The Castle.
I wanted the castle to look like Wawel Castle. I found some really old drawings of it and tried to copy them. Then I decided that any castle will do and the higher on the mountain it is the better. As there still need to be a dragon cave underneath. So my favourites were castles in Czorsztyn, Niedzica and Sandomierz.

Wawel Castle before 1617 AD

 Wawel at night.

 Czorsztyn.

 Wawel. This drawing convinced me to have my illustrations basic and in watercolour.

 Czorsztyn and Niedzica.

 Sandomierz.

 Wawel today.

 

Krakow around 1500. Konrad Celtis.

Castle in Lublin.

The dragon. My first design was a bit too soft. Maybe this is how a kid would drawa dragon but it isn't soooooooooo terrifying as in the poem.

So I worked a bit harder and came up with this one...

Terrifying enough I think.

I think the one without the outlines look a lot better so I'm going to adopt this style for the whole book.

This is how they look after colouring. As you can see only the Cobbler stayed the same as original design. The Princess and The King have changed. Not much though.

I started to design my characters some time ago...

I wanted the poem to be short, about 8 verses. I started to write, and believe me when I say it, it was difficult as English isn't my first language, and I wanted the poem to rhyme....more difficult. I wrote and I wrote and I ended up with 14 verses. Too many for my liking as it meant I would need to do 14 illustrations if I want one per one verse. I started to modify it and lay the template in front of me to see what would be the best option. Some pages will have 2 and some will have only 1 verse. I will need 7 illustrations in total. Doable. I think.

This is my poem. 

Underneath the Wawel Castle,
in the land of Good King Krakus,
in the cave and I'm not lying,
lived a dragon, soooo terrifying!

The King was sad and people worried.
The dragon was massive, scary and green.
Every day they had to bring him
sheep. Guess how many - eighteen!

In the morning after a good sleep
his belly was rumbling loudly again.
"Where are my tasty sheep?” he thundered.

"Bring them now!" His voice, dark and deep.

They tried to shoo the beast away
but he was huge, and not afraid of Knights.
He showed his teeth and they ran away,
ran very fast, all afraid of bites.

The dragon spat fire and asked for more.
The King was getting very depressed,
and people continued to burble.
"I have no more hope" he confessed

The King with his last breath of hope
from the castle addressed his folk.
"I’m looking for a hero, brave and smart,
not afraid of danger......a lion-heart"

"Have my daughter as your wife.
Oh the bravest of all, where are you?
From the dragon, set us free.
Half of my Kingdom, I will give you too!"

A handsome cobbler stepped up front.
"Give me a sheepskin" he demanded firmly
"I have an Idea. I will trick the beast.
It will have one large and final feast!"

He took the sheepskin to his home
and sewed up inside four barrels of salt.
Outside the cave he left the sheep
for the dragon to see when he woke from sleep.

The dragon got up and stretched his jaw
then dragged his fat body out of the cave.
He hadn't eaten the whole dark night,
so swallowed the sheep and licked his paw.

The monster's belly started to ache.
His mouth got dry like a desert.
He kneeled down and drank from the river.
"It was just a sheep, so why does it hurt?"

"I must have eaten one sheep too many.
I promise from this day on", he said,
"Never again will I eat meat;
Carrots and apples will be my treat".

From the huge beast he once was,
the dragon got smaller, smaller and cuter.
Only fruit and veg he ate, don't forget.
He became the Cracow's beloved pet.

Handsome cobbler, Skuba was his name
wed the princess and got his kingdom.
Dragons never returned to Wawel.
They're now afraid of Skuba's fame.

I found a very nice and children friendly version written by Mrs Katarzyna Campbell. I liked it straight away. I decided to translate in into english and then worked my own version out of this.
It worked most of the time and I do believe I can call it my own , but there might be some similarities. So , yesterday I contacted Mrs Campbell by Email. I explained who I am and what am I doing. I also said that our poems may share some similarities so to avoid a possible future misunderstanding, I like her to give me a green light to continue. She said :

"Witam!
Panie Marcinie, ucieszył mnie fakt, że mój wiersz zainspirował Pana i jest tematem Pańskiego projektu. Wyrażam zgodę na wykorzystanie mojego tekstu. Życzę samych sukcesów!
Serdecznie pozdrawiam
Katarzyna Campbell"

Basically it says she's happy that I got inspiration from her poem and she agrees for me to use it. What it means for me is that there are no copyrights issues now.
Appreciated.

Please have a look at Mrs Campbell's website. 

I've done some research and downloaded a couple of versions of the story. It has been twisted and changed so many times over the centuries. Some of them are even more cruel than the original.

I do not want the dragon to die. I think that the story may be changed so it isn't wiped out.

OK.

It's been decided. I will have written a children story. I shall illustrate it, create the layout in InDesign using Blurb's new plugin and if everything goes right, have it printed. There will be an Ebook made as well. Of course it will.

It wasn't very difficult to decide on a story. It had to be a polish story and a story close to my roots. The Dragon of Wawel Hill seemed just perfect. The oldest account of the story comes from the 12th Century. Once upon a time there was a dragon. Nasty one that ate people's livestock, killed the civilians, etc. In many versions of the story, the dragon especially enjoyed eating young maidens, and could only be appeased if the townsfolk left a young girl in front of its cave once a month.....and so on. Knights, Princesses, Kings, you name it. Everything you need for a tale.

This is supposed to be a tale for the kids so I'm about to create my own version. A bit less morbid. And I'm not going to kill of the dragon.

The Wawel dragon, in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographie Universalis (1544)

I’ve decided to go for the third one, the Writing Brief. I do not write poetry or comics and I’m not specially gifted when it comes to illustration however I thought about twisting the brief a little bit and personalising it.  I have been subscribed to Blurb since 2009 but never managed to get my projects done. I thought I could create something with them and that this would qualify as a Writing Brief. I know that dropping pictures and text into a software that does all automatically isn’t really hard or challenging, but what if I could design the book from scratch? In my sketchbook I would keep track of ideas and progress, and thanks to Blurb’s new InDesign plugin it’s possible to create a truly original design. Now, for the content of such book. I have few ideas:

1.       Ask the Kids – this would be a collection of Questions and Answers. I would ask kids questions taken from life, e.g. “what is Love?” and then I would try to illustrate the answers and place in the book with the corresponding questions. Additionally to this there would be videos recorded which could be used in an eBook version, which can be designed in InDesign, as well. Ebook would contain Illustrations, Photographs, Text and Video. A “Making Off” could be included too. I could also ask kids to create their own illustrations as part of the answers.

2.       Portfolio – this would be a personal book. I thought it would be professional to have a book which includes my work done so far in 3 years at college. This would be a personal portfolio of my work. Book would have a collection of photographs and illustrations and eBook would include all above plus additional pages with links, videos and a diary. I thought that this book would work well as a portfolio to be shown at interviews for the University or work, instead of carrying a massive bag with drawing. Ebook would serve as a support design easy to view online.

3.       Poem or Story translation – I could also pick up a polish children story and translate it into English and illustrate. This was the first Idea which I and Magda had. Since then I’ve decided that I prefer the other two options and to work alone of this.

4.       Travel Diary – another idea for a book/eBook combo. Back in 2007 I traveled for 4 months on a motorcycle covering more than 12 000 miles between Edinburgh and Nepal capitol Kathmandu. My journey was accompanied by a travel blog and was closely followed on UKGSER website, a forum with 16 000 members. I have since the return in 2008 wanted to write a book. I’m thinking that this would be beneficial to me as I could use the same forum to try and sell the eBook or/and the book and collect the funds which I might require for my Graded Unit. My post had 6 246 views and was commentated on 102 times. I believe that I could sell few eBooks and maybe Books. I would apply same criteria for the creation. Idea/Planning/Development/Finish.

These pages have been created to document the creative process for the Advanced Project for my HND 2 In Computer Arts and Design. This shall include a diary of images and ideas and development of solutions from the chosen brief.

 

The Brief Options:

1.       Pringle – rebrand and re-launch the Pringle Knitwear company.

2.       The Creative Social Network – choose a category and submit a new series of work for the inclusion in the website community.

3.       Writing Brief- Write own poetry, script, comic book and illustrate, perform or direct project.

4.       NHS Eating Disorder – create a piece for NHS to counteract the problems of eating disorder.