The Haunted Dolls' House - M R James

For this project to create a cover, vignette, and full-page illustration I started by reading through the text then going back to highlight the key points that I thought would make for interesting illustrations.
Research
I started by researching different types of doll houses, focusing more on Gothic Victorian style ones in order to get a feel for the setting of the story and the space in which the doll characters live and move in. This also gave me a sense for a possible colour palette to use as the interiors often had moody yet vibrant pops of colour.
I then looked at the types of dolls that would be around in the Victorian era, researching the clothes to find out how detailed they would be as well as the style.
Initial Ideas and Thumbnails
I began by trying to figure out what style I wanted to use for depicting the dolls. I found it quite difficult to find the perfect balance of making it look like a doll rather than human while simultaneously making it look alive. I took my initial ideas and started drawing out some thumbnails, taking different scenes from the book to figure out which one would be visually interesting but also shows the key part of the short story.
Cover
My initial idea for the cover was to keep it simple and play around with using a coloured foil to add more texture and dimension to my design. I first thought of the Inside No. 9 script books I own so I researched them in more depth to figure out the key parts that made it work well. I think that using a silver foil would mean that I had to keep my design relatively simple or create a pattern for it as anything more complicated would make for awkward viewing.
At this point I was rather struggling for ideas for the cover so I just quickly mocked up what I had so far and decided to come back to it later so that I could focus on the other illustrations in the meantime.
Chapter Heading
For my vignette chapter heading, I knew I wanted to incorporate the dolls as they are the main part of the story and a vital aspect. I also played around with the idea of depicting the frog-like creature but inevitably decided not to include it in the beginning of the story as it doesn't work well for setting the scene or tone.
Full-page
Taking my initial thumbnail ideas, I expanded on them and tried out different compositions to find out what worked best. I quickly decided to stay away from depicting the frog creature at all as showing any of the details would never capture anything as scary as the readers mind would. I wanted to play with dramatic lighting with this piece as I feel it will add a certain scariness as well as creating a more claustrophobic atmosphere.
After decided on the part of the story I wanted to depict, I experimented with various different compositions and perspectives to see which one would work best for the mood. Despite this, I wasn't happy with the ending result as I felt it was too boring and basic, and just not exciting visually so I kept with the same scene but just changed the viewers position which you will see further below.
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, (1819-1823)

I was inspired by Goya's expressive brush strokes and vibrant red that stands out against the ochre tones of the skin. I felt that I wanted to attempt to capture the unnerving yet captivating essence of his paintings that he creates with his use of colour. His colours contrasted well with the use of bring colour at the focal point and solid black as the background, making it feel otherworldy.
After getting more feedback on my work, I decided I wasn't happy with the idea I went will after the first session so I decided to take a risk and choose the composition that I felt was more visually interesting. I first drew out the rough composition digitally in order to work out proportions. I then drew it on canvas and created a base of red as I wanted it to be seen throughout the illustration and give a warm, claustrophobic feel. I then painted with oils and used liquin to make it dry faster and give it a glossy finish.
I then took a photograph of my painting and began to add more detail and textured layers digitally as I wanted to preserve the texture of the canvas and felt that adding too many layers of paint would detract from that and it would become too smooth.
Although I was illustrating an page for a ghost story, I still wanted to use expressive colours as I feel that everything doesn't have to be dark and dull for it to be scary. I used the main colour of yellow and red as I feel they give a sense of unease and make for an unsettling combination.                                                                                                                                                           
Going back to the front cover, I mainly took inspiration from the H. G. Wells book I have as it was the cover that initially made me buy it.
I researched published classic books as I wanted to see the orientation of the text of the spine that they used as having it vertically on mine just didn't look right. I found that the majority of them had it placed horizontally so I decided to do the same as I feel it plays a crucial role in making it look part of the era it was written as a modern version didn't particularly fit.
After Feedback
After getting feedback, I realised that since I changed my composition halfway through that I had not put enough focus into the clothing and attire of the dolls. So I researched again the various hairstyles of the Victorian era and made sure to properlly convey it in my altered illustration so that the story was more accurately portrayed.
I took the initial oil painting that I tweaked digitally and decided to paint over it digitally with a textured brush as I still wanted to keep the painterly feel.

I made sure to make the whole think have more contrast by making the scene darker and more creepy. I think that the dolls in the forefront look much better now as they have more character and feel a lot more intimidating and less cute.
I decided to put a monochrome overlay over my illustration in order to better see the contrast and variation of tone since I felt that the eye wasn't being drawn to the main focal points of the image as I intended. By doing this I was able to improve the overal feel of the illustration as the increase in darker tones makes for a scarier atmosphere.
Saturation: 0
Saturation: -35
Saturation: -30
I felt that the colours weretoo vibrant for the old, aged look I wanted it to have in order to fit the story so I reduced the saturation to a point were where it toned it down but not enough for it too look devoid of life and become dull.
Final Illustrations