Biography book planning

Below I've made a kind of storyboard / set of thumbnails for each book page with some notes about materials, methods etc.

I wanted to test out the first 'section' of the book in my sketchbook just to see if it would work... and probably got carried away! I'm really happy with it and can safely say I'm ready to start.

Hearts & Daggers

I was wandering around camden passage in Angel and found a wartime antiques shop called Hearts & Daggers. They have all kinds of things for sale but I was mostly impressed by their huge collection of military badges.

And yes - they had a real RAF badge from WWII! Noor Inayat Khan would have worn one while she was serving for the WAAF. Of course I bought it (haggled down nicely to a tenner), and intend to stitch it onto the front cover of my book. An amazing coincidence considering I was just passing through the area!

So shiny ~~~

Book art inspiration

"Five Trees" - Sarah Peel | http://cargocollective.com/sarahpeel

"Swimmers" - Kaija Joutsijärvi | http://paperiaarre.blogspot.co.uk

"Mis-spent Sleep" - Heidi Burton | http://heidiburton.wordpress.com

"Cosmic Castle" - Peyton Rack | http://peytonrack.tumblr.com

View the full book here - recommended!!

A new angle

I started working on the piece below as a test in my sketchbook for a cutout landscape, and the plan was to progress outside of my sketchbook and make cutout backgrounds for my biopic animation - BUT - I soon found myself getting carried away and adding a lot of detail (and loving it!), and it gave me a total change of heart. After some thought and discussion with friends I've decided to make a book for my final outcome, using a combination of cutout pages and foldout collage pages (like the one I made in my '1940s Paris' post). 

Luckily I'm at the stage where I haven't done too much work specifically for animation, bar a storyboard, so I can move forward with all the prep work I have - in fact looking at it now it seems more relevant to a book.

Animation research

This paper cutout animation by Gianluca Maruotti has some really nice scrolling effects for the backgrounds - imagine the trees as Parisian buildings and I'm good to go! She also uploaded some clips from behind the scenes which is always interesting/useful to see.

Giangrande - Paper Plane (Official Video) from gianluca maruotti on Vimeo.

Making of 'Paper Plane' from gianluca maruotti on Vimeo.

This animation by Kangmin Kim uses all kinds of techniques - a combination of detail and simplicity. I think the visuals are amazing - it's hard to look away.

38-39°C from KANGMIN KIM on Vimeo.

1940s Paris

I couldn't find many photographs of 1940s Paris (understandably as there was a war going on..) but wanted to get a sense of what it would be like, and so I can put together scenes to have as backgrounds in my biopic animation.

Here I have strung some of the images I found together to create one scene, filling in the gaps with pens, markers and tippex. There aren't enough photographs available to do this for my final outcome but I really like the result of this - it's definitely inspired me to continue working with paper. I'm thinking of having moving paper cutout backgrounds for my animation, with hand drawn figures over the top.

1940s Parisian womenswear

To help build on my character of 'Madeleine' I've done some research on what women at the time wore, particularly in Paris. I really like the fur collar coat/dress she wears (also illustrated in the previous post) and am considering making it her 'signature' outfit in my final outcome.

More Noor

Some sketchbook pages exploring Noor a little more. I really like her eyes and hairstyle - they're things to consider when drawing her in a stylised way.

I'm also quite interested in the different 'versions' of Noor - under the WAAF she was known as Nora Baker, and under the SOE she had the code name Madeleine. I view these names as having personas attached to them also - I imagine Noor as quiet and creative, Nora as eager and a little clumsy, and Madeleine as classy with sass. (she's a princess, after all)

Biography project

For our last project of the year (eep!), "Biography", I was given Noor Inayat-Khan. At first I was a little put off as I had no idea who she was, but it turns out she's a SPY PRINCESS!!! (Or rather, an SOE agent in WWII who's great-great-great grandfather was Tipu Sultan, an 18th century Muslim ruler.)

Some drawings from the BBC Timewatch documentary -