I scanned in my original rough sketches and resized them to fill a piece of A4 paper. Then I printed them and used a light box to trace them in pencil. I used them as references for my refined sketches, making the necessary changes/ improvements. For each illustration I will explain the changes I made and have included a quote from one of the original literary sources that inspired the illustration.
The Creation of the Cosmos: I didn’t make any major changes to this illustrations, except making the image slightly longer and thinner. Other than that I just improved on the sketch, adding in more details to the characters, fire and ice.
Quote from the Poetic Edda:
“Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;
Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;
Earth had not been, | nor heaven above, But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.”
Thor fishing Jormungandr: the concept of the image remained the same but I did make a couple of key changes. One thing I removed was Jörmungandr wrapping around the ship as it didn’t flow nicely with the rest of the composition and took away from the sense that he was coming from the depths of the sea. Also I significantly extended the image, making it a lot longer and therefore appearing thinner too. This was to show more of Jörmungandr and really emphasise how monstrous he is. Other that than I just improved on the sketch, adding more details to the characters, boat, sea and sky.
Quote from Prose Edda:
“the squamous serpent squirms with rage”
The binding of Fenrir: No drastic changes were made to the concept or composition, I just improved on the drawings of the hand and Fenrir. For the hand I used a photo of my own hand for reference, making sure that it was very small in comparison to Fenrir’s mouth to emphasised the imbalance of power/strength. To draw Fenrir I used reference photos of wolves to help me get the proportions are forms right. I’m really happy with the sketch and this it improved significantly from the original one with the most important detail being the increase in size of Fenrir’s mouth.
Quote from Prose Edda:
“They wanted the wolf to try this also,
Saying to him that he would become very famous for his strength,
If so strong a chain was not able to hold him.”
Loki bound: the only major change I made for this one was extending the image to make it longer and thinner. This is because I felt showing all of Skadi and being able to see where she was pouring the venom allowed for a more interesting and complete image. Also I wanted it to have similar dimensions to the Jörmungandr image. I also improve on the sketch, focusing on the people and making sure the proportions where correct.
Quote from Völuspá:
“I see one in bonds by the boiling springs;
Like Loki he looks, loathsome to view:
There Sigyn sits, sad by her husband,
In woe by her man. Well would you know more?
From the east through Venom Valley runs
Over jagged rocks the River Gruesome.”
Ragnarok: I didn’t make any major changes I just refined the details. I improved the sketches of all the creatures and silhouettes of the gods. I decided to limit the number of gods I had so there was more emphasis of the ones that are key to the story. I did make the image slightly longer and thinner to match the creation story illustration and make it feel more like a traditional battlefield image.
Quote from Prose Edda:
“From the south comes Surt
With blazing fire- brand,
The sun of the war god
Shines from his sword.”
Hatching sections: one of the mediums I’m going to use for these illustrations is hatching and pen shading. I did some experiments with different styles of mark making and found that I like using straight line hatching for shading with a pen. Here is 1 section from each image that I did completely in this style:
I’m really happy with the finalised sketches and think that the changes have significantly improved the images. The next step for this project will be to scan my final sketches and take them into Procreate to begin adding colour.
Samuel Green Illustration 