My drama group's next project is a selection of tales from Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". Namely the "Nun Priest's Tale", "The Wife of Bath's Tale", "The Friar's Tale", "The Pardoner's Tale", "The Miller's Tale" and "The Reeve's Tale". Beyond the fact that I currently be the prime candidate for playing Nicholas in "The Miller's Tale", which requires me to bear my *ahem* bare arse to the whole audience, I've offered to create the promotional poster for the show.
I'm trying to produce something reminiscent of Medieval paintings and artworks, like the bayeux tapestry. So not particularly realistic, with the story flowing across the piece. It starts with the Pilgrims meeting in the Inn in the bottom left corner, with the Inn keeper proposing the "game" of telling stories on the trip to Canterbury. The pilgrims are then placed in order along the road to Canterbury (in the top right corner), with vignettes of each pilgrim's tale occurring around them.
I'm mostly shifting elements around to get the flow right at this stage. The Sketching is a combination of freehand drawing, drawing from reference and tracings of period carvings (especially the Pilgrim's, who are taken from period woodcuts). One I've got the composition right, I'll redraw many of the elements to reflect the features of the actors who'll be playing the parts, and paint over it.
All done with a Wacom Intuos3 in Gimp.
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Anyway, more or less the final version, made some minor layout changes, added some more scroll effects, shading and detailing. I need to make an A5 version for a local advertising booklet, and a back for the A4 flyer with some more text information.
middleage likes ultra static and a bit streched characters.
What they tended to have was little or no real perspective. That started to come in in a rudimentary sense from around the 15th century, but really wasn't seen until the renascence. I've played with that, ignoring it and following it at a whim.
Really the main thing is that although the initial idea was to be much more true to the style of an illuminated manuscript, it has evolved to use that concept as a base, but with more concessions to a modern viewer. This isn't an artwork in a medieval style, it's a advertisement for a medieval play being performed now, so it's purpose is to bring modern audiences to watch. It's also meant to give a feel for the production, and the play itself is quite eclectic, dynamic and fast paced, so that feeling needs to be put into the poster. As such if there's a conflict between the purpose of the work and the style, the style has to give way somewhat.
Cheers