The Firebird

Color Theory for Entertainment
Project: Prince Ivan and the Grey Wolf
Using Russian fairy tale Prince Ivan and the Grey Wolf, redesign four characters, create a central environment to portray in different times of day, and illustrate four key scenes from the story.

Prince Ivan’s quest is to locate and retrieve a Firebird, a Horse with a Golden Mane, and Helen the beautiful Princess. I chose to take the project as far from Russia and the Far East as possible. I envisioned a matriarchal society set in a swampy forest, hanging bungalows along arid cliff sides, and open meadows with grazing livestock. Instead of a combustible phoenix-like bird, I created a phosphorescent winged lizard-monkey.

I imagined this world full of large, ferocious carnivores and dueling clans of native peoples, thus every thing had to be heavily fortified, and old and war-torn. I designed the wolf to be a leathery beast, built more like a tank-rhino than a canine. And the prized Horse with the Golden Mane became a brawny beast of burden valued as breeding stock.

As the main character, Princess Navi had to undergo a transformation throughout the course of the story. Tattooed though entirely undistinguished among the other warriors of her clan, through her trials she eventually becomes the warrior-leader her people need.