Well, it looks like I’m hitting the deep end of the pool of the truly macabre, with The Grimms’ version of the Bluebeard story, The Robber Bridesgroom. It’s easy to choose the scene in the story that tells us everything we need to know about the story. Unfortunately, that scene is essentially torture porn. I tried to have it as off camera as much as possible, and focus on the heroine’s reaction.
Well, I drew another fun one with Godfather Death. I always find it a bit of a catch twenty-two on just how to do a lot of these illustrations, especially when it involves stock characters like Death. At one level there’s no reason to do him as the skeleton with the scythe. After all, in the story, all we’re given as a description are withered legs and cold hands. I could at least give him flesh like in Seventh Seal or do something completely different like Neil Gaiman’s goth cutie… And if I were working on a longer project I’d be more than happy to. But for something quick like this you need to do broad strokes that appeal to the viewer’s cultural vocabulary… so walking skeleton it is (scythe optional) I went with something a little more affluent with a dark coat with a fur lining rather than the usual which I am positive were originally monk’s robes.
As for the rest of picture the lighting was the trickiest bit. At first, I figured I’d do a couple of candles in the dark cave and braced myself for a lot of crosshatching… then I realized just how many candles that would be. I may have botched the shadowing on the figures. I’m mostly happy with this though I still think it’s a little too close to Maurice Sendak’s version. In hindsight, I think having the candles in the foreground might have looked better.
So today when I shook the tupperware before picking a name this one fell out… Literally. So obviously that meant I had to draw this one. The Fisherman and His Wife, one of the classic examples of be careful what you wish for, is another one where it’s hard to choose the image. I ended up with going with a collage of the Fisherman making his wish and the final result when his wife wants too much.
Today’s sketch, The Wolf and The Seven Young Kids, is one of the stories that is somewhere in the middle of the of obscurity list. It’s usually in most of the collections, I know I read it while growing up, but it’s usually supplanted by the similar story of the three little pigs.
For day fourteen of this challenge, we’re back to Hans Christian Andersen with one of my personal favorites, The Tinderbox!
I really didn’t go for any particular scene from the story… Just did something that caught the main point of the story which is the soldier using his magic tinderbox to summon his three magical big-eyed dogs. (I kind of think I sort of ended up channeling Gahan Wilson when doing the dogs.)
While I was doing the drawing it occurred to me that The Tinderbox is the original Pokemon story.
Well after nearly a week of drawing obscure, to completely unknown, stories the magic Tupperware finally gave me a live one with Little Red Riding hood.
I have to confess this is one I have mixed feelings about this one. As an unrepentant treehugger I can be pretty knee jerk about it being one of the stories indirectly responsible for the near extinction of the gray wolf. On another note while I’ll be happily part of the chorus saying there are no reported attacks by wolves in history, I’ll also wonder why the wolf would go into all of the trouble of the Grandmother disguise when he was alone in the woods with a little girl where there could be another unreported attack. On top of this there’s so many takes on this that have already been done from all the jokes about the wolf having a crossdressing fetish to all of the hypersexualzation of the story with Red Riding Hood in bed with the wolf.
All in all I’m not sure if I’m happy with this one… sure it looks fine but I don’t think this is an original choice and I could probably point out about four separate illustrations I’m cribbing… Also I think I screwed up Red’s feet.
