Meet Moru and his friends -a journey into WilderIndia

© WilderIndia
Spot Drawing © Nayna Shriyan

          Join me today as we meet Moru's friends and family :) Creating the characters of the story is generally done solely by the writer, so also with these stories, but the fun for me was to put to paper Sharmila's ideas with regards to their appearances, putting down particular features and aspects to each character that not only made them stand out but also meant that each character's personality was immediately evident. Moru himself had a very prominent feature in that his tail had to be very different from the rest of the peacocks, (okay so I am going to let you get a peek at the cat, not let the cat get out of the proverbial bag completely !!) see Moru is quite shy and keeps his tail shut or rather believes that he simply isn't coordinated enough to be graceful and thus never opens his tail feathers, and that's why his tail had to be shown a little stunted.
        The royal family consisted of the King and Queen of peacocks and their look was kept simple but elegant with rich feather colours and the Queen had an adornment of white feather pattern on her body. While creating the individual looks we thought about adding extra elements like a pearl necklace on the Queen and en eye patch on one of the village elders but realized that made the story to gimmicky so instead, one of the evil elders just got a single eye with one permanently shut! One of the judges was fat and short, another one had a crooked neck !

Moru at his 'damce' competition
© 2011WilderIndia, illustration © Nayna Shriyan
Painting on silk.

      In this image you can see the villagers on the top and bottom tiers with the evil elders on the right and oh by the way that tree stump is their round table ! what do you think of that? :)
       In the center is the princess from a neighboring clan with our hero trying to dance (but falling flat on his beak !!) . Creating this princess was the most fun, she got long shapely talons nice drop shaped feather patterns and a long graceful beak, long lashes and an orchid to add to her charm, gorgeous isn't she?
With all the excitement about the characters in progress we also wanted to stay true to the style of Pattachitra with their traditional layouts. So we had a different layout for each page that we designed and naturally each one has its own unique border. Or borders got their very own animal so while this one had lady bugs, one had leopards while  another one got deers, do look out for each animal as you read the book! An extra treat are the smaller animals featuring on each page, small birds, insects and animals in one instance a surprised frog jumping out of the way ( of who else but our clumsy hero !) Do find out how Moru finally learns to dance :)