Rough sketches for The Mockingbird

Every idea we've ever had has started out rough and then we have adapted them be as good as it can be.

In saying that, does the picture below look familiar? It certainly does to me as we've all been there, staring at a blank white page expecting an idea to draw itself but, once that spark of an idea comes to the surface no ones stopping that pencil in your hand.

For The Mockingbird, I began to draw out rough sketches of the 5 main characters Scout, Jem, Dill, Atticus and Tom Robinson. In Harper Lees novel as Scout was 6 years old at the time, she didn't explain what the characters really looked like apart from small details such as Atticus always wore a suit, Jem had scruffy hair and Tom Robinson had an impaired left arm which was another indicator of his innocence in the court case against the Ewells. The most described character was Dill as there was always an indicator throughout the book that Scout and Dill liked each other so she describe his look very much.

In order from left:

• Tom Robinson

• Scout Finch

• Jem Finch

• Dill Harris

• Atticus Finch

In the book, Atticus' sister Aunt Alexandra remarked that Scout "could not possibly hope to be a lady if she wears breeches" which gave me an indication that Scout wears breeches all the time, thus I teamed it with a "granddad shirt" for a determined 1960's working lady look. I researched thoroughly into 1960's fashion for young men during this time and it was mostly shirts and turned up trousers which I clothed Jem in and then stuck closely to Scouts description of Dill for his look.

Finally I researched patterns and colours for Atticus and Tom Robinson's outfits. As Tom is depicted as a poor, working man, I combined the look of work dungarees with a sling to show the impairment in his left arm. The pattern used for Atticus' waist coat was a pattern that kept popping up for 1960's men's fashion which I thought worked very well for his look.

Things to work on in the future = drawing hands, shoes and smaller facial features.