We have almost come to the end of the Fairy Tale series I have been making for FFWD, only one more after this!
This week's is The Girl Without Hands, a Grimm Brothers Fairy Tale I wasn't familiar with until someone suggested I read it. It's one of the craziest fairy tales, definitely give it a read. In the fairy tale this miller chops off his daughters hands in hopes of protecting her from the devil (which he owes him).
In my illustration I have portrayed the devil as a shadow puppet being cast by the dismembered hands, the devil is looking down upon the mill. The tattoos on the hands symbolize elements from the story, like the king and angel. This is one of my favorite fairy tales I've done during this series I think, it turned out well in print too, so pick up a copy of FFWD this week.
Your song of the day is Two Small Deaths just because:
I neglected to post up this illustration last Friday, as I was busy with Easter stuff and moving.
This week's was Peter and the Wolf though, you can still check it out in a copy of FFWD, so grab one off newsstands!
Here is installment 9 of my Fairy Tale series for FFWD. It's a less popular Grimm Fairy Tale entitled Hans My Hegehog. Definitely check it out, the Jim Henson version you can see in his short lived show "The Storyteller" is a great version (one of my favorite series when I was young). This was actually the very first one I made, after receiving an email about the possibility of doing a series I made this one up to pitch the idea of doing a series of Fairy Tale illustrations.
I had posted some of the inked drawings that I made for this one, a while back here.But take a look at more of my process below.
I don't know a lot of bag pipe songs besides this Tom Waits one, so your song of the day is Town With No Cheer, a few days late for St. Paddy's.
This week's fairy tale for my FFWD series is Alice in Wonderland, one of my favorite old Disney movies, though I have never seen the new Tim Burton one. Here is the finished piece.
Take a look at the process:
You can see all the installments of Fairy Tale Friday here.
Your song of the day is "Alice" by Tom Waits:
This week is Beauty and the Beast, a friend suggested I do
it, and as I like any excuse to draw monster it seemed like a good fit.
Grab a copy of FFWD weekly to see it in print.
Check out the process below.
This was an idea I was starting to explore more, but eventually went more with my initial idea. This one did help me decide to incorporate the roses into the illustration.
You can see all the installments of Fairy Tale Friday here. Here's your song of the day is the Wild Beasts remix of Jessie Ware's "Night Light":
Last week I hinted that it would be another music related fairy tale and here it is, the pied piper. The crowd quickly changes from rats to children to display the progression of the story and how the pied piper turns quickly onto the townspeople when they neglect to pay him. I carried the purple from the design elements representing the music through to the children to reflect the control it has over them. I am pretty happy with how the colors turned out in print so make sure to pick up a copy of FFWD to see it in person. As always you can take a look at the other fairy tale illustrations I have posted on my blog here.
Below are some process shots as well as the finished piece.
I got some questions about my process last week. I think I mentioned I
use a brush in one of my posts and a couple people asked if I was
referring to a Photoshop brush, I was referring to an actual brush for when I do my ink and brush work (likewise I was asked if when I say inking I mean digital inking, but it's old fashioned wet, analog ink in this case haha).
Your song of the day is The Platinum Pied Pipers' "On a Cloud"
Here is installment #5 of my ongoing series for FFWD Weekly, it's little boy blue. More of a Nursery Rhyme than a Fairy Tale perhaps, but I read the comic book Fables a couple years ago and Boy Blue was one of my favorite characters. It made me interested in what other things these fictional characters may get up to when the whole world wasn't reciting the story that has entered the general consciousness. When creating this piece I was thinking about what Little Boy Blue might be dreaming of while asleep on the job, so it has taken abit more of a surreal twist than the narrative of the nursery rhyme we are all used to hearing.
I also always like drawing music related subject matter, so this was a good excuse to do just that. Next week may be music related as well...
This one was a bit simpiler than past weeks (you can see them all here; just scroll through), so the process was pretty quick. Here are some process shots.
Another Fairy Tale Friday has arrived! My ongoing series in FFWD Weekly is now in it's third week, and as you can see it is the story of Gepetto and his wooden boy, Pinocchio. Check out the first 2 installments here.
Pinocchio is the hardest word for me to spell, every time I seem to forget there's to "c"s or that there is one "n", it's a really tough name. I suppose that's how people feel when they try to remember that Jarett has only one R and two Ts.
Pinocchio is one of my favorite Disney films, the villain was pretty dynamic I always found, the donkey scene is super messed up (those donkey's don't turn back into boys at the end), and I love the Monstro the whale scene. Originally I was going to focus on Monstro, but as I researched the original story I discovered it was originally a shark and I wanted to keep away from being to heavily influenced by the Disney version. In my research I was also a bit surprised to see that the cricket was actually in the original story (although sans the name Jiminy), but Pinocchio ends up quickly killing him with a hammer he throws.
For this piece I created it with some different dimensions than how it was to be printed in FFWD, as I was happy with the concept I came up with, and thought that a tighter cropping would still translate really well.
Here is the finished piece, and some process shots:
Your post related song of the day is Buck 65's "Pants on Fire". This was the first song that got me into Buck 65 when I was in high school. Oddly enough, despite him being from Halifax, I didn't even hear about him in Canadian publication. I had found an Australian hip hop magazine at Chapters called Stealth (now long defunct, it was the only issue I ever saw), with De La Soul on the cover. In the magazine was a DVD that had some hip hop music video's and hip hop songs from around the world. Thinking about it now that's where I first heard about MF DOOM (Rhymes Like Dimes), and Sage Francis (Makeshift Patriot, so this must have been 2001). Got off topic there! Here is your song!
I've painted a few Bad Portraits with my friend, and prolific Bad Portraits artist, Mandy Stobo. I was pretty stoked on this one so I thought I'd share it here. If you haven't seen the movie The Wizard you can hear the quote here.
Good luck to Mandy who is doing her Bad Portraits thing alongside Much Music this week in Toronto!
Following up last week's The Little Mermaid piece, here is the second instalment of the fairy tale series I am doing for FFWD. It is of course Little Red Riding Hood. You can see it in print if you grab an issue of FFWD this week.
And some process shots below:
And your song of the day is Big Bad Wolf, by The Heavy:
