Wednesday 25 April 2012

...a drawing of your wife sir? Are you sure sir?...

A big thank-you to Tom Brooke for one of the most enjoyable commissions of last year. This is a piece of work that became known as 'Kitchen Carnage'.
Tom wanted to present wife Emma with a birthday gift of one of my drawings. They already had one of my Pen & Ink illustrations and liked the idea of a family comic strip. The brief essentially was to draw Emma as a superheroine overcoming insurmountable odds, i.e. getting the kids ready for breakfast on a school morning.
I'd like to see world savers Spider-Man and the Human Torch tackle that problem - although Mr Fantastic is married with kids... 
Anyway - with a suitable story, I had a go at the 'Breakfast Adventure!'
I prepared a rough preliminary layout, and this was the script -
'Kitchen Carnage' - marker rough

KITCHEN CARNAGE! 
Panel 1 - Scene setting long shot of your home/Hilgay village
Panel 2 - Close up - Emma blissfully asleep
Panel 3 - Same shot - Emma rudely awakened by crashing sound effects      off panel 
Panel 4 - You guessed it - Kitchen Carnage! long/medium shot - Josh and Finley doing everything but getting ready for school. Remote helicopters and paper airplanes flying out of panel, cereals and lamp also flying...(please advise if these are things they have/would do, or suggest alternatives - Millennium Falcon?). 
Panel 5 - Whoa! Enter Emma - wearing dressing gown/pajamas - perhaps she shouts Josh! Finley! -boys freeze in mid motion 
Panel 6 - Flash of lights, Emma transforms into 'Super Emma' (this outfit or costume can be what ever you want, so ideas please), amidst all the Mary Poppins like breakfast preparations (toast buttered, milk on cereals, juice poured, books/schoolbags packed), and other 'tidykinetic' events, the helicopter and plane come in to land. And I'm sure Emma managed to telekinetically make herself a cup/mug of tea/coffee. 
Panel 7Longshot - Josh and Finley all dressed and ready for school look at each other thinking 'That's our 'super' mum!' Emma stands triumphant - another school morning successfully dealt with - back to bed? If only...
If there is a next issue/week/final message blurb what might it read? 
TOMORROW - 'Kitchen Carnage 2!' 'Back to bed' ' SuperEmma to the rescue... 
Anyway - that was the general idea...
'Kitchen Carnage' - pen & ink
Tom kindly provided numerous photos for reference and we came up with the finished article as above.  
I offered to produce a hand-coloured watercolour version, but they had already cut out the middleman and given the kids photocopies and crayons - 'What the..!?'
If there's any doubt, I think we know who the real superheroes are...
Thanks again, Tom and Emma. 

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