How The Jellyfish Lost Its Bones

[MjTheHunter]

The school I’m attending has recently granted me a self-study period which will span about three months.

In these three months I have been given complete freedom to do whatever project i want.
I have chosen to visually “illustrate” a modified version of the Japanese story of How The Jellyfish Lost Its Bones.
The story has its roots in the Japanese story, but I have extended it a filled some gaps here and there.

I will make an update a little later with the story.

I use the term illustrate a little loosely.
What I’ll do, is to create the characters, the creatures and the surroundings in which the story takes place.
This involves a lot of concepting for everything, figuring out what the locations will look like, designing creatures that fit into their given environments etc. There’s a lot of work to do, but I’m certain it will be a lot of fun.
I want to incorporate old styles of Japanese woodcarvings and paintings to certain degree.

Another task I have given myself is to document most of my work, so I’ll try to record a lot of stuff from the development stage and naturally share all of the work I do.

My goal is to produce some of “keyshots” from the story which will be where the most important actions happen. I think there will be around 4-6 of them
I hope some of you will follow along as it develops and provide me with feedback if you will

Thank you

Morten Jæger.

[MjTheHunter]

So here's the first update.
These sketches are from yesterday and today.
Mostly exploring shapes and trying to see what kind of style would fit into the universe

[Black Spot]

You have some utterly delightful character here. I look forward to seeing it progress.

[keremcantarhan]

I can feel the japanese mythology from these drawing, really good job. 1. 3. and 4. pages are absolutely perfect. 2. page is well done but it doesn't give the same japanese feeling others make me feel.

[MjTheHunter]

Thank you Black Spot.
I agree keremcantarhan, I'll have to rethink some of them
Today I mostly touched up some of the designs, I had time to finish up the some sketches for another character

[keremcantarhan]

Nice concepts for catfish, I really really really like the left-center one.

[MjTheHunter]

Thanks :p I havent's really settled on anyone of them yet.
A little lazy start this week, only did a few drawings for some animals and creatures, and a quick color test for the Jellyfish

[keremcantarhan]

Great work again. The only thing comes to my mind is that maybe you should make the Kappa a little more human-like. It looks like a furry frog as it is now. Also now that I've seen a lot together, yokai are actually pretty comical and odd. LoL

[Legohaulic]

Lovely character! As far as color is concerned, the top right is my favorite, The face seems lit-up like it's glowing from inside which seems to fit the character you've portrayed. The color scheme is also striking and stands out from the others well.

[MjTheHunter]

I'll try a more human like Kappa then
yes they are :p.. you should check out all of the tsukumogami, some odd ones out there..

@Legohaulic
Thank you, I totally agree with you choice

[MjTheHunter]

Okay, started to play around with some styles.. Not really sure what to go for though..
Oh well, here's and update anyway

[keremcantarhan]

I think the third one won't do because it looks way too solid. Jellyfish are supposed to be you know jelly-like. Second one looks amazingly refined and I really liked the lighting on it. But the first one looks like a jellyfish the most. Maybe a cross between first and second?

[MjTheHunter]

Yeah.. The third one is no good at all..
I'ts hard to come up with the right style I think :/..

But I will try that, and post and update with some other styles tomorrow

[MjTheHunter]

Okay here's todays update.
I think I finally found the style I want to go for. Hope you like it

[keremcantarhan]

Beautiful. I have nothing to say this time, simply beautiful.

[MjTheHunter]

Thanks man

[MjTheHunter]

Another update, today I wanted to explore some of the creatures ilving in the sea. Heres my Moose Dragon, Octobubble and my Bush Fish :p..

[keremcantarhan]

I didn't like these as much as I liked the jellyfish. The jellyfish had amazing details and the concept was "warm", "lovable". I didn't feel the same with these. These aren't major characters I know but if I remember correctly you said that you had like 3 or 4 months so I think you may want to invest some more time on these. Maybe create some variety like you did with the jellyfish? Just my advice tho, I'm not good at drawing so I wouldn't take myself too seriously.

[MjTheHunter]

I'm a little confused to what you mean.
What do you feel is missing?

[keremcantarhan]

I'm not so sure myself. They just don't have the same likeability that the jellyfish had. I looked at the sketches just now and they look pretty okay. Maybe it was the choice of colors. Hmm this might sound weird but I think too much detail may also be the problem. Sketches of these guys look a lot simpler.

[MjTheHunter]

So this is a bit of a boring update, just some thumbnails for the final images

[MjTheHunter]

Well.. this week is basically just thumbnailing and doing colorscripts these are from today.

[keremcantarhan]

I like the colorful, vivid one on the last page. Totally captured the emotion I think.

[Black Spot]

The earlier sketches were much more delicate suiting the jellyfish better. As you've progressed, you've sort of lost that along with some of their charm. It's more the flatness of the colour that you're now incorporating.

[MjTheHunter]

@ keremcantarhan
Thanks, yeah it's just meant to be a colorscript for one of the final paintings

@ Black Spot
How would you suggest I change it?

[Black Spot]

I know it's your baby, but I thought the middle one was where you should be going, not the third one.

[MjTheHunter]

Ahh I se what you mean
The second one is similar to my usual style. The third one.. is crap xD..
But the style I've chosen is somewhere in between I think.
I appreciate your honesty

[MjTheHunter]

Continuing to work on the colors trying to get an idea for each of the compositions.

[MjTheHunter]

Here's another small update, just some more color thumbs, next week the real painting starts

[fxEVo]

Great plannings and well laid out stages, it's very ambitious, I'm expecting for great works later.