The Selfish Giant: Sketchbook Work

Here is some rough sketchbook work and ideas from my on going Selfish Giant project, including a rough idea for a book cover, experiments with dip pen and sepia ink and rough ideas for the look of the Giant’s castle, which is mainly inspired by Cardiff Castle. Even though it’s just a rough idea, I’m not too pleased with the book cover design as I think I need something which captures the story more rather than just recreating the medieval style for the sake of it, so this is something that is definitely going to be changed at some point. The dip pen experiments didn’t last very long or really lead anywhere and so I don’t think I’ll be exploring that any further for this project, however it was still fun to use a dip pen and ink again so at some point I may end up using it, possibly for small outlines.

I really struggled with the design of the Giant’s castle and still aren’t too happy with it. I wanted something that combined both my research from Cardiff Castle and my research from medieval manuscripts and illustration and don’t think I’ve quite got there yet, however this is something that I think I’m coming closer to achieving as I’ve continued my research. I think I may have been over complicating the design of the castle and may need to simplify it more. As, well as this, I’ve included two images from my earlier compositions that I’ve redrawn in a landscape form in order to included more detail and to possibly use as a double page spread in the book. I quite like this idea of possibly having one or two double page illustrations in the book and may explore this more later on when I have sorted out my colour palette and other illustrations. I’m more happy with the first image and think that works better as a double page spread, particularly with the castle in the middle, however, I am still working on the finalization of the design for the Giant’s garden and think the second illustration would work better when that has been decided. Also, I believe both would look great with colour, especially because they would feature opposing colours, as one of them is set in the winter, the other in the summer.