Sunday 27 December 2009

Magpie Head Norns


I was thinking more about how I want the norns to look physically and im not a big fan of illustrating humans so I want to have something more original and I starting thinking of what animals have a connection back to people's fortunes and then I thought of Magpies with the amount of them telling people their fates.

Monday 21 December 2009

I, Wolf



After finding this image, I thought i'd create my own version.
 

Peter and the Wolf



Looking through google images at "illustration wolf" I came across this image by Siggi Eggertsson, an Icelandic illustrator/ graphic designer. The piece is for the front cover of Peter and the Wolf, and I just like it because the Wolf in it isn't too obvious and it's very decorative and colourful but not too over the top.

Sunday 20 December 2009

The Norns Card



I was thinking because the norns tell people their fates the card can be designed like tarot cards. I think this will also inkeep with them being old looking. When I say old looking I was thinking of making the image like a stain glass window effect like all the cards have in the image above.

Thursday 17 December 2009

Artist Research - Dan Mumford



I was thinking instead of doing a whole pack of Wargs I could illustrate them like in the illustration above.

I really like the pattern in the piece above and that the who piece is filled with information.

Artist Research- Bjorn Rune Lie



This illustration is the artists interpritation of Odin against Fenrir (which will be one of the characters that I myself will be drawing), which is useful because for my illustration where the two joker characters need to interact, i think them battling against each other would be the best way to illustrate them, like in the Ben Newman piece.

Artist Research - Ben Newman







I really like these illustrations by Ben Newman for the fact that i like the simplistic style and the block colour of the pieces. I think they could also translate quite easily into joker cards and they're nice to look at which i think a joker card is meant to have.
  The illustration below shows a good example of how my two mythical beasts could interact.

Joker Day

Lord B. Wright has delivered...and delivered well.
The two mythical creatures which have been given to me are WARGS and THE NORNS.
For i've already done alot of research on Wargs, Norns will be me main focus.

The Norns are many female beings,  rulers of people's fate in Norse mythology.
The three main ones are the giantesses Urðr (Fate), Verðandi (Present/The Happening), and Skuld (Debt/Future).
Skuld is also mentioned to be a Valkyrie, a female who chooses who will die in battle, once they have the female then takes the chosen person to the Halls of the Slain, Valhalla. 
The three women are meant to stand at the Well of Urðr drawing water and sand from it, which they pour on to Yggdrasil so that it does not rot. The three giantessses come from the land of the giants, Jötunheimr.
Apart from the three there are other Norns, who arrive upon the birth of a person to decide his or her future. These Norns can be malevolent (causing all the tragic and bad events in this world) or benevolent (who are kind and protective).

Wednesday 16 December 2009

Card Symbols


For me to create new symbols for my cards I wanted to find where the symbols actually come from.
The image above shows an interesting truth to the origins of the symbols. In Italy and Spain, the symbols are actually completly different being Chalices, Swords, Money, and Batons. In Germany the four symbols are closer to the ones that we English are aware of, them being Hearts (which is the same as the English and French), Acorns (which is very close to Clubs), Hawk Bells (which could be seen as close to Dimonds), and Leaves (which is pretty much a Spade like shape).

Back of the Card



For the back of my cards i'd like to have the image of the Yggdrasil an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology; the world tree, and around the tree exist nine worlds. It is generally considered to mean "Ygg's (Odin's) horse".

Tuesday 15 December 2009



 Apparently it is going to be very unlikely that I can use wolves for the joker for I have to wait until Thursday 17th Dec 2009 for Lord B Wright to give me a mythical beast.....cnoik!

Monday 14 December 2009

Joker Cards



For my joker cards, because the Wargs are the serious wolves based on serious Norse mythlogy, I thought I could do more light hearted/smaller (not big enough to eat the sun) wolves like in little red riding hood. (As seen in image above). At first I found this picture because for my Jack and Queen cards I want to have the wolves with the Sun/Moon inside their mouths.

Card Design


To change the conventional playing card symbols I have come up with four new symbols on the basis of the title "Tooth and Nail". This was chosen because I was thinking of why kings and queens of different suits were chosen and I came up with the fact that it must be to do with war and fighting over land etc and so "going at it tooth and nail" seemed appropriate. Also tooth and nail is very imaged based.

Though tooth and nail are only two items and i need four. Then i broke down the two words.
Nail can not only be what you bang into wood but a human nail, so with that i came up with THE BLACK CLAW and THE RUSTY NAIL. Then i broke down tooth, which is not only a human's tooth but a creatures fang, with that i came up with THE ROTTEN TOOTH and THE BLOODY FANG.

Mythical Beasts



Wargs
From Norse mythology, a warg is a huge wolf refering mainly to Fenrir and his two sons, Skoll (who is meant to chase the chariot which contians the sun every dawn) and Hati (who chases the moon personified). Once the two sons finally suceed in capturing and devouring their prey (the eclipse) then their father will rise and destroy Odin, chief principal god of the norse, which is a fudging large battle.....world ending i would imagine. JRR Tolkien took this beast and used it as the basis for his own creatures by the same name whom the goblins (Warg riders) rode.

What is that lamp
which lights up men,
but flame engulfs it,
and wargs grasp after it always?

The answer to this question is THE SUN, but it relates back to Skoll always trying to catch it so that he may eat it.