CURRY / ঝোল
In this bilingual children's book, a simple story is narrated aided by detailed illustrations in oil pastels. The entire process- composing the narrative, storyboarding, character design, illustrations, layout and typesetting - took about three months.
CHARACTER DESIGN:
The style was set for the primary and most frequently occurring characters - the protagonist Boy and his pet turtle. The style of the other illustrations followed from there. The medium was switched at this stage - from digital art to the mixed medium of oil pastels (subsequently refined digitally).
ENVIRONMENTS:
Elaborate scenes are set up in one of two ways - to illustrate the hustle and bustle of the lives of the villagers or to concentrate on the protagonist's solitary experiences. Most of the environmental illustrations solve one of the two purposes.
SETTING A SCENE:
The layout is unlike a comic or a graphic novel. The illustration panels are not accompanied by text or dialogue. The text boxes exist separately from the illustrations. On a lot of spreads, the illustrations are the only tool used to establish a particular setting.
In order to achieve this, the same scene is illustrated from various perspectives - imitating the changing camera angles from a wide angle to a close-up at the beginning of a cinematic scene.
Elsewhere, a long process is depicted through series of close-ups. For instance, the act of cooking is illustrated in a sequence of snapshots like setting up the utensils, adding the ingredients and finally the person cooking.
ADDING MOTION:
Small animations were added to some of the illustrations with the intent of showcasing the project on digital platforms and could also act as marketing assets for a publication.
ACTIVITY:
3 simple recipes are added at the end of the book as a fun activity for parents to d with their children and for them to have an interactive memory of the narrative.
