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So grateful that you shared your process. I operate in a very similar manor, but I love that fact that you rephrase the original text in order to aid your illustration process. This is something I struggle with. I feel obligated to stick to the text religiously at times and it often comes at the expense of my visual range.

I'm curious, how do you navigate tone/mood in your process as you reimagine the text into image? With this work you mentioned the dichotomy between the setting and subject being your main focus, making your final product eerie and foreboding in a paradise. Was this a gut instinct? Or are you making illustrations in a range of feeling and then reexamining it in relation to the text? I guess what I'm asking is how do you know (or trust) that your tone/mood taken towards the text is right?

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Thank you James ! I so know the feeling of being stuck so closely to the text that it limits the creative process, and this is exactly to address this tendency that I know rephrase things in my own words.

Re: tone/mood, to me it's very much an integral part of an image. I see the process of making an illustration as an opportunity to play on different levels of signification. I can choose what to show or not show, the relationship between elements, the colours, the tone, the composition, the textures, etc. With those parameters in mind, when I read a text I ask myself "what would be a visual way to convey this or that element?". For example the work of Hokyoung Kim is always so inspiring and full of lessons on how to use the tone of an image to convey meaning.

So no gut feeling really, more an intention. And I don't think there is any right or wrong here, unless the AD points to a major misunderstanding or something like that. It's about what is a most important to you as a visual artist interacting with a text, what is your perspective on it.

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