Thursday 9 August 2012

In the works

So, as I keep alluding to on here, i'm right bang in the middle of my summer project which as of now I've kept rather quiet about. But, no longer!

The general outline was to pick a theme, any theme, and then development it as and how you wish. Featured into this though were three supplements that you had to use, one was a story extract from a novel, a section of a famous illustration and an undefined symbol which had no specific use.

Anyway, I chose Mythology as my theme for a starting point, then narrowed that down to welsh mythology, then to a specific text (The Mabinogion) and then looked at a particular part of that story, being the fourth branch.

I have always loved to explore myths and legends, and up till now I had not found a logical way to tie this into any of the work I had been doing during my studies. This project however gave me free reign to pursue it wholeheartedly! I chose Welsh mythology in particular simply because it was not something I had ever investigated before. I was enormously surprised at the sheer amount of material available, and saddened to discover that traditional welsh stories are slowly becoming extinct.

Its a shame because the local legends I find to be far more entertaining and provocative. Its these stories that I'm primarily going to be focussing my project on. However, to begin with, I've used an established text, the Mabinogion. Its a great read and i'd thoroughly encourage you to have a peak at it.





Enough talk though, here's some early sketches I did whilst reading it. Here's Twrch Trywth, the boar king. Whilst reading the passage I instantly thought of Lord Okkoto from Princess Mononoke and had that in mind when I did these images. To be honest Studio Ghibli is never too far away from my thoughts when it comes to the fantastical.

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