Sketch illustration-1 (of 5?) Rapunzel

8x13 Graphite (0.9 mm) on Bristol board. 15-20 hours.

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Just completed this...I would've finished it last night, but 4am is not the best time to make final decisions. haha ^_^

This was made in behalf of the monthly topic over at Childrensillustrator. There was a lot of topics to vote from, but the majority came to Rapunzel. I strongly voted for Baba Yaga, and since it didn't win, my witch ended up looking a bit like her.

I based the narrative loosely on what I knew and researched about the story...

::STORY::

"Basically a man is caught stealing from a witches garden in attempt to help his wife. As punishment he promises to give his first child to the witch. As expected the witch takes the newborn child and at the age of 12 locks her up in a high tower. Several years later a prince happens to be riding by and hears her singing. They end up falling in love with each other. As it usually does wind eventually got blown back to the witch, so in a rage she cut off Rapunzel's hair, throws her out into the real world, and then using Rapunzels hair tricks the prince. After the price climbs the tower the witch shoves him off and he becomes blinded by the fall. Spending a long time wandering alone through the wilderness he hears Rapunzels singing and finds her getting water at a waters edge. They embrace, she cries into his face and he miraculously can see again. As to the witch, in her haste to shove the prince off the tower, she lost Rapunzel's hair, and since she had no way to get down she stayed trapped in the tower till she died."

Honestly this may look like a complicated and hard illustration, but it just fell together for me. I decided what elements from the story I wanted to portray, loosely sketched them, and then pulling out the bristol and mechanical pencil I let them evolve until I was done. I used the same basic approach as from my 10 hour illustrations , in the sense there is no right or wrong reality. It was also nice to spend time on many different narrative elements instead of one ultimate/all conclusive illustration.

Hope you enjoy! I don't know if I will complete 4 more pencil illustrations before my semester starts, but so far I am doing great!