Book of Drawings

Dagon eyes research

To experiment further with eyes for the Dagon I have researched some fish eyes that could apply and work with the creature.

I love this example of fish eye. I love the white centre and black outer  part and how the eye appears very deep. 

This example is very large and bulges out, so would relate very well to the creature Dagon

These eyes also bulge so could work, but I dont like the uneven eyes as it would make the creature look silly in a way, I want the Dagon to look focussed and angry. 

This eye is my favorite example, the pearl colour is very intriguing and the size and creases around the eye work perfectly

I like this example as the eye looks very focussed and has a lot of life behind them. But this eye looks to innocent and cute for the look of the Dagon

Feature Sketching: Dagon eyes

After looking at the descriptions given for the Dagon I have started sketching up some ideas for the features of the creature.

I started by sketching the eyes based on the small description of ''Glassy, bulging eyes''...

Above: The inicial sketching of eye ideas. I started by playing with different pupil types and the wideness of the eyes. Each idea that I liked I played with a bit more and also experimented with eye surroundings like the bags or eyebrow lines.  

Above: I have picked features that I liked from the drawings before and expanded on them

Above: Two final ideas that I like the most, I tried to sketch them as cleanly as possible to see which I like. The top sketch is the one I have decided to keep as the Dagon eye. I prefer the smaller pupil as it shows madness and more awareness than the bottom. And I prefer the heavier eye lid and deeper and darker bags of the top sketch also. 

Dagon (Character creating)

As I need to draw the characters in this book I first need to understand every aspect of their features, movement and behaviour. Here are all the descriptions of the Dagon H.P Lovecraft gives in the short story when looking at carvings of the creatures;

• ''enormous size'' 
• ''I think that these things were supposed to depict men—at least, a certain sort of men; though the creatures were shown disporting like fishes in the waters of some marine grotto''
• ''Grotesque beyond the imagination'' 
• ''they were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall.'' 
• ''chiselled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shewn in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself''
• ''grotesqueness and strange size''

Where Lovecraft writes ''other features less pleasant to recall'' I see this as a chance to add many features as I like to the creature, I want to look in to adding features such as tentacles, sharp teeth, pincers etc. 

Below is an extract from the book that describes the Dagon, but this time the description is written when the main character witness's the creature first hand instead of in a carving;

''Then suddenly I saw it. With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds.''

My next step is to start sketching ideas to create the creature, I am going to start drawing each feature step by step until I am happy with each aspect then I will put the features together and play around until I come to a final idea. 

Modual 2: Chosen book and ideas

After reading the brief for Modual 2: Narrative Illustration and looked through the list of books we were given I decided to do some brief research in to the books that seemed most appealing to draw and I came to the conclusion that I want to use Necronomicon by H.P Lovecraft.

My first step to illustrating the book I first want to find the pieces I think would be suitable so I will read through each book in the Necronomicon. I have decided to illustrate a few different books in the collection, the first one I am working on is Dagon. While I start building the characters for this book I will continue reading to find more books in the Necronomicon to illustrate.

Modual 2

For our second modual we have been asked to look through this list of books and choose which one we want to narrate.

Brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel

Roald Dahl, The Witches

Ted Huges,The Iron Giant (the iron man)

Faith Jaques; Zena Sutherland, The Orchard Book of Nursery Rhymes

Colin West, The Big Book of Nonsense

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde

P.G Wodehouse, Carry on Jeeves

Franz Kafka, The Castle

William Burroughs, Naked Lunch

Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

George Orwell, Animal Farm

Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

H.P Lovecraft, Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales

Frank Herbert, Dune

Edgar Rice Burroughs, A princess of Mars

Script John Mccrea (illustrator) – Judge Dredd

Nobrow Brief- Exclusion 

After reading through the list and researching lightly on each book, I have decided to use Necronomicon as my book of choice. I have chosen to use this book as I think its creepy nature will go with my style of drawing and the direction I wish to take my career.

Final pieces for modual 1

Here is a picture of my load of work. On the top is my bound book. I painted a fertility goddess symbol to reflect the feminine feel I wanted to create with tbe pieces.