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Two Lands

  • laure komoe

A work-in-progress, following a forbidden friendship between a young deer and a monkey. Synopsis: Once upon a time in a far away land, there were two tribes, the Night Tribe and the Day Tribe. They lived amongst one another in perfect harmony, and gathered every month for the ceremony, celebrating the crossing of the moon and the sun, the symbols of their tribes. When this happens, the sky changes colours to an array of purples, reds, and blues and the tribes would start to sing a a low hum. As the moon and sun gets closer, the singing intensifies until the penultimate moment. They sing a song so powerful, so strong it makes your hairs stand. A central part to the ceremony is the sacred stone which refracts the colours of the sky and they change, but one ceremony, the stone disappears, and they can't complete the ceremony without it. The tribe leaders start blaming the other. It escalates and they decide until one decides to own up and return the stone, the ceremony can never again take place, and they cease all communications between their tribes until that point. Some time passes, and our story begins. We meet Luna, a fawn from the Night Tribe, and Zeki, an infant from the day tribe. Luna is an energetic fawn with an insatiable curiosity, and Zeki is quite the opposite. Cowardly and shy, he seldom leaves his mothers side, but one night, curiosity gets the better of them both. They've always been told never to cross the 'other tribe' but they come to the clearing between their lands and form a friendship. They begin to regularly meet and play together, but this is what ultimately leads to both tribes rethinking their ostracism and reconciling. Method: for this project, I'm using a similar technique to that of Flo. I'm using my own painted watercolour textures for everything within the scene, but I'll be keyframing this time as opposed to frame-drawing.

The scanned and djusted line drawing of the Deer from the Night Tribe. I wanted to keep a fantastical element, but mainly through the texture, however I still wanted to accessorise them a bit so I drew crawling ivy with little flowers on the antlers.
It took some time deciding on the final texture for the deer, but I decided to go with this one. I wanted a mix of blues and whites - similar to the sky - yet I didn't want the pattern to blend in too much to the sky. The antlers remained a traditional brown, and the flowers are yellow to represent stars. However, the flowers and the antlers' colours make for a woodland-esque aesthetic as well.
Their forest is a typical one with lots of foliage for the deer to hide in, and pastures for them to run through. The fauna varies from natural greens to bushes with bright, stand-out colours. 
The monkey's unique appearance will be down to the texture, so for drawing, I concentrated on the physical appearance. I researched different apes and took elements from each, merged them together and the end result was this. Monkeys I took inspiration from were: 
The Black Howler for their facial shape and their mane (something prominent in my design) I enjoyed their facial structure as it stood out from the faces of others. It is wider, their eyes are rounder, and their noses were quite subtle, just two small nostrils. The other element I've taken from them is the shape of their mouth when they howl, it is an 'O' shape which differs to that of other monkeys or animals as a warning call.
The Yellow-Tailed Wooly Monkey, who I took a liking to for a similar reason to the Black Howler in terms of their face, but they stand out more where colour and contrast are concerned. Their hair and facial colour have a greater contrast, and their hair is a maroon colour which looks beautiful when the sun hits it.
I looked at other monkeys as well, and the common ground is I was attracted to those with a strong mane, and colours that made them stand out. This carried into the design of the monkey's tetxure below.
As the Day Tribe's element is the sun, I chose to reflect this in their design with bright colours which form a sun-like appearance. When they're sat out against the daytime sky or sunset, they're almost supposed to look like the sun itself. It is a simple design, but I feel they are one with with the sky and elements.  
Monkeys, in nature, are live in hot climates, and their jungle is full of tropical fauna. When they aren't swinging around, they're finding the perfect nook where the sun hits them just right.
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