This is the story I was due to illustrate before I had to stop work for a few years. The giant looked very different back then! I still really like this design. Perhaps I can use him in the story I mentioned in the last post. Actually he looks a bit like the priest from the Loaf comics doesn't he?
Anyway, he didn't end up looking like that. He has a big beard in the version coming out. I was inspired by a photo I saw of the minimalist sculptor, Carl Andre, but I have been told he looks like all sorts of people, including me and my dad! The truth is one balding man with a big beard will tend to look a lot like another balding man with a big beard. When I saw the picture I thought, 'that's him, that's the Selfish Giant'. I deliberately didn't look at the Michael Foreman version I had in Primary School in the eighties. I didn't consider that I might have some deeply buried memory of what that character looked like!
This isn't the actual photo I saw but it perfectly demonstrates Carl Andre's magnificent beard!
The 1982 version, illustrated by Michael Foreman... I hadn't seen this since second year juniors. I think the teacher read it to us the day we learned how to work Big Trak, the programmable toy car ^-^
The first thing I drew when restarting the project was the Giant's gargoyle, a hommage to wonky eyed stone lions the world over. They are one of my favourite things. Perhaps I should make a story about them... with similar universe rules to Toy Story... Gargoyle Story!
Here is a picture of the long suffering giant getting buffeted about by the North Wind. I drew it from a different angle in the end but I still like this one.
And finally (also somewhat ironically) this is the last Selfish giant picture I drew before putting the whole project on the shelf for six years... I see that I had already ditched the smooth chinned version back then. Beards just are selfish... perhaps?
http://niknak79.tumblr.com/post/60363992752
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly!!
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