The Legend of Lake Toba
A Creative Commons Composite Intended for Book Cover Illustration
The Legend of Lake Toba on Free A4 Hardcover Book Mockup by Mockupsdesign
The Concept
This composite illustrates the Indonesian folktale 'The Legend of Lake Toba'. The folktale is essentially about a disaster that causes a village became drowned, and it occurred because a farmer broke his promise to his wife. Here is a paragraph that explains the final scene.
The sky turned black, and thunder and lightning roared, and heavy rain fell onto the valley. The rain was so hard and so long that the valley started to flood. The water got higher and higher until the valley was no more. It had turned into a lake. People named the lake after the farmer, Toba. The hill became an island in the middle of the lake, and it was named Samosir Island.
The feelings that I'm trying to convey through this composite are sadness, regrets, dark and gloomy to represent what the farmer had done.
Sketches and Explorations
Photographs of sketches and explorations
These are some explorations and rough drafts that I created. I made a mind map to generate what kind of feelings the composite should have.
Digital draft explorations
Here are the digital developments that I made based on the rough sketches. I used the literal point of view for the first two images; there are heavy rain, a hill and flooding. As for the third and fourth images, I was trying to look from a different perspective. The third image reveals a broken window, which represents the broken promise between the farmer and his wife. The fourth image shows a hand that is reaching out, grasping for something, facing a drowned village.
Process of Final Composite
From the feedback that I got from my peers and teacher, the broken window concept can portray the feeling I was trying to achieve. Other than representing a broken trust, the broken window can also be seen from the villagers of the drowned village perspective. It resembles grief, sadness and emptiness. Here is my final composite process video.
Video showing the process | Music: Wasn't by Neuf Meuf
Close Ups
Close ups of the final composite
Some close-ups of successful techniques. From left to right (1) Shadows and highlights (2) Creating an underwater scene (3) Removing an object
Reference Images
Images used for final composite
From left to right: (Schäfer 2018) (Karkossa 2018) (Palmer 2018) (Vălenaș 2018)
Additional images used in digital drafts
From top left to bottom right horizontally (Panagopoulos 2019) (Rivas 2018) (Spaylia 2018) (Pozzi 2017) (Palmer 2018) (Reding 2018) (Vovk 2018) (Würth 2016)
Reference lists:
Indonesian Folk Tales Wiki n.d. The Origin of Lake Toba, Indonesian Folk Tales Wiki, viewed May 2019 <https://indonesianfolktales.fandom.com/wiki/The_Origin_of_Lake_Toba>
Karkossa, J 2018, untitled, photograph, viewed May 2019, <https://unsplash.com/photos/KMUOH5TqaQk>
Neuf Meuf 2013, Wasn't, sound recording, accessed 2 June 2019 <https://archive.org/details/NS063/03-NS063-wasnt.mp3> CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Palmer, C 2018, Underwater and Lights, photograph, viewed May 2019, <https://unsplash.com/photos/XexawgzYOBc>
Panagopoulos, C 2019, [divagate], photograph, viewed May 2019 <https://unsplash.com/photos/GDCI_Js1cqw>
Pozzi, G 2017, Boat ride at Lake Moreno in Patagonia, Bariloche, Argentina, photograph, viewed May 2019 <https://unsplash.com/photos/bInJ2wIkITo/info>
Schäfer, M 2018, Shot, photograph, viewed May 2019, <https://unsplash.com/photos/f3RRSXKqpMc>
Spaylia 2018, A Striking Lightning, photograph, viewed May 2019 <https://unsplash.com/photos/So1ajnPNug0>
