Were-Wolf Walking

My first experiments for part of a longer animation celebrating Baring-Gould’s Centenary, using Procreate and the new animation program, Procreate Dreams.

Flame, Flood and Were-Wolves

Baring-Gould in Horbury

In 2024, the Baring-Gould Centenary year, we’re celebrating – in artwork and animation – his work inspired by the time he spent as a young curate in Horbury: the hymn ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, his folklore study ’The Book of Were-Wolves’ and his semi-autobiographical novel, set in a thinly disguised version of Horbury, ’Through Flood and Flame’. Cue thwarted love, dramatic disasters and the villainous Richard Grover, man-monkey and firebrand preacher.

Special thanks to local historian Keith Lister, author of ‘Half My Life’, the Story of Sabine Baring-Gould and Grace, my main reference for this Redbox Gallery show.

Characters from the novel

3D cut-outs of Annis, the Nightwatchman, Richard Grover the ‘Man-Monkey’ and our hero, Hugh Arkwright, should make a dramatic centrepiece for my Baring-Gould Centenary display.

I was hoping to squeeze in a few were-wolves too but Baring-Gould’s lively research into folklore but they’ll be stars of the short animation that I’m starting work on today.

Hugh Arkwright, ‘Through Flood . . .’

Meet our hero, Hugh Arkwright of Arkwright’s Mill in Sabine Baring-Gould’s thinly disguised version of Horbury in his semi-autobiographical novel of 1868, Through Flood and Flame. I’ve gone for him encountering peril number one, the flood.

I based the action-hero pose on an Indiana Jones movie poster but as Indy is holding his trademark bullwhip and our hero Hugh was negotiating the flood walking along a garden wall clinging onto a clothes line to keep his balance, I’ve shown him in a later scene which involves a rescue by boat (although in that case Hugh is catching the lifeline rather than throwing it).

Hat, frock coat and necktie, along with the character himself, based on Timothée Chalamet’s version of Willy Wonka.

Annis Greenwell, Mill Worker

Despite the melodrama and the larger-than-life characters, Baring-Gould’s novel Through Flood and Flame was semi-autobiographical. Annis Greenwell was closely modelled on Grace Taylor, a young worker at Baines’s Mill, who – in real life – he met, fell in love with and, a few years later, in May 1868, married at St Peter’s, Horbury.

Wonka and Were-Wolves

Roughs for exhibtion

Willy Wonka raising his hat on the cover of last week’s Radio Times struck me as the perfect gesture to show Sabine Baring-Gould introducing himself when he arrived in Horbury in 1865 as the new curate.

My first rough (on the right) for the main display in my Baring-Gould centenary exhibit results in awkward shapes to fit the characters into, so I’ve decided to go for simple rectangles (left).

cut outs

The characters will be cardboard cut-outs to give the effect of a Victorian toy theatre.

Flame, Flood & Were-Wolf

Planning the Redbox Gallery Baring Gould Centenary Show

There’s so much that I’d like to include in my Redbox Gallery show but there’s only so much that you can fit into a phone box but the good thing about the limitations is that it makes me focus on the essentials of the story. I will be able to squeeze in a few extras though because I’m able to include an animation playing on a continuous loop.

1865 proved to be a productive year for Horbury’s new curate, Sabine Baring Gould as not only did write the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers for the church’s Whitsuntide Walk from the mission at Horbury Bridge to St Peter’s, he also published The Book of Were-Wolves and was inspired to turn his experiences in Horbury into a melodramatic novel, Through Flood and Flame.

By the way, this is my first post using a new theme, WordPress 2024, and I’m using Lightbox for some images, for instance this one: hover over it and click to see full size (and click again off the image to return to this post).

Were-wolves animation

Of course the were-wolves were the subject that I wanted to start trying out my Procreate animation skills on but there are some colourful characters to include in the novel and, if times permits, including Onward Christian Soldiers would give me plenty of practice on animating a variety of characters walking.

I reassembled the set from a previous Redbox show and carefully measured up check on how much room I had available for the display.

Church procession

Werewolf Storyboard

My next practice exercise in illustrator Martín Tognola’s Animated Illustration in Procreate: Tell a Story with Movement Domestika course is to use word lists, mind maps and a ‘visual data dump’ to come up with an idea for a short looping animation.

As I’ve been thinking about my Baring Gould centenary show in Horbury’s Redbox Gallery for a while now, I’ve skipped the word list stage and gone straight on to a visual mind map. I’m a visual rather than word-based thinker.

I realise that I’m not short of potential material.

With mid-Victorian factory smoke and steam in the air plus the ‘Flame and Flood’ in the title of the novel inspired by his time at the mission at Horbury Bridge, I’ve got the basis of a swirling movement to frame the snapshots of Baring Gould’s life and literature that I’d like to include.

What, Who and Where-Wolf?

storyboard

Martín suggests looking for a not-too-obvious but not-too-obscure middle ground solution for an animation idea. His example is for an illustration to accompany an online editorial article but my animation will be stand-alone, so I’ve gone for instantly obvious versions of each idea, answering the questions what, who and where:

  • Baring Gould’s ‘Book of Werewolves’ clunks down into the frame and an assortment of historic werewolves pop out from the pages.
  • Carrying his carpet bag, Baring Gould, the new curate, arrives by steam train at Horbury Station, steps out of a billowing cloud of steam and introduces himself by doffing his hat.
  • We zoom in on a graphic version of the Redbox Gallery.

The Redbox Gallery sequence would be along the lines of the film production intros that precede a movie. I’m thinking of the intros that have a graphic, hand-drawn look such as those for Bad Robot and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free production companies.

Frame from hand-drawn animation for Scott Free intro, in which a running figure morphs into an eagle.

Redbox Format

If I’m technically able to show my animation in the Redbox Gallery, a former telephone box, a screen aligned in portrait format would be the most appropriate. To make the animation Instagram friendly and more versatile in general, I’ll set it up in Procreate in a square format but make sure that the main action is always fits into a portrait-format rectangle.