Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr Fox" have been interprated in many different ways by artists. Though not the original, the most reconised has to be Quentin Blakes illustrations. His energetic style of messy yet controlled pen with subtle water colour effortlessly capture the movements of the image and sutble express character emotions, a perfect match for Dahl's dark imaginative story telling.
Unlike the previous artists who illustrated the book I can't help feeling that Blake's adaptation are the more mature of the set convey this darker side more clearly. His swift mess of lines and blotted ink suggests the characters personal flaws and imperfections, an obvious contrast to Donald Chaffin's original illustrations.
This darker atmosphere in Blake's drawings can be traced from the nature of Blake himself, who at the time stuggled with depression, allowed this to develop into his work. One drawing I feel especially captures this is the scene in chapter eleven where a small fox comes running to Mrs Fox with an armful of chickens. Mrs Fox is starving and tired and this is evident in Blake's drawing. Her lack of composer and bleary eyed appearence perfectly conveys her exhausted emotions, emotions that no doubt that every adult can relate to!
The most recent adaptation of Fantasic Mr Fox is a full length stop motion animation by Wes Anderson. Although mcuh of the story has been preserved there are a significant number of alterations and addition of characters and events. Many of the changes were due to the media it was made in. For example the extra scenes were added to flesh out the story so it would be eligabe for recognition as a full film. The content and script was also matured so it would appeal to adults as well as children, dealing with situations such as marital conflicts and financial status. Although the time of year was never specified in the book it has been established as autumn, due to the fact that puppets appear best in warmer colours. The animation was also more of a homage to Dahl himself. All of the props and furiture that appear in Mr Fox's house are miniture replicas of Dahl's furniture.Methodology
While working on a brief I find that a RVJ is the most appropriate and informative way of recording my progress from brief to final outcome. One project that particularly benifited from RVJ development was a brief I recieved in a level titled "art and literature". The research stage allowed me to branch off into as many areas as I could find before settling into a specific route. A particular usful research method for understanding illustration was to elucidate text that an illustration was built around to see how and why the artist included what they did in the artwork.
This route lead me into graphic novels and through personal interest to manga. I was specifically drawn to this area because of the strength of atmosphere that surrounds the art work and how the visual description achieves this. Whilst studying this fairly modern media I was drawn to the idea of mixing old and new, in this case a classic play in a modern media. As manga is centered on over exaggeration of body language and drama I was immediately drawn to Shakespeare's comedies, more specifically "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Due to the time length of the project I mainly chose this as I already knew it otherwise I might have branched out to other possibilities. The decision of the scene (a quarrel between Helena and Demetrius) was chosen as Helena's over dramatic character coupled perfectly with the whimsical manga style. I was particularly influnced by shojo (genre specifically targeting young women) manga artist Natsuki Takaya, as much of her work was overlapped and layered with atmoshperic pattern, unlike much manga which is confined to standard panelling.
My final piece consisted of a short section of an argument bewteen Helena and Demetrius. I had to reduce the text amount a considerable amount and selected only the significant sentences so the piece wasn't swamped with text and appeared over demanding to read. Image source
http://www.culture24.org.uk/history+%26+heritage/literature+%26+music/art72683
http://rougemyknees.com/2009/11
http://staffnews.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articaleid=27925
(4 and 5 own images)
(4 and 5 own images)
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