Mythical Beasts
and Where to Find Them

During my senior year of college, I took a few Book Arts classes to round out my Fine Arts major and fell in love. The contextual presentation of thoughts, emotions, and ideas in such an intimate format was as captivating as it was challenging. It was during these classes that I discovered the star book: a 3-dimensional book design, not unlike a pop-up book, that can create portals to other worlds. Through creative layering of pages and materials, one could create a diorama of sorts, and encourage the viewer to look closer and deeper.

I paired my star book design with my burgeoning growth in digital art. Although I was relatively new to the medium, I was excited to learn more, and challenged myself with four unique illustrations of various mythical creatures. As a long-time lover of fantasy, I enjoyed imagining the details of the environments these animals might live in. Using Corel Painter, I translated my knowledge of traditional media into digital, and painted these creatures to life. Each scene had three layers: a background, a mid-ground featuring the creature in question, and a foreground to frame the scene. These levels were printed at different lengths, edge-to-edge with one another, and bound together into the star book. When fully opened, each elemental beast occupies its own corner, and all four scenes can be viewed in turn.

This star book bears no resemblance to the book or movie of the similar name. I was not aware of its existence when I created this.