BFG

I have been working on an illustration for the BFG. I illustrate the connection between the characters. I had an idea to use a streetlight to highlight the girl in the story as to show the scale of the giant she would be very small in the composition. I wanted to show the giant in similar tones to the background to make him seem otherworldly and further suggest the difference in scale. From my roughs I wanted to depict the giant holding the girl in his hands so for this image I wanted only the elements in the light to be in full colour and everything else in dark blue, the problem was that as I illustrate hands separate from the character the giants hand is not obviously his hand and takes a minute to work out. I also wanted all the images ideally to be on a white background to work with the Roald Dahl institute logo.

The light also acts as a barrier between the two characters and I want to show the connection between them. I decided to start again and make the image simpler. In my first roughs I only drew the giants head and hand as if he is appearing from the clouds. I tried a few ideas to show the giant holding the girl, one being the girl balanced on top of the giants finger, I talked to a few other illustrators that liked this idea. I kept trying to alter my composition and the scales between the characters but couldn't find a combination that I thought worked. The had is almost a right angle and created a solid corner in the bottom left of the composition that created too much of a rigid shape to the composition. I could not decide how big to make the girl in the composition, she was either too small and got lost in the composition or too big and all sense of scale became lost or didn't have the impact I wanted.

The hand is not as clear I would like. I decided to use some ideas from my first attempt and changed the colour of the giant to make him more mysterious and to help highlight the girl. This meant that I could make her smaller and she was still a focal point of the composition. I also changed the hand so that she was stood in his palm. This helped to communicate how small she is and made the giant seem more protective. The shape of the hand is more appealing and clearer.

I like the simplicity of the giants face, drawing attention to his eyes and his focus on the girl. I am not sure whether I should add any more detail to his expression. I am going to come back to this illustration tomorrow and try to start with a fresh perspective.