Beowulf Book Illustration
Some type of sub-title
Some type of sub-title
This is a very early project of mine that the client ordered and liked but never paid. The client in question was a very sympathetic Bulgarian, a master of Old English who had the beatiful idea to translate the epic anglo-saxon poem "Beowulf" into bulgarian but regretably never got a sponsor for the book so in turn my illustrations never came to be published. Yet the deed lives on and as I finished my work, so he did finish the translation. It is, even if available only online, a masterpiece. I am honored to have worked with that professional.
Since my vectorizing skills were somewhat poor at the time, I drew the illustration and vectorized it automatically via Flash, which was the best program for this kind of action back then. The idea in itself I took from a painting of Giotto : The Arrest of Christ. In that painting Jesus and Judas appear to be as two heads on the same body - a great artistic device that amazes with it's keenes and defience of the authority of tradition even to this day. As I drew, I also read the masterfull essay of Michael R. Collings on Stephen King. In the essay Mr. Collings asserts that as Grendel snatched 30 men, so the hero, Beowulf, has the power of strength of thirty warriors. It appeared obvious to me that the Hero and the Monster must actually be two sides of the same coin, two oppsites bound in one.
I had not read "The Monsters and the Critics" by J. R. R. Tolkien at the time and didn't remember the Conan "two snakes - one body" symbol. As with Giotto, the best ideas are always invented before our time :)
The three headers are
I - The Coming of Grendel
II - The Coming of Grendel's Mother
III - The later years of Beowulf and his fight with the Dragon
The lettermark consists of a historiated Inicial and a cyrillized beowulf font. It was the part of the design that I changed the most in the years since the creation of the headers.
The undertitle is a vectorization on the basis of a wordmark by a fellow calligrapher.
A finishing vignette was to be put under every chapter.
I also cyrillized the beowulf font but never used it beyond the title.
Since my vectorizing skills were somewhat poor at the time, I drew the illustration and vectorized it automatically via Flash, which was the best program for this kind of action back then. The idea in itself I took from a painting of Giotto : The Arrest of Christ. In that painting Jesus and Judas appear to be as two heads on the same body - a great artistic device that amazes with it's keenes and defience of the authority of tradition even to this day. As I drew, I also read the masterfull essay of Michael R. Collings on Stephen King. In the essay Mr. Collings asserts that as Grendel snatched 30 men, so the hero, Beowulf, has the power of strength of thirty warriors. It appeared obvious to me that the Hero and the Monster must actually be two sides of the same coin, two oppsites bound in one.
I had not read "The Monsters and the Critics" by J. R. R. Tolkien at the time and didn't remember the Conan "two snakes - one body" symbol. As with Giotto, the best ideas are always invented before our time :)
The three headers are
I - The Coming of Grendel
II - The Coming of Grendel's Mother
III - The later years of Beowulf and his fight with the Dragon
The lettermark consists of a historiated Inicial and a cyrillized beowulf font. It was the part of the design that I changed the most in the years since the creation of the headers.
The undertitle is a vectorization on the basis of a wordmark by a fellow calligrapher.
A finishing vignette was to be put under every chapter.
I also cyrillized the beowulf font but never used it beyond the title.
2017 lift-up:
2005, 2017
Thank you.
Thank you.
We are the champions
My friends.
