Time to make a book!
In this entry, I will cover: Story, Research, Reference, Layout, Sketching, and some Technical.
Read about the process below
and go to YouTube to see it happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb2jf68Sc2I&t=310s
My Assignment
Now that I had done some fooling around with different medium, I have made an assignment for myself. (I’m also just really excited to put these new to me ideas to the test and am maybe a little impatient, so time to make a book!).
I looked through some folk tale books I had and decided to choose “Skogsrå at Lapptjärns Mountain” from “Swedish Folktales & Legends” by Lone Thygesen Blecher & George Blecher. It sounds like a mouthful, but it’s a simple funny story, so I thought this would make for a good test.
The story is about a man who works in the woods as a charcoal burner and is being tormented by a Skogsrå. The creature teases the man and asks of his name. But the man, not wanting to give his name to a troll says “My name is myself”.
The man is not afraid of the creature however night after night the creature comes to the doorway of the man’s cabin and yells and yells with its big mouth, resulting in a very sleepy charcoal burner.
The man thinks of a plan to remedy the situation. And one night while waiting for the creature to arrive the man prepares a boiling pot of tar. Then, when the creature takes it’s place in the doorway and begins its yelling, the man tosses the tar into the creature’s mouth.
The creature run outs into the woods in pain and panic yelling “myself has burned me, myself has burned me!” And the reply from the woods and the creatures in the woods is “you burned yourself? Then you only have yourself to blame!” And in agony and probably embarrassment the creature runs away leaving the charcoal burner in peace.
Now my assignment is to turn this folk story into a picture book.
Research and Reference
I can’t just get right into drawing, though. I need to do a bit of brain storming and research. A few main points I look into are charcoal burning, what it is, what would charcoal burners wear, and how would they live. I also looked into the Skogsrå creature.
I do research because it gives me more ideas and references to work with. I also like to learn about the folk stories and the world around them. Personally, I find historical everyday living interesting and use the opportunity to learn about it and pass it on in my art. (n_n)
The main character in the story is a charcoal burner. Charcoal burners are men who would live in the woods and make charcoal to sell akin to what we may use today for barbeque. They would make charcoal by cutting down trees and building a big fire stack. The stack had to be constantly tended and burn slowly to produce the charcoal. A very laborious job.
Why make charcoal? This was very important to the smelting of iron, which leads to the development of tools and society and so forth. Sound very important and something I didn’t know about until looking just a little more closely at this story.
Charcoal burners, I believe could wear whatever they wanted, probably a rough shirt and pants, something to keep warm in, but I gave my character more recognizable clothes to place him in 1800’s Sweden.
Charcoal burners live in huts. Because they moved around a lot, going from one forest to the next for wood, these huts were of simple construction and just large enough. They were often triangular like an A-frame, made with planks of wood and insulated by putting dirt and moss on top. They would have a little fireplace and a hole for the smoke to go out.
Images and illustration of Charcoal Burners.
Images from picryl.com in public domain.
The next main factor was the creature: The Skogsrå!
The Skogsrå is a lady sprit of the woods. She can have a tail. She can have a hole in her back or her back is covered in bark (She tries to hide this.) She is also a temptress to men in the woods. Even though these elements do not appear in this telling of the story, I like to keep them in mind for the design of the character.
Above sketches of the charcoal burner and the Skogsrå
Layout and Sketching
Next, I did a really really rough lay out to pace the story and figure out the page count. Once that was figured out, I started sketching.
When I make a book, I like to have loose pages. This way, I can flip through and rearrange them. So, I do the sketching on loose paper.
Here I used regular printer paper that I cut in half.
Lots of drawing and redrawing. At this point I am putting down ideas, working out problems, and discovering new problems.
It is at this point in the project, doubt set in. I was having second thoughts and thinking about tossing the whole thing. (that did not take long) If I had quit, though, that would have defeated the purpose of the assignment: to use new methods and mediums to create a story. Anyway, I should be able to problem solve and make any story interesting. That’s my job. So I treated it as if someone else told me to do the book and I kept on.
The design of the Skogsrå was giving me a hard time.
I first drew her as a women. I wanted her feminine but it was not fitting the vibes. The more I thought about it, and the more I thought about sending her away crying at the end, the more it did not set right with me.
I did not want her to come off as a temptress at all. I also did not like making the lady cry.
Another time, not this time.
So, I ended up leaning into the creature side of it.
After I gave myself permission to draw her like a troll and see how it looks, I felt better about the design.
I was also hung up on how to draw the door frame. I was over thinking. I just need to sit down and scribble and not care. The more time the pencil is on the paper the more things reveal themselves: If thinking does not work then just draw.
I can not find my thumbnails for this story (x_X) but they would look something like this above
The struggle with Skogsrå
So I drew the story once, then I drew it again and again until I had some sketches and composition I was happy with.
If I liked something about a drawing, I would use my light box to trace on a new piece of paper what I wanted to keep then redraw in the rest.
During this process I did notice a bad habit sneaking up: The habit of drawing what I think is expected. Specifically, with the round shapes and such. So, I went back with design in mind and made some adjustment. Putting in hard straight lines verses the puffy round lines.
It’s all mind games!
My more finished sketches and page layouts
Some Technicals:
Here are a couple important things to think about while designing the layout:
-the size of your final book and the trim
-where the words are going to go
“Live space” is the safe space. Your important text should be within this area.
Trim is about where the pages of the book will be cut.
Bleed extends outside the trim and is for colors or images that you want to go to the very edge of the page.
The bleed can vary a little bit from printer to printer.
I am making this book a square. 8.5 x 8.5 inches seems to be a standard book size. I think, for this book, I will keep all my images in the live space and not have things go off into the bleed.
Also, during the designing of a book, keep in mind where the words are going to go. I have predetermined where the words will go using lines as seen here. (I do not have my final words decided on, maybe this is will hurt me later, but I have some idea. This might be foreshadowing.)
So Far So Good
I still have some pages that are not nailed down, but I can come back to those. For this book I may do things a little out of order. But, I am my own boss. If I am a little stuck on a page or tired of thinking about it I can work on another part of the book and come back to the troublesome page with a fresh brain later.
Next time we will begin painting!
Video version below!