style the video is done in  Its simple but is interesting as textures have been used to set parts from others. It uses a cut out style but really stands out. Also the colours are really strong and bold. 

Proposal

What I want to communicate through my work is a strong female character that will learn everyday morels and lessons. There will be other strong and well through characters that I will carefully design. I think we take more from stories than we realise especially if it is more subtle rather than being pushed in your face. I want to have a main female character so that the younger generation are more open minded and see female and male as equal. My audience will be mixed gender and at the moment I am still uncertain about the age, but I believe it will be 7-12. I want my audience to learn the morel along with the story but at the same time for it to amuse and entertain them so that they don’t get bored. The morel and lessons will change throughout the stories, some about how we treat other and some showing the importance of looking after the world we live in. I will write the stories with editing and assistance from some creative writing students and some stories will be existing tales. I will credit people where needed.

I think it is important I look into how I can make a female protagonist appeal to girls and boys. And from looking at other sources I found that female protagonist are portrayed to appeal to the male gender in different ways. In most sources that are wrote for children I found to make them appeal to males that there needs to be an extra element within the story, like comedy, fantasy or other characters that appear often within the story. I also need to consider character design and how I want her personalties to be.