Retelling Red
Retelling Red is a short-form personal storytelling project that seeks to re-envision the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood for the modern child of today. The story utilizes the limited form of four illustration panels to encourage the audience to connect the dots between the story’s scenes and allow for greater immersion into the story’s world.
The final illustration style is heavily inspired by famous children’s book illustrators John Klassen and Yas Imamura. When it comes to illustration, I typically favor flat, two-dimensional forms; however, I wanted to challenge myself and think in three-dimensions. Using a combination of brushes and ‘cut-outs’ in Procreate, I created an artificial torn-watercolor paper appearance which embodies a visual texture that the audience feels like they could almost feel on a flat page.
In this retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, the colors are desaturated and the shadows are intensified to mimic the darkness of the story’s end. Growing up, when I read Little Red Riding Hood, good usually prevailed, with someone or something saving Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. However, in reality, this does not always happen. Thus, I decided to take on a “Grimm Brothers'” approach to the ending. This choice allows for the audience to begin thinking about big topics such as ignorance, naivety, and consequences.
While the main focus of this project lay with the illustrations, the accompanying text is important for supporting the illustrations and providing necessary context for the plot. I experimented with expressive typography to emphasize key moments in the story and visually describe how certain lines should be read. Additionally, the background color of the text page is set as a muted pink to match the ‘white value’ of the illustrations.
