The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf - Crankie Box
This project is an unconventional retelling of a classic folk-tale - The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf. The tale is tells the story of a trickster archetype, Brer Rabbit, and how he ultimately overcomes Mr.Wolf and kills him. I decided to create a crankie box for this project, a mini-theater that you hand-crank to scroll through continuous illustrations. The project is heavily inspired by vintage puppet theaters, Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit illustrations, and Brer Rabbit himself. Below is the complete process of creating the crankie box and my reflections.
This project was assigned in my Design Through Myths and Storytelling class. The project description was to create retell a trickster/ghost story in a visual, time-based project. I first chose The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf as my story due to my love of rabbits and the interesting meaning behind the story. The first part of the project was to think of 20 different project ideas before actually deciding on one to pursue, and to create each project idea in a different a different medium.
Pictured on the right are a few of my 20 sketches. I ultimately decided not to go with these ideas, but they led me to my current project, the crankie box. I decided to go with the crankie box idea because I thought it could be an interesting visual, interactive, and it is something that I have not created before so it would be a challenge for me.
An important part of every project that I create is to first visualize the aesthetics and general vibe of what I want to make. In order to do this, I created a Pinterest board and began to save images of crankie boxes and other projects that inspired me. I was eventually led to images of vintage puppet/marionnette theaters, illustrations of rabbits in clothing such as Beatrix Potter’s classic Peter Rabbit Illustrations, and vintage photos of rabbits in human situations. These images are my main inspiration behind my project and led to a lot of the creative decisions I had to make while constructing my crankie box.
After visualizing my project, the next step was to figure out how I would create the actual crankie box structure. I first looked at other crankie boxes online and watched a few tutorials. I did not want to follow an actual tutorial, so I made my own “pattern”.
I wanted my theater to look like a little cottage or house as the majority of the story takes place inside Brer Rabbit’s house. My sketch pictured on the left shows my initial plan for how I would cut the pieces that would make up my crankie box.
At this stage in my project, I also had to decide on what materials to use. I was in between carboard and wood cut using the laser cutter. I ultimately decided to use cardboard as this material is readiy available in the design lab and would be easiest and fastest, which was necessary given the time frame of this project.
After creating the sketch, I got to work on cutting out the actual pieces in the design lab. I sketched a rough outline using chalk and then used this initial outline as the measurements for the other pieces to ensure uniformity. I then cut out these pieces using an exacto knife and hotglued them together to create the structure. While not pictured in my initial sketch, I ended up adding a bottom to the structure as it became evident that I would need one to hold in the scroll later.
After putting the basic structure together, I added a quick base coat to the cardboard and drew on a texture for the roof that looked like shingles, and a texture for the walls that looked like siding.
After creating the crankie box itself, I moved onto the scroll. My first attempt at creating the scroll consisted of cutting up pieces of a large piece of paper and taping them together to create a scoll long enough to tell the story but also fit inside my box. While this idea was good in theory, the pieces would not stay together and would not scroll in the box.
I then decided to use a large roll of brown paper that is in the design lab and simply trim it to be the correct width. I was initially opposed to this because it felt wasteful, but it did not end up creating a ton of waste so I was pleased. This scroll was more structured and ended up being the final scroll that I drew on.
After cutting my paper to be the correct size, it was time to load the scroll into the box to make sure it fit. I had found straws of an appropriate length in the kitchen on campus and decided to use these as the “cranks”. To load the scroll onto the straws, I simply glued one edge on one end to a straw, and the other edge on the other end to a second straw. After checcking that they fit, I removed the scroll again and moved on to the drawing portion of the project.
Before drawing on my scroll, I decided to divide the story up into sections that would be easier to draw rather than attempt to draw the entire story. After doing this, I also sketched out what I wanted my main characters to look like. After making these plans, I moved on to sketching with pencil on the actual scroll, and then adding color!
At this point in the project, I had the majority of my work done. After coloring in my scroll, I loaded it back into the crankie box structure. After trying to use it though, it would not stay scrolled and could not actually be used.
To improve functionality, I added holes to the bottom of the strcuture to hold the straws in place, tape loops to keep the straws flush to the walls, and tape buffers to keep the scroll from sliding down as you scrolled. I also added string to the tops of the straws as grip to make it easier for the user to actually scroll through the story. These modifications worked and my box was now functional.
While the box was funcitonal at this point, I was unhappy with the visuals, so I decided to add details. This portion of the project was heavily inspired by the vintage marionette theaters that I mentioned earlier. After looking at those images again, I decided to try and add depth to my box by using layers of trim, and to just add more small details in general as these concepts are characteristic in said theaters. While I wanted to make my box look like these vintage theaters, I also wanted the details to have my own flair to them, therefore I did not go for the exact kinds of illustrations and trim that are on traditional theaters, I instead used my own art style and more modern colors.
To create these details, I first sketched them out, then colored them in, cut them out with exacto knives, and glued them on to my structure. I ended up creating windows, bushes, shutters, a sign labeling the box, many little stars, flowers, and trim around the window where the scroll peeks out.
Through this project I learned a few valuable lessons, the main being that timing is incredibly important when creating something completely new to you. I had never created a crankie box before and was unaware of the challenges I would face. Getting the actual scrolling function to work was a big challenge that I had to overcome and it took a lot of time that I did not have. Because of this, I had to rush other parts of the project like adding details that I wish I could have spent more time on. This challenge was the most difficult part of the process, but also what I learned from.
Adding decorations at the end was my favorite part of the process and the most satisfying as it brought my vision together. I had a very specific image in my head of what I wanted to create from the start of this project. It was a bit discouraging because for the majority of the project, my crankie box did not look how I had pictured. Adding details really brought my vision to life and made me happy with my final product.
If I could do this project again or had more time for this project, I would have added a top to the crankie box structure. Right now, the structure is open so if you look at it from the top, you can see the tape loops that I made to keep the straws in place and I do not like that these are visible. Adding a top with holes for the straws would be a perfect solution for this, but I simply did not have time to implement this. If I make a crankie box again in the future, I will be adding this feature.
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my crankie box project. It was a lot of work considering I had never created such a project before, but I believe that the final outcome looks like what I had visualized at the start and it conveys the original story in a new and fun way while also maintaining the important elements of the original story.
Sources:
Original Story Link: https://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/brer-rabbit-awful-fate-of-mr-wolf.html
Pinterest Board: https://pin.it/5ek6w5Qvz
Crankie Box Tutorial: