Narrative - My Process - Illustrations 3 & 4

The Last Rock

 For the next illustration, I am working on the scene in the book where Boxer, the hard working horse of the farm, is finally over-come with exhaustion and fatigue.

Up to this point, Boxer had been working harder than anyone else on the farm. He gets up early and is the last one to leave the building site. Over the course of the book, it is also indicated that food rations are reduced and work loads increased. This is likely to have a physical effect on Boxer especially who is working harder than any other.

In these sketches I have experimented with the expression of the character. I have attempted to make him appear, fatigued and thin. To aid in achieving this look, I have kept the line work thin, with harsh angles where the bones come near the skin. In each picture, Boxer is on his knees unable to hold himself up, further indication of his state of health.

 While I was happy with some of the sketches, I was not happy with the position of Boxer. I wanted to show a much more dramatic pose. I kept the angular, thin lines and adjusted the position of Boxer so instead of being on the ground, he is in fact, falling.

I feel this is a much more exciting scene, as it now has the added drama and anguish of the horse as he finally buckles under his own diminished weight, no longer having the strength to support himself. His expression is one of fright and confusion, his mouth parted as if he is calling out and his eyes wide and filled with sorrow.

This is the image of Boxer I will be using for the illustration, titled The Last Rock. In it, Boxer will be falling by the rocks he was attempting to transport to the build site for the windmill. Each rock will have one of the two slogans that Boxer adopted as his moto's. "I must work harder.' and 'Napoleon is always right.'

After scanning in the chosen line work, I added colour in the same way I had done with the previous illustrations. The rocks were added in the foreground with Boxer, so he is actually falling down beside them. The text on the rocks is haphazard and it is difficult to read the words, but any familiar with the character and the book (as they will be upon reading this far in the story) will soon see the familiar slogans that Boxer himself has been saying since the rebellion. In the background we can see the unfinished Windmill that the animals have been working hard to build. It looms there, a sad testament to the hard work, that unfortunately for Boxer, will amount to nothing, as shortly after this scene he is sent to his death.

I have set this mock page up to see how this particular illustration would look and how it would sit upon the page.

It was always meant to be a double page spread, but small enough to allow some of the book text to read out the description of the scene. While my illustration does not exactly match the written description, it was never meant too. My purpose was to incorporate symbolism and drama, hoping to make the reader sympathetic to the horses plight and I feel I have managed to do this.

The elements work well together, but the Windmill does not stand out very well, it gets lost in the flat, block colour of the red. Further highlights need to be added to make the structure pop out more, or lighten the red colour so the existing line work is more visible. 

The Windmill

The Windmill also features in its own illustration, near to the end of the book and serves as a half page vignette, to emphasise the completion of the structure. The windmill in this image is complete and has the working components it has missed up until the end of the book. 

I wanted to do a fairly detailed and delicate sketch and so hand drew each and every stone, to symbolise the hard and dedicated work of the animals who had constructed it. I added the surrounding flora and landscape to give an idea of its size and also to show that it is part of the landscape. A well worn path leads to the structure as, apart from the work done during the construction, the windmill is now a central feature in the running of Manor Farm (previous Animal Farm, previously Manor Farm).

 In this final version of the windmill scene, I have added colour (restricted to the limited colour palette I have chosen for this project) and shading to add definition and create a more three-dimensional quality. When set against the flat colour of the red flurry, it stands out more boldly.

For the red, I decided to experiment with the brush effects in photoshop and created a semi-chaotic skyline that silhouettes the Windmill. The calm, tranquil landscape when set against the haphazardly painted sky creates an interesting contrast. I chose to do it this way because both moods, while completely opposite resulting in the contrast, also depict, symbolically what I am attempting to communicate here.

The line quality is serene, peaceful, communicating a well constructed, practical building on a working farm. The final testament to the fact that the animals themselves are perfectly capable of not only managing the farm, but are also capable of great things. It stands proudly on the hill.

The painted sky, by contrast is angry and violent. The splashes represent the chaos and hardship that the animals suffered while working on this structure and it hangs around the building like an aura of death and suffering. It also bleeds onto the previous page, indicating that in the pages that came before this one, is where this negativity came from.