Page #8 (Magpie)

For page #8, I wanted to feature the Magpie, a bird which is a common sight in Britain.
I see this particular bird often where I live, and I have always loved the Magpie. I personally think that it is a beautiful bird, one that deserves a place in my animal zine.
Like all of my other pages, this will of course be A5 in size.

http://resiliencefitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/magpie.jpg < image reference at this link.

I created only one illustration of the Magpie, however I was happy with the outcome, and this animal only needed one page to be a featured.

My sole Magpie illustration.

I began the assembly of the 8th page, by creating a new photoshop canvas, and inserted the scanned Magpie illustration to fit the page. The guidelines really helped me to position the drawing properly.
After positioning the illustration, I tweaked the black point in order to compensate for the laser washing the tone out of the image.

Tweaking the colour settings.

The image now enhanced, and placed onto the canvas.

At this point I thought something looked odd with the image now that it was placed onto the canvas.
I thought about inverting the image to see what it would look like.

Inverting the image using photoshop.

I felt that the illustration actually appeared more presentable inverted, and so I decided to keep it in this orientation.
I felt that the tail looked too thin, and so I copied and pasted a section of the tail, and used the blend tool in order to merge it into the illustration, making a seamless addition.

Now that I was happy with the illustration, and the way in which it was presented, I decided to think a bit behind the folklore of the animal, so I ran a simple Google search, and came across a good amount of information.

google.com < image reference at this link.

One of the most common folklore associations behind the Magpie, is its desire and attraction toward shiny objects such as rings.

http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2008/01/6a0120a85dcdae970b0120a86d957f970b-pi.jpg < image reference at this link.

http://www.britishbirdlovers.co.uk/articles/magpies-and-superstition < image reference at this link.

I also came across a news story about a Magpie who stole a woman's engagement ring, and hid it in his nest for 3 years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2637365/Magpie-steals-womans-engagement-ring-and-buries-it-in-nest-for-three-years.html < image reference at this link.

Reading this news story allowed me to think up a good term to use as part of the design, and it revolved around the notion of magpies being thieves.

The final page design, and layout.

I am very happy with this page, and I am proud to have it as part of my zine.












Thomas.