Narrative Illustration - More experimentation

This is the first scene I have attempted to illustrate. I have created this image using digital methods only, utilising a pen and Wacom cintiq. Despite it being hand drawn digitally, it does not have a hand drawn quality to it. The line work is clean and there is very little expression or movement. This is more noticeable when looking at the mane of the horse, where it should be fine and free flowing, since the stance of the beast is indicative of fast and sudden motion, it is in fact, stiff and bulky.

The colour palette is no longer restricted like in the screen print and each colour has a complimenting shade and highlight to give it a more three-dimensional quality. The colours used are more realistic and suited to the respective animals but because there are so many, the scene becomes busy and lacks a focal point. Even the colours in the back ground compete for attention as the blue and green starkly clash.

The perspective the viewer has is straight on, as if they are stood close by watching the animals parade on by. I do not feel this perspective helps to communicate the chaos and energy of the scene in fact it feels flat and quite boring.

 

In an attempt to salvage at least some of the work done on this, I altered the back ground completely, using a brush stroke effect and colours from the same spectrum, red, orange and yellow. This has definitely helped to change the overall 'feel' of the piece. It now seems more at peace, the foreground stands out better against this back drop, but the colours of the animals still seem to clash, the piece feels more like a scene from a children's book and this is not the style I was aiming for.

It's not a total loss, I still think the design can be used in another way, just not as a final illustration for this module.

I need to incorporate more of my own, hand drawn elements and rely less on the digital tools, I need to rethink the perspective and consider reverting back to the restrictive colour palette that worked so well with the screen print in the previous entry.

Narrative Illustration - Experimentation

When I began this module and upon selecting the book I wished to illustrate, I was very keen to utilise the propaganda posters and art from the 1919 Revolution in Russia. I considered this source, not only aesthetically pleasing and effective in it's intended purpose, but also a valuable source of information and inspiration for the book itself. Orwell may or may not have been aware of many of these posters but he knew his history and it was likely that he came across some of the imagery.

One of the pieces that immediately stood out for me was a very simple but striking poster, that called the Russian people to arms.

It consists of three men, armed with tools that indicate their profession. From left to right we have, the farmer with his sickle, the tradesman with his hammer and the scholar with his scroll. Each of the man are looking forward with a determined expression. The entire piece is comprised of only two colours, black and red, with the white of the page used to add another shade to the design. The composition of the piece, with the three men towards the right of the page, gives the impression that they are marching towards a common goal, one person rather than three, symbolising unity.

As soon as I saw this image, I was immediately struck with the idea of recreating this, with the animals of the farm as the stars.

This is my initial sketch. I have used the cow and the horse to represent the hammer and sickle, the two tools that the men in the original poster wield because in the book, the symbol on the animal farm flag is a horn and hoof, which was a not so subtle reference to the Russian flag, which utilises the hammer and sickle. I have chosen a pig to represent the scholar, because as is pointed out in the book many times, the pigs are the smartest animal on the farm.

I have kept the original, restricted colour palette attempting to create the same bold blocks of colour using gouache. While bright and vibrant, the gouache often streaked and left a very inconsistent coverage that I was not at all happy with. To solve this problem of colour, I took my design to photoshop and created two layers, one for each colour of black and red. With these two templates, I was able to apply the design to a silk screen and print the colour with the screen printing method.

The finished piece has much stronger, bolder colours that are consistent and the negative white space gives the limited colour palette a striking visual impact. I chose against adding eyes to the creatures and I am glad I settled for this design as they appear more menacing. Like in the original poster, the animals are grouped to the right of the page and are as one as they aim forward in their goal.

This powerful image not only conveys the determination of the animals and their desire to take control and unity, but it is also clear homage to the original poster, which was my intention. I regard this piece as a huge success and intend to use it in some way for the final illustrations.

To RGB or CMYK

RGB.

RGB is the colour scheme associated with electronic displays such as CRT, LCD monitors, digital cameras and scanners. It is an additive type of colour mode that uses the three primary colours (Red, Green and Blue) in various degrees to make different shades.

All three make pure white when mixed at their full extent, while all three mixed at their lowest setting make pure black.

RGB offers the widest range of colours which is why photo editing programs use it.

CMYK.

Printers use the CMYK colour mode and can produce colours that are more vivid and bright. It consists of the four colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, and uses these to produce other shades when printing images.

Unlike RGB, CMYK is a subtractive process, which means that each additional unique colour is removed to create the colours. When the first three colours are mixed, they create a dark brown and 'K' or black is added to removed light completely which is why the eye perceives it as black.

Summary

The RGB colour mode has a more varied range of colour than CMYK and can produce vivid and vibrant shades. Colours that are beyond the range of CMYK and so images created with the RGB palette will come out darker when printed.

To accurately print the document or image, it must be covered from its original RGB format to CMYK. It is possible to do this using software like Photoshop and Illustrator.

Narrative Illustration - Communicating Characteristics and Symbolism.

Aside from Napoleon and Snowball, there are many other characters in Animal Farm and almost all represent a person or event. Some (like Boxer) easily communicate their meaning.

"Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work."

The description for Boxer is easily followed and to communicate these traits, an illustration of a large horse, brown with a white stripe down his face.

Early sketch of Boxer

Other characters in the book are a little harder to communicate their meaning. Characters like Moses the Raven, who represents the Russian Orthodox church. Initial research showed no connection between the creature and the established religious sect of Russia, leaving me with few options on how to connect Moses to what it was he is meant to symbolize. This meant I had to conduct research on the Russian Orthodox independent of any information on Animal Farm or Ravens. Of all of the symbols and artifacts of the church, one proved both recognizable the world over, while at the same time being unique.

Research page from my sketchbook on Moses the Raven

The Russian Orthodox cross is very recognizable as it has a third horizontal bar at the base which sits at a slight angle. After drawing the basic shape on the left page (above) it struck me that it looked almost like a fence when rotated. This realization then inspired the sketch to the right in which we see the dilapidated fence in the shape of the Orthodox cross upon which, Moses is perched, while in the back ground, a mountain towers above the scene. I feel that this is a most effective way to link the character to what he is meant to represent.

Another of the more complex characters, are the dogs. The nine dogs represent NKVD, the private police force of Stalin's said to have committed murders and espionage for the Russian dictator. They also operated as his personal guard as the man became increasingly suspicious of plots to kill him.

At first I looked at vicious dogs, and images of dogs snarling, trying to communicate the tenseness of their bodies and the anger in their eyes.

Sketch of a snarling dog, barking and baring its teeth.

But the brutal nature of the dogs was not the only one depicted in the book and Orwell was very clear on how and why the dogs had been corrupted.

"The education of the young was more important than anything that could be done for those who were already grown."

"As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education. He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and there he kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot about their existence."



The two quotes are taken from the book (Animal Farm) and they reveal that the nature of the dogs was manipulated by Napoleon. Orwell understood how a young, impressionable minds could be trained to think a certain way, and having only known the boar's teachings, this was the dogs truth truth. He became not just their teacher, but their master and it is later noted that the dogs wag their tails for Napoleon in much the same way their parents had done so towards Jones.

Detailed sketch of a puppy

Quick sketch of the puppy first
attempt at a
charcuterie   

This was a deliberate, diabolical process by Napoleon and the dogs are, in actual fact, the first victims of his schemes. I feel it is an event in the book that needs to be communicated in a better way, than simply portraying the dogs as mindless killing machines. They are potential used in the most negative way possible and likely answers an age old question. Nurture or nature? In this case it is nurture as the dogs could have grown to be like their parents if Napoleon had not spirited them away.

With all of the characters so far I have looked at source material of the animals themselves and attempted to break them down to their more basic forms without loosing flow and expression of movement. Each study starts with rough and detailed sketches, with further exploration and refining with a fine liner. This is the most comfortable way for me to work. The sketches with graphite allow me the option to correct any serious mistakes while the fine liner helps me to define and finalise the line work. Any colour that has been added and used at this point is simple washes of watercolour, which add tone and help to illuminate or darken. The colours used have been understated and suited to the animals themselves, but these muted realistic hues do not have the eye-catching effect I am aiming for. My work takes inspiration from the propaganda of the Russian revolution and the Stalin years that follow, all of which use bold primary colours of red, blue and yellow.



Narrative Illustration - Previous Versions of Animal Farm

Since Orwell wrote the book in 1943-44, it has been recreated a number of times. The two most notable incarnations of the tale have been the 1955 animated film and the satirical illustrative works by Ralph Steadman.

Animated film

When Orwell died in 1950 the rights for Animal Farm were acquired from Orwells widow by, then CIA operative, Everette Howard Hunt. Hunt kept his involvement with the CIA a secret for twenty years while the Central Intelligence Agency provided financial backing for the film.

It was made in the UK by a British film company Halas & Bachelor who had won much acclaim for their work on TV commercials as well as war time propaganda reels. The thought behind making it in the UK was to hide the involvement of the real backers of the movie and fours years later, the work was released though with one big change.

At the end of the book, the animals can no longer tell the difference between the pigs and the humans. In the animated feature however, the CIA approved ending shows the non-pigs on the farm, rallying help from neighboring farms and the animals there, before turning on the pigs  and humans in yet another uprising.

The animals being lead in a second rebellion by Benjamin the Donkey, in the CIA approved ending.

This was clearly a message to the people of Russia and a warning to Stalin, that should the people call for help, the USA at the very least would come to their aid. They literally turned Animal Farm into a fairy tale.

I wonder then, despite the change to the ending, would Orwell really be angry with this? The motives behind the change was to empower the common people (of the world, depicted by the animals of other farms joining the cause) into another rebellion, this time against Stalin. However, the two human guests of the pigs are in the house at the time and these two people represent leaders of the UK and USA. So what the CIA essentially done, was to depict the people of the world, united in arms against the leaders of Russia, UK and USA. I think Orwell would have appreciated the irony.

Still, despite the artistic license taken the animation itself was a huge success and even now it is a beautiful thing to watch. The characters (especially Napoleon) are memorable, the style is unique and the animation of the characters is quite clean and believable, its hard to believe it is sixty years old.

Ralph Steadman

Ralph Steadman is a British cartoonist and illustrator best known for his work with Journalist Hunter S Thompson. During the pairs forty year friendship they covered events such as the Kentucky Derby, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and coverage of the Watergate Scandal as well as numerous articles in the Rolling Stones magazine of which Steadman is still the gardening correspondent.

Over the years the artist has kept busy with illustrating various books such as Treasure Island, Alice in Wonderland and of course, Animal Farm.

Ralph has a very recognizable style. Loose, moody and with satirical undertones though in the case of the work he done for Animal Farm, the satire is one of the first things you notice.

"Animal Farm has seen off all the opposition. It is as valid today as it was fifty years ago."

 

The above quote is from Ralph Steadman himself and it is clear from this he has a deep respect for Orwell's tale.

 

My work

 

As a child I was deeply affected by the animated film, I was very upset by the plight of the animals in the farm. The tale has stayed with me to this day and only when reading the book have I developed a deeper interest, and, now old enough to read between the lines, I am moved again though this time to the very real human suffering that inspired the work, and, sadly, similar suffering that goes on still to this day.

 

Ralph Steadman could not be more right when he said that Animal Farm is just as valid today as it was fifty years ago, governments the world over still manipulate and exploit the people they are elected (or not in some cases) to protect. Orwell could see the not so obvious dangers of tools like propaganda. The dumbing down of ideals before they are twisted to benefit a select few.

 

With this knowledge and respect of the message that Orwell was trying to get across, my work has unintentionally, been influenced by the animated feature I was exposed too as a child. I feel the characters I have begun to develop have taken on a similar charm to that of the characters in the film. I am not disappointed by this, in fact I think it proves that in some way we are influenced by the things we see.

 

Napoleon in various poses, done with fine liner and stained with coffee.

 The story of Animal Farm highlights the consequences of ignorance and of not questioning all that you see and hear. It focuses on the power of the propaganda machine and how a select few can rise to power when they wield this weapon effectively.

The character of Napoleon is the one I wanted most to get right. The book is essentially about him, rising to the ranks and becoming supreme leader of the farm and while other animals come and go, Napoleon is one of the few who is there from the very beginning through to the end. Only three other animals can boast the same, those being Squealer, Benjamin and Clover.

Napoleon is the biggest of the pigs on the farm and is described as fierce looking, so the first thing I had him do, was scowl. His other characteristics are selfish, suspicious and greedy. So to communicate these traits, I have made him rather rounded, to account for his greed, while making his eyes small and narrow and framed by bags and circles, this communicates his suspicious nature.

I am very happy with this design, though I do still need to consider his colour. To make him stand out even more, I may make him completely black and the groups of spots that dot his hide and left ear, these will be white.

Snowball, looking determined and focused. Done with fine liner and stained with coffee.

Snowball is essentially the story's protagonist though the ending for him is not a happy one. He is described as a more 'vivacious pig' than Napoleon and more inventive. With this in mind I have made him more streamline than Napoleon and kept the markings to a minimum. I imagine any pig called Snowball would be pale, so his colour shall be almost white. His inventiveness is symbolized (in the above picture) in the form of the blueprints he has drawn up and the windmill he himself pioneers, though he never sees it realized as he is driven from the farm before work begins. He is standing astride a ploughed field looking off into the distance, looking forward.

This picture happened almost accidentally. I had intended to draw him on a wooden table top, but when I completed it, it looked more like rows of ploughed soil... because of this it gave the final image a more dynamic feel and communicates the potential greatness that is in Snowball.