Chí Phèo
(Book Illustration), done by me.
These covers were my take on Nam Cao's 3 famous book titles, during the experimental of looking for an unique, vintage art style.
In this project I'll focus on 'Chi Pheo', this was a subject at my university. The task is to illustrate a book, choose random 6 pages from the base story. At first lemme talk briefly about 'Chi Pheo' here. Of all the Vietnamese short stories, 'Chi Pheo' is considered one of the most invaluable masterpieces written by Nam Cao in 1941.
The story tells about Chi Pheo's life representing hard lives of poor farmers in old society. Chi Pheo, who is abandoned when he is a baby, is brought up by Vu Dai villagers.He's a strong,kind and honest farmer and he works for Ba Kien. Then, he is put in prison because of Ba Kien's jealousy. When he returns, his characteristics change completely. He is always dead drunk and does wrong things. He really becomes a devil of Vu Dai village. And suddenly, he falls in love with Thi No and dreams of becoming a good person. Unfortunately, her refusal as well as social prejustice prevents him from realizing so simple a wish. In the end, he comes to Ba Kien's house, kills Ba Kien and kills himself.
Overall there are 3 major characters here. The left one Chi Pheo, as drunk as skunk. The second one is Thi No, one hell awful-looking woman. If you know the Vietnamese well we do have this kind of comparison like 'she is as ugly as Thi No', close enough. The last one is old man Ba Kien, a venomous snake, the main villain in the story.
While working on base concept art I also did 'Ly Cuong', a minor character, he is the son of Ba Kien.
Here is a rough sketch that I did to do the story board.
And here we go the final productions. The left one is my base coloring, and the right one is the final choice after my teacher asked me if I could make it more colorful and catchy.
I didn't think her decision is good, since the story represents Vietnamese famer's desire to free themselves from porverty, overall tone of the story is gloomy and miserable. However, I listened to her and we have two versions here.
The first page, the story begins where Chi Pheo is back to the village after his trial is expired.
The second page tells us about Chi Pheo's childhood and when he is put in prison by Ba Kien. I rearranged the second slide of the first version to another page to give more space.
The third page demonstrated the 'warm' welcome Chi Pheo received when he made his way home. The kids are taunting him. There wasn't a dog which the original story told, but this is my take: I put a dog beside him to tell that he is now as miserable as an animal. However, there's still humanity beneath his scary appearance, since the good dog doesn't scared of him.
The fourth page is a separate piece I made to the final version. It tells the story back to the past when Chi Pheo was put in jail by Ba Kien, and how he transformed into a monster, thanks to our old man here.
The fifth page tells the story when Chi Pheo first encountered Ly Cuong (Ba Kien's first born), and the dogs are trying to get him away. Nothing much changed, I just rearranged the text box to give the whole scene more space.
The sixth page demonstrates how Ba Kien rigged and commanded Chi Pheo to do bad things to the villagers. Personally, I feel good with the colour changes, since dark purple gives a mysterious and dangerous vibe, as much as I tried to draw the symbolistic snake.
The seventh page tells the story about how Chi Pheo meets Thi No, and the rice soup bowl filled with spring onion, is what he finds his redemption. I didn't make any change, I think the old one is good enough.
Here is the poster for the release day of the book. I don't know which one is better. The old one fit more to the theme in my thought, but the final version is more colourful and it should be more commercial-friendly.
Also below are the bookmark set that I created to present along the main book, three pieces represent three crucial events happened to Chi Pheo: His childhood - The tragic that put him in jail - The monster he became.
Thanks for your time.
