Vis Comm Blog

Red glasses

Before deciding to illustrate Judith Plaskow’s story, I attempted writing my own version of Lilith’s tale. I found it much easier having to illustrate someone else’s interpretation of her story, so I scrapped this idea. This version also included hidden text that would be concealed with the red acetate effect, these being indicated with brackets:

On the sixth day of creation, God formed animals to roam the land they had created.

The sheer variety of sizes and shapes pleased them, but they weren’t satisfied.

They mused over the thought before deciding to create another being, this time in Their own image.

Plunging their hands into the earth, God drew forth the first humans; Adam, and Lilith.

Born from the same soil they were made equal, and God granted them sanctuary in the Garden of Eden before settling down to rest on the seventh day of creation.

At first both Adam and Lilith were content with their companion in the garden, but it soon began to fall apart.

“I will not lie below.” claimed Lilith, steadfast.

"I will not lie beneath you, but only on top.” Adam retaliated, “For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one."

"We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth!" Lilith’s voice struck at Adam’s firm tone.

(But Adam wouldn’t listen.)

In her anger, Lilith uttered the Ineffable Name of God and rose into the air. Framed by her flaming red hair, like a comet she shot from the Garden and out into the beyond.

Adam stared after her in shock, before falling to his knees in desperate prayer.

“Master of the universe, the woman that you gave me has fled!”

God answered Adam’s prayer and three angels appeared to find Lilith: Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof.

“Go bring back Lilith.” God told Their angels, “If she wants to come, she shall come, and if she does not want to come, do not bring her against her will.”

The angels bowed to their Lord, before passing beyond the walls of the Garden and out after Lilith.

On searching far and wide, the angels found Lilith on the shore of the Red Sea, her fleeing from the Garden slowly starting to warp her from human to a demon.

(There they grabbed her and) they said to her: “If you will go with us, well and good, but if not, we will drown you in the sea.”

"Leave me!' she said. "I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days."

(Lilith was not created to harm, she was created equally to Adam as a human being.)

(or)

(“Leave me, I will not return to be the slave of my equal.” uttered Lilith.)

The angels kept pushing, pleading with her to return to the Garden.

(The angels kept pushing,) (“We won’t let you go until you accept upon yourself that each day one hundred of your children will die.”)

But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: "Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant."

In addition, Lilith agreed to have a hundred of her demonic children die each day.

(Lilith refused to return subservient to Adam, her equal. Rebellion burning within her, she accepted their offer. She wouldn’t be a slave.)

Satisfied, the angels left (released) her, leaving her at the shore of the Red sea (all alone).

The angels returned to the Garden, informing God of their failure with their heads bowed.

(Lilith let the waters of the sea wash around her, sitting in quiet desolation)

God pitied Adam, and They themself wondered what had gone wrong. Raising a hand, they put Adam to sleep, reaching to carefully remove one of his ribs.

(But at least she was free)

From his rib, God created him another companion, Eve.

(Through her tears, Lilith felt light warm her face.

“Do not be afraid.” said a voice)

Eve was content with being Adam’s wife, his support and his aid. God too was pleased that their partnership was successful, and They left Adam and Eve in the sanctuary of the Garden.

(Lilith looked up and gazed upon an angel above her. Drying her eyes she saw his hand outstretched.

“I am the archangel Samael.” he said, “you should not be alone.”

“You’re right.” Lilith rose to her feet, “I shouldn’t.”

Overall I am really happy with the outcome I came to, as well as where my project went in the end. Initially it was really difficult as it bashed my confidence a bit having many of my earlier ideas dissuaded, but I felt it gave me a stronger final outcome. It also showed the value in standing up for my passions and what I believe in, as I am happy I stuck with doing a mythology-centric brief.

A big factor was that I started taking anti anxiety meds partway through the project, and it really shows for the better. My sketchbook is much more interesting going onwards from when I started taking them. Many of my ideas were not advised during feedback, but I appreciate having the time to reflect on my work and go forwards with an idea I had assessed and been sure of its success.

The global pandemic definitely made it difficult to achieve the best of my abilities, as I was unable to access uni resources, but with what I had I am proud of my outcome. I feel the isolation allowed me to focus more heavily on my illustrations and refining them for the final book, the Perfect binding attempts definitely were a good shout too as it showed I didn’t necessarily need all of the professional equipment to create a draft version, plus it allowed me to easily show it to people to gain feedback.

Time management went fine. Towards the beginning of the brief, when I wasn’t certain of my direction, I found it quite difficult to really manage when to be researching and when to be making things. This became especially difficult with the uncertainty of the pandemic, as we weren’t sure whether we’d be able to access resources or not, and I felt that starting meds definitely helped me narrow down my ideas to focus on women in mythology. Though I didn’t go with the Fae-centric ideas I’d had, I did really enjoy researching them as I find them an interesting and hidden part of English history. Being isolated at home, I found it easier to just focus on what I was doing without external worries of printing the final outcome and process book, as those are both really stressful situations.

I also really appreciated doing a brief that was illustration centric. I do enjoy illustration and I know before this brief I had been afraid of doing more as I was worried about image quality and amount. However, I am glad I managed to push past that and create an outcome that reflected my abilities and desires to combine illustration and graphic design in a new and interesting way.

The process book went fine as well, initially it being a bit difficult as I wasn’t sure how to present it and I wanted something that represented me well. I ended up going with something quite ordered and colour coded, as I find those sorts of categories satisfying. The colours looked nice together as well and the icons for each section I feel summed up the overall casual, yet ordered feel of the book.

Process Book cover

Business Card trials

To keep it relevant to me, I wanted to include my interests, or something relating to me, in the card. Initially I wanted a Kasa Obake umbrella Yokai, because they are cute and unique enough to make the viewer ask questions. I considered having my initials in a more calligraphy style as I do a lot of illustration and a freehand style relates to that.

Self Branding research

Resume examples

Book Cover

To mimic the cover of a Bible, I wanted a leather bound effect with gold embossed lettering. Due to material constraints I am unable to do this currently, but I feel it will give a really professional finish and add to the overall effect of the book itself.

I chose red leather as I have seen numerous bibles with red covers, but also as red is often seen as the colour of love/lust, a trait Lilith is well known for as a femme fatale.

Leather texture

Book Mockup

Though I had limited resources I tried to perfect bind a mock up of my book. It worked really well and gave me a good sense of the book’s size as well as an opportunity to show it to people for feedback.

It was suggested to make the body text more opaque, as it doesn’t stand out that well even with the red film. Having it printed also showed where some illustrations didn’t work, such as with the Gates and Eve and Lilith’s first meeting, in which the detail was lost in the book’s spine.

Page 24 trials

Page 23 trials

Similarly to page 9 I decided to keep consistency with the pages that God speaks/interacts on. It was also a good way to highlight the text better without being too busy. From feedback it was suggested that the straight lines were too rigid in comparison to the more organic lines of my other illustrations, so I drew them out freehand for a more loose effect.

Page 22 trials

Page 21 trials

Eve has noticeably changed from her time with Lilith, this subtly shown with her hair becoming more loose, but also in her demeanour. In this page she is sharing her ideas with Adam, no longer bringing him things to work with but collaborating. Adam looks incredulous, unsure where this new opinion of him has come from. Eve’s body language expresses this new confidence, and the page is supposed to mimic page 8, except it is Eve thinking rather than Adam.

Page 20 trials

Page 19 trials