This is a working version of a cover for a new book for Random House, plus a rough for one of the interior pages.
The story features a destitute young girl – downtrodden, beaten, neglected, but surely destined for greater things – and further convinces me I’m carving my little niche in depicting such pathos-inducing characters. I rejoice that there’s always plenty of room for more pathos in this game.
Ages ago when I was at art school in Hamburg the most exciting about drawing was to let the pencil fly over a large piece of paper and see what came up and what developed while thinking about the world in gerneral listening to the radio. When I finished artschool the most exciting question was: Will I be able to earn my living with illustrating? And I needed two years to get my first well payed newspaper illustration job. But then things developed fast and over years I illustrated 7 days a week. And now the most excting question is again: Will I manage to get back to let the pencil fly over a large piece of paper and see what will come up...
In the last month I've been working on an exciting project at Snow Castle studios in Oslo. It's a kids franchise that will be released as a game and childrens' book. These are just early teasers, but show somewhat the art direction we're going. We're trying to keep a very consistent style between all the production even though it consists of two different teams. The project is called Aurora and Happi for the moment, but we're trying to come up with a less character specific name so the franchise universe can be expanded in future products.
I already got a ton of these "pencil" sketches and it's a lot of fun shaping a fantastic world. I draw inspiration from Alice in Wonderland, Coraline, Pans Labyrinth and other 'parallel universe' type of tales. However my biggest inspiration for creating these designs is music. Mentally adding an atmosphere and soundtrack to the visuals, really helps creating something that has a certain depth.
Best Regards,
FRIDTJOF/FRITS OLSEN Frits's Website Follow us on Facebook
