I Decided to go for the girl with the dragon tattoo by Stieg Larsson, one of my favourite books that first thriller that's really gripped me and first intrdouced me to scandi noir - think that the original title: Män som hatar kvinnor; in English: Men Who Hate Women) is more fitting to describe the series but this title is definitely more fitting to the book where we get introduced to the girl herself, I knew straight away that I wanted the Drop cap to refer to Lisbeth directly as the first book's her debut really and her story starts here. Spoiler alerts guys !

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 1 - student project

Went through a few Ideas, Jessica was right they were random (Ikea, really Luke ? just because its a Swedish book ?) but put them down anyways, ones that stuck in my head were tattoos and piercings which are a pretty big thing in the book, Lisbeth has them and theres even a scene where she gets revenge on a guy by tattooing him physical and emotional scars are a big thing in the series. Also thought about wasps, seems a bit vague at first but Lisbeth has a tattoo of a wasp on her neck and it's also her Hacker handle she's also described as a wasp too by people in the book.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 2 - student project

Did some super crappy super rough sketches, expanded a bit on the piercing side of things quite liked the L being an actual piercing on an ear, Lisbeth has lot's of them its her way of saying F you to everyone else in the book they're described as her armour like spikes on a porcupine. looked at barbed wire too, she has them tattooed on her wrists and it links a bit to the sado-masochisim and bondage (physical and emotional) themes later in the book, I quite like the L made out of the barbed wire, looks more elegant that I thought it would.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 3 - student project

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 4 - student project

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 5 - student project

Refined things a bit more like the barbed wire and the piercing think i'll ditch the wasps doesn't really make sense to have more than one theres potential in the left one having the wings as the l with the wasp in the middle though. Tried out the L along with barbed wire on the wrist drawing but its not really a drop cap its more like an L with a drawing on top. found the dragon on the naked back wayyy to obvious to a nerdy reader like me but probably the most relatable and one that Jessica was saying don't show a client because they'll love it but you won't be crazy about it.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 6 - student project

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 7 - student project

Decided to go full steam with the piercing logo, thinking of having the L in solid black or super dark charcoal and the rest of the ear and piercings as line only, maybe a different colour to get the cap to pop. decided to try and fracture the L up a bit after looking at some IKEA lampshade pics (Yes, really) and some geometric scandi design after some wikipedia rabbit holing and also reference the chaos that is in the lives of the characters. having said that the gap in the left hand corner is bugging me I might just fill that In for a cleaner shape but going to leave it to play in illustrator now it's down !

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 8 - student project

So Never Used Illustrator much at all but thought I'd try my best, started super simple tweaking the bars of the piercing to get them super aligned to L shape.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 9 - student project

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 10 - student project

So ended up setting for a middle round as I felt the L wasn't coming through clear enough but when I Fully went for it, it was to much so I think I've tweaked it to where I'm Happy

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 11 - student project

Never used vectors or plotted points before so this was tough but Ive enjoyed it ! decided to go for solid fill on the other piercings but dont know wether to keep them to the same colour palette as the ear

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 12 - student project

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 13 - student project

Played around a bit more with the background colour and added some studs to the L so it looks more like a piercing.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 14 - student project

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 15 - student project

I don't want the ear to overtake but I definitely want it to look like an ear so added some shading in red especially as i'm only working in black white and the one colour

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 16 - student project

In the end having the L on a slant just wasn't doing it for me, it just made the ear seem even more dominant so I put the L the right way up and lowered the opacity of the ear (listen to me talking like I know what i'm doing, never even used illustrator before !)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson - image 17 - student project

Few more tweaks but in the end narrowed it down to the final three, after putting so much time in to get the ear right and then try to blend it in so it doesn't fight the drop cap I prefer the middle one ! really enjoyed this class as an illustrator noob I think I did ok !

Luke Davenport

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