Concepts: A Peek Into My Creative Process by Ryan Burger

Concepts A peek into my

creative process

by Ryan burger

the task The project was to create a short children’s book using any medium and to utilize my design and layout skills. I chose to retell the ancient Norse tale of how Odin lost his eye in exchange for knowledge.

getting started The initial task in this project was to choose the story I wanted to tell. With an interest in Norse mythology, I chose a tale that relayed a message, as well as one that would be visually interesting to read. While several other Norse tales may have been more visually interesting, the harshness of some of the tales helped me choose to tell how Odin lost his eye in exchange for knowledge.

I found several very similar versions of this tale and then began to create my own storyboard for how I generally wanted to tell the story.

storyboard To create my storyboard, I had to decide which parts of story needed to be the focus of the illustrations.

Sketching quick thumbnails and making a storyboard, I was able to narrow down my idea for each

sketches page’s general layout and where my story would fit within each page.

With the use of spreads, each image needed to be able to convey a large portion of the story.

characters The main character was Odin, a Norse god. I wanted to have a simple look, but also incorporate a more traditional impression of the Viking myth. The first sketch is the first quick idea, while the second sketch is a refined version of the initial sketch. Because I chose a story with only three main characters I was able to determine their appearances rather quickly. While doing research on the story, I also did some research to

determine what appearances they should have. Odin is described as having a long white beard with piercing blue eyes, often with ravens on his shoulder. When he is on earth his description was simple, a long blue or gray cloak or robe and a broad brimmed hat. I chose to portray Mimir as a large rock giant. The sketch on the far right shows Mimir blending in with the rock background.

pages For each page I based the scene on my initial thumbnails during the storyboard phase of my creative process. The image shown is the rough of my page before I proceeded with my final version. Using gauche watercolors, I recreated my initial sketch.

Manipulation To create these pages, I first painted each page and then photographed the images. Once I had that image, I manipulated the paintings. Combining the traditional skills of painting with the digital manipulation tools of Photoshop allowed me to create a final product I was pleased with. This set of pages is a good example of being able to digitally blend my paintings and reuse backgrounds and images to create new spreads.

adding the story Adobe InDesign was used to combine the words with images in a readable and pleasing manner.

Using a drop cap style on the initial paragraphs helped to achieve a more storybook feel. Using a more medieval typeface also helped relate the story to an ancient time.

O

din rode a magical flying horse that had eight legs named Sleipnir. He would soar through the skies above Asgard upon his mighty steed.

H

e carried a mighty golden spear as he watched over his realm.

Odin indeed was a mighty king, the father of all the gods.

the final product