This town crier bullfinch, has been so much fun to create, the original story of cock Robin, depicted a ‘bull‘ ringing the church bell, which would of been perhaps overshadowed everything!
I do like to play with scale on occasion, especially for this diorama, but I really wanted to keep the bird theme throughout and only have a few woodland creatures peering from behind parts of the scene.
By creating a needle felt town crier bullfinch, it has meant, that I can still have him ringing a bell, but will now be announcing the news to all those around him and that cock robin has returned from his untimely demise and is now seeking his revenge which helps set the visual scene.
One of the main reasons that I have dressed him in black and to of not gone crazy with his clothing, is that I want to naturally draw your eyes over to this particular section of the diorama, meaning the story itself can flow.
Town criers uniforms are quite extravagant and the contrast would have been far to much of a show boat, especially with his props, potentially over shadowing some of the other characters that I really need to stand out.
One of the many fun aspects of writing and creating the different characters for this has been learning about the many different tellings of the original story, in part due to location and region, some of the birds mentioned are not native and have been replaced, but also how it has been used for political reasons and had no idea of!
For such a short story, it truly has had a huge amount of emotional memories for some people, but as mentioned above, political ones too.
The scroll that the bullfinch is reading from, are my own words, which sadly, due to the advancement of AI, we appear to be leaning far to heavily on, thats not to say it can’t be useful, but it also means that imagination is being dissolved and could talk about that all day, but shall save that for another post.
For now, I shall leave you with the words on his scroll, which may not be be grammatically perfect, but they are at least, my own.
Each character in this diorama, will tell their own part of the story via speakers and activated by buttons built into the case, you can the play each individually, or play the whole story in its entirety.
(THE SCROLL READS AS FOLLOWS)
OYEZ OYEZ
Good citizens,!
Let it be it known to all in this realm, that the voice of cock robin has been heard all around.
He seeks retribution, for his untimely demise and for being ripped away from his most beautiful bride.
So may all that do hear, its impossible to hide, the revenge of cock robin shall spread far and wide.
Those that be innocent, shall not suffer this plight, only the songs of the guilty, shall not be heard after this night.
You may be a neighbour, a lover, a friend, but your tales of guilt, are now where you shall end.
Compliments to Krysten newby for this wonderful drawing