Starting my final year

Knowing this year would be my final year at NUCA, I spent the summer researching and deciding what project I would like to create and what outcome I want when I finish the course. I knew I wanted to focus on 2D art, mainly character and environment concept art and illustration but I did not have any ideas of where to channel it. I thought about creating my own story world, but found it hard to settle on a solid idea, so then I thought about redesigning and developing an existing story or mythical place, but one which hadn't been explored much recently to avoid influences from other artists interpretations.

Mythical places from around the world:

English Folklore Tales

Babes in the Wood

The original story, also known as The Abandoned Children of Wailing Wood, was published in 1595 by Thomas Millington. The story concerns two young children, who are sent to live with their uncle after their wealthy parents die. Nearly a year later, the Uncle, seeking the children's inheritance, hires two ruffians to take the children into the woods and kill them. To cover his tracks, the uncle tells his family he is sending them to London and the children go off with the ruffians with promises of fun and games. While on their journey, the kinder of the two ruffians takes pity on the children and their fate, while the other argues with him, happy with the pay he has received. The two fight and the kinder manages to kill the other. He then leaves the children to find food and promises to return. The man never returns, probably because he lost his way and so the two children are left to wonder the woods scared and alone. It is believed, unable to find food, they found shelter in a great oak and died in each others arms and then robins came and covered the two babes in oak leaves.

This folk tale actually influenced me to create my own story, which follows on from this tale, but changes the ending. In my version I am creating, the two babes, instead of dying, learn to survive and live in the woods. Setting my designs a few years later, the children have grown up and their look, attire and assets should reflect the time they have spent within the woods as well as the time period. Their behaviour and movement will also change, reflecting more animalism characteristics, similar to Mogli in The Jungle Book. I am currently playing with the idea of whether they become some sort of immortal guardians of the Wailing Wood, forever wondering, but this is something I will think about more in the character design process.

I want the overall theme to reflect many folk tales, particularly brothers grimm, of being dark and a bit scary, yet still fantasy and for older children. As a starting point I have been looking at the films Pans Labarynth and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland for influence.

I have also decided to produce an accompanying animation that will tell the original story of Babes in the Woods with a narration spoken over top. The animation will be created using after effects and will be in a style that represents a Victorian toy theatre.