Showing posts with label bear's son. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bear's son. Show all posts
6.22.2012
Curse the Pre-Raphaelites!
6.01.2009
5.27.2009
Coming Along
Brought it to the marker comp stage. Now that takes me back to art school – haven't done marker comps forever. Haven't done grayscale images for about that long too, which is why I figured I'd better take a practice run before starting to paint. Pretty pleased with it though, so it's on to the final painting.
5.22.2009
Well, that turned out radically different
When I posted the first version of this, I mentioned that I might change the position of the bear and the boy a tad. Instead, I completely re-did it. I got here after about half a dozen different comps (if I can get them in any sort of shape I'll post them too, but right now they look like blobs on paper, as I was trying to work out the composition).
The next step is to bring it to finish. It'll be in gray tones, instead of color, since it's an interior illustration for the book I'm working on, and in those books the illustrations are always black and white. I'll put it up again either when I'm stuck trying to figure out what to do with it, or when it's finished. Hopefully the second.
5.11.2009
More Bear's Son Art
Now that I've finished writing the Bear's Son story, I can work on sketches of scenes that are actually in the book. In this one, the Bear's Son and Bear Cub come face to face with a troll.
I love trolls for children's stories. They're tough enough to rip cars in two, but fragile enough to turn to stone if they're exposed to sunlight. So you either have to be a superhero to take one on in a fair fight, or a five-year-old clever enough to trick one out into the sunshine. No end of possibilities for little kids to be heroes.
I compromise in my story – the Bear's Son is phenomenally strong, so he just picks the troll up and tosses it out into the sunlight.
Here's the sketch – I'm happy with the troll but the composition of the other figures and the trees seems to need a bit of work. There may be a bit of change as this gets closer to a finish.
I love trolls for children's stories. They're tough enough to rip cars in two, but fragile enough to turn to stone if they're exposed to sunlight. So you either have to be a superhero to take one on in a fair fight, or a five-year-old clever enough to trick one out into the sunshine. No end of possibilities for little kids to be heroes.
I compromise in my story – the Bear's Son is phenomenally strong, so he just picks the troll up and tosses it out into the sunlight.
Here's the sketch – I'm happy with the troll but the composition of the other figures and the trees seems to need a bit of work. There may be a bit of change as this gets closer to a finish.
5.08.2009
More About the Bear's Son
One reason why I was interested in the Bear's Son story (other than being a HUGE myth geek) is that I had a story in mind that would involve a really strong guy who was raised by bears. I've now written it as a chapter book (and re-written it, thanks to input from my wife and my writer's group). As it turns out, it too is nothing like the actual Bear's Son story either, but that's a good thing in it's own way. No need to do another fairy tale re-write - time to write something new.
If all goes well, I'll find a literary agent for it, but until then I'd like to keep sketching scenes from it to send along with the manuscript.
If there's any interest, I'll post the first chapter on here. But first, here are a couple sketches that were very helpful in writing the story.
This first one is the big climax of the story - the Bear's Son (here named Rob) and his brother taking on the North Star (don't worry - no actual stars were harmed in the creation of this piece).
It really helps me in writing to draw things out first. I had initially meant the North Star to be some big buff guy, but in drawing this I realized that a young boy, no matter how strong, couldn't actually wrap his arms around someone that large. So I had to make the North Star tall and skinny, which actually worked out better for the story.
This one is from the beginning of the story (no actual cows were harmed in the creation... you get the idea). I wanted to show him doing something that required a lot of strength, and cow juggling seemed to fit the bill.
Unfortunately, neither scene made it as is into the final manuscript - but it did give me a lot of inspiration while writing it. I plan to do a drawing of a scene that actually is in the book, which I'll post when it gets at least as far as sketch form.
If all goes well, I'll find a literary agent for it, but until then I'd like to keep sketching scenes from it to send along with the manuscript.
If there's any interest, I'll post the first chapter on here. But first, here are a couple sketches that were very helpful in writing the story.
This first one is the big climax of the story - the Bear's Son (here named Rob) and his brother taking on the North Star (don't worry - no actual stars were harmed in the creation of this piece).It really helps me in writing to draw things out first. I had initially meant the North Star to be some big buff guy, but in drawing this I realized that a young boy, no matter how strong, couldn't actually wrap his arms around someone that large. So I had to make the North Star tall and skinny, which actually worked out better for the story.
This one is from the beginning of the story (no actual cows were harmed in the creation... you get the idea). I wanted to show him doing something that required a lot of strength, and cow juggling seemed to fit the bill.Unfortunately, neither scene made it as is into the final manuscript - but it did give me a lot of inspiration while writing it. I plan to do a drawing of a scene that actually is in the book, which I'll post when it gets at least as far as sketch form.
4.29.2009
Beowulf and the Most Unhelpful Comparison Ever
This is off the subject of art (although I'll get back to it sooner or later) but I'm into this so I decided to write about it instead.
I love Beowulf. You've got a big monster fight, then an abduction, then a lake full of firesnakes, then an even badder monster fight, and then a dragon. Awesome.
I also like Tolkien, of course (I say of course, because anyone who read that last paragraph without glazing over or having bad flashbacks from high school English probably also likes Beowulf and Tolkien). In his essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" Tolkien says, among a lot of other excellent things, that Beowulf is a type of "Bear's Son" tale. This sounded equally awesome, since that must mean that there's some kind of ur-Beowulf tale out there, of which the Beowulf poem is a reflection. So I set out to find out what that was (I'm a primary-sources kind of guy).
Unfortunately, that seems to be all anyone says about it, that that's exactly what Beowulf is. They don't define this thing that is supposed to sum up Beowulf, which makes me wonder what the point is to summing it up that way. Instead of a helpful analysis tool it ends up making everything even more obscure than it already was (origin-wise, that is - it's hard to be obscure about monster fights).
Finally, I found a book called Beowulf and the Bear's Son (by J. Michael Stitt). This did, in accordance to the title, actually describe the Bear's Son tale. Reading it, I learned two important things:
1. The reason no one tells me what the Bear's Son tale is about is that no one calls it that any more. If it's referenced at all, it's called the "Three Stolen Princesses" tale, so if you're looking it up, check that instead.
2. Even if you look up the "Three Stolen Princesses," the theory that Beowulf is a version of it is just wrong.
Unlike the story it is supposed to be based on, Beowulf doesn't have any stolen princesses. He also doesn't have three companions that specifically try to kill him, nor does he get back out of Grendel's mere via griffin, magician, or magic playing card. Granted, all of those are cool, as is the stolen princesses story, but it won't really help you understand Beowulf.
I love Beowulf. You've got a big monster fight, then an abduction, then a lake full of firesnakes, then an even badder monster fight, and then a dragon. Awesome.
I also like Tolkien, of course (I say of course, because anyone who read that last paragraph without glazing over or having bad flashbacks from high school English probably also likes Beowulf and Tolkien). In his essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" Tolkien says, among a lot of other excellent things, that Beowulf is a type of "Bear's Son" tale. This sounded equally awesome, since that must mean that there's some kind of ur-Beowulf tale out there, of which the Beowulf poem is a reflection. So I set out to find out what that was (I'm a primary-sources kind of guy).
Unfortunately, that seems to be all anyone says about it, that that's exactly what Beowulf is. They don't define this thing that is supposed to sum up Beowulf, which makes me wonder what the point is to summing it up that way. Instead of a helpful analysis tool it ends up making everything even more obscure than it already was (origin-wise, that is - it's hard to be obscure about monster fights).
Finally, I found a book called Beowulf and the Bear's Son (by J. Michael Stitt). This did, in accordance to the title, actually describe the Bear's Son tale. Reading it, I learned two important things:
1. The reason no one tells me what the Bear's Son tale is about is that no one calls it that any more. If it's referenced at all, it's called the "Three Stolen Princesses" tale, so if you're looking it up, check that instead.
2. Even if you look up the "Three Stolen Princesses," the theory that Beowulf is a version of it is just wrong.
Unlike the story it is supposed to be based on, Beowulf doesn't have any stolen princesses. He also doesn't have three companions that specifically try to kill him, nor does he get back out of Grendel's mere via griffin, magician, or magic playing card. Granted, all of those are cool, as is the stolen princesses story, but it won't really help you understand Beowulf.
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