Week 3: Planning
After spending 2½ weeks planning and concepting my Journal idea I found myself thinking more and more on the world that my author had come from, as I felt that was important to inform his decisions and thought process. While brainstorming on his home world I found that I was massively more interested in where this character had come from than the places where he was going. Furthermore I realised that the Journal format was likely to limit me, as I could only draw with the same level of ability as my author and that I was unlikely to create any pieces that could be used in my portfolio. These factors combined caused me to start thinking about changing my concept to an Artbook, similar to one that I already owned called ‘Hyrule Historia’, which documents the concepting of characters in the Legend of Zelda franchise over several games.
This format will let me focus on producing a high quality of art that displays my skills while minimizing the need for a consistent narrative and excessive, unnecessary writing.
Since I already own several art and concept books I decided to re-read them. These include:
The World of Ice and Fire (2014) by George R. R. Martin: A fully illustrated “history compendium” of the world from ASOIAF, featuring story content, family trees, and extensive maps and artwork.
Dinotopia (1994) by James Gurney: an illustrated fantasy book set in the titular Dinotopia, an isolated island inhabited by shipwrecked humans and dinosaurs who have learned to coexist. This book showcases Gurney’s illustration skills as well as his worldbuilding skills.
Hayao Miyazaki (2019): An annotated compilation of Hayao Miyazaki’s concept art through several movies.
Additionally to the books I already own I also found ‘The Art of Star Wars, Episode 1 Phantom Menace’ (1999) while browsing on the Internet archive. This is an artbook compiling the concept art and costume design from the ‘Phantom Menace’.
I analysed 2 double pages from Dinotopia, and determined that pages are often comprised of a large, detailed piece, a block of narrative text and then annotated smaller illustrations. I think that this is a format that would work well for the sections of my book where I talk about the story.
Bibliography:
Internet Archive. (2019). Art of the Art of Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. [online] Available at: https://archive.org/details/artbook-Art_of_the_Art_of_Star_Wars_Episode_I_The_Phantom_Menace/mode/2up
Bresman, J. (1999). The art of Star wars. Episode I. The phantom menace. New York: Ballantine Pub. Group
Gurney, J. (1994). Dinotopia. London: Dorling Kindersley
George, Elio and Antonsson, L. (2022). The Rise of the Dragon. Ten Speed Press
Martin, G.R.R. (2014). The World of Ice & Fire. US: Bantam
Miyazaki, H. (2019). Hayao Miyazaki. S.L.: Prestel Art
Richardson, M., Shigeru Miyamoto and Thorpe, P. (2013). The Legend of Zelda Hyrule Historia. Milwaukie Darkhorse Books