THE ITTY BITTY PARTS

I've finally finished laying out the first volume of Frankenstein into small thumbnail sketches. This helps me with page compositions so I don't approach a page completely blind. They are simple and rough, but a very important stage in the planning process. It looks like volume 1 will have 70 pages to it. If the other two volumes are similar in length, it looks as though the book will have roughly 200 pages of illustrations. I think I have my work cut out for me.

Be Grim!
Gris Grimly

THIS IMAGE SAYS IT ALL...

I just completed a pretty simplistic illustration that will be used as a page to mark VOLUME 1 in the Frankenstein book. But despite it's simplicity, I look at this image and see this sole icon representing the overall tone of the book. The dark dingy background, the harsh black strokes of the title, the vibrant punk colors reminiscent of films like Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead and the cartoonish skeletal hand; All of these elements are twisted and assembled together to create the creature that is...Gris Grimly's Frankenstein.

WILDEST DREAMS

One of the exciting elements to the Frankenstein book I'm working on is the multiple styles that will emit from page to page. The book will comprise of full aged letters, maps, vignettes and sequential illustrations. Some pages will be fully colored and detailed with ink lines while others will be rendered in black and white. Here is an example of a dream sequence Victor has after he brings his creation to life. I chose to depict this scene in saturated washes (almost black and white) with no inking. This gives the page an airy almost smokey feel like a memory that could be wisped away.

Here is the text from the original manuscript that will be conveyed solely pictorial in my illustrated version:

"I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel."

Hope you enjoyed. There is more to come.

Be Grim!
Gris Grimly

MAPPING OUT THE JOURNEY

I've been a bit scatter brained in my execution of the Frankenstein book. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just means that I haven't been focusing on one task and carrying it through. In a way, this keeps me sane. The biggest satisfaction that comes from working on a book is seeing the completion of an illustration. Working on planning, thumbnails and sketches for weeks can be really draining. So instead, I've been running back and forth from doing thumbnail sketches to working on maps and letterheads to completing full page illustrations.

As a kid, I always liked books with maps in them. Here is one such map to be used in my Frankenstein book for future children to admire.

Be Grim!
Gris Grimly