Noelle Abuoun
Little Red Riding Hood
Cover of LRRH
The cover was one of my main focuses and drives to illustrate this story. After figuring out which story I wanted to do I had to come up with a cover. When it came to a color scheme, I knew I wanted something moody and dark, almost demonic like.
I started out sketching different covers depicting Little Red Riding Hood travel or the wolf stalking her with his eyes. At first I had made the wolf's eyes pop out a bit, but later added a black, grunge texture around it. The white park around the title was to indicate that the wolf tore that part off the page to reveal it. I wanted to keep Red simple with no color to the skin and simple dots of eyes.
Spread 1 - A walk to Gran's
The first spread takes place on the hills. Little Red is looking across the landscape as her grandmothers house sits and awaits her arrival. A sinister beast lurks in the corner waiting to feast...
I gave the sky and water a mix of blue and greens to help the reds pop out in the hills and moon. It's a little cloudy with a moon that illuminates a red-pink like color. I have the closer trees the same as the cover while the rest look more dark and spooky. I decided to make the trees near the house just line work and no color to lessen the detail since they were farther away. In the lower right corner of the hill I created a shadow with eyes to enhance the stalking vibe of the story.
Spread 2 - Darkness Lurks
The second spread is separated as two pages. The first is three boxes where I wanted to show close up different parts of the scene. I wanted to express that this girl walking through the woods clearly has no realization to what dangers are lurking around her. The wolf is seen now getting much closer to her, drooling because he is hungry.
The second page shows the wolf's body, I wanted him to appear as this large beast who could barely fit on a page compared to Red Riding Hood who is a small child. Even his stomach grumbling is popping out of the page a bit to emphasize the large and fearful being that he is as he's about to snatch and eat this little girl.
Spread 3 - Supper Time
This spread is viewed as a back and forth. A view behind Red as she looks to see a gigantic large mouth of sharp fangs. I wanted to have her seem like this gulping, black void was completely surrounding her, for she had no where to go.
The next spread shows from inside the wolf as he is about so swallow her up. Throughout these pages I continue to give Red Riding Hood a simple look to her face. She's represents innocence, even when she is in the face of danger she can only expel kindhearted thoughts. This spread is my favorite in particular. I very much enjoy the emotion in it.
Spread 4 - A Nice Surprise
As you notice in these spreads, the dark backgrounds are now disappearing to a white light. The atmosphere has completely changed due to a kind gesture. Even the wolf who seemed so terrifying before has become simplified as if Little Red's kindness has warmed his heart.
The colors shift to a soft pink and purple color instead of red and blue. A cookie in the shape of a heart is just what this hungry wolf needed. Not just a meal, but someone to care enough about him to help. He's never had a kind gesture such as this happen to him, which is why he's so confused. Sometimes a kind gesture can help soften some edges, in this case literally.
Spread 5 - A new Friend
This spread goes back to being full, as Red and the wolf say their goodbyes. The sky as become clear from clouds, even stars have appeared to show the for now the night has become safer.
Even the house, lake and other places in the environment are more colorful and brighter, setting the scene for a joyful one. When trying to come up with the story I originally was going to add more to it, such as the ax-man who is in the original story and even thought of a darker alternative ending. I had a restricted amount of pages, so if I had tried to add more it would've looked like a comic book which isn't what I wanted, so I created a simple and happy ending instead.
Sketch Phase
These are some of the sketches and line works created for this illustrated story. Some of the sketches are different scenes and trying to figure out how I wanted things placed.
The first sketch is almost like a comic book which is what I originally was planning to use because I had a larger story in mind, but decided that my artwork wouldn't shine if the story was in a bunch of boxes on a single spread.
In "Sketches 3" you can see I was trying to figure out how I wanted the characters placed in the scene. There are some scenes, especially the first spread that just stuck in my mind and I couldn't see another way of doing it. On the other hand the scenes regarding the wolf, especially when he confronts Red. I had difficulty figuring out how to properly place the characters and figure out how they would look. Eventually I got to a point on each spread that I liked and made it digital.
I first illustrated the line work using Adobe Illustrator. For me it's an easier process to line my drawings then in other programs. Once lined I took it to Photoshop. Even though the drawing are fairly simple, I really wanted to express a dark mood in it which is why I chose watercolor brushes and used many dark colors. I tried to stick with a color pallet of red, black and white with a mix of pink, blue, green and purple into it.