Secrets from the storyteller
EshChallenge: Moon-Tattoos
Hey Storyers!
Here’s An EshChallenge for all you artists and aspiring graphic designers!
As you now know, when a Woodsy Troll girl turns Twelve, she gets a Moon-Tattoo on her face. This is not an optional thing. Every girl must have her Moon-Tattoo, which she wears proudly for the rest of her life. In picking the design for her tattoo, she gets a couple of choices. The first is to pick which cheek she wants tattooed. She also gets to choose the color of her Moon-Tattoo. However, she only has a choice of one color. Multi-colored Moon-Tattoos would be unthinkable to a Woodsy Troll girl in Cowgrass.
So, what do the designs mean? Well, if you were a Woodsy Troll, you could look at the tattoos of Duggan and Lambrell and know the date of their births. Some of the designs are very Ancient and traditional and others are more modern creations using a larger range of popular figures from nature. Yet, they all clearly tell the Troll-girl’s birth date. For instance, the arrangement of moon shapes and dots on Duggan’s Moon-Tattoo tells you that she was born two days before the second Full Moon of the year. Similarly, Lambrell’s Moon-Tattoo, which is also of an Ancient design, tells when she was born.
So here’s an EshChallenge for you:
If you’d like to have some fun, try designing some of your own Moon-Tattoos. Try using moons, dots, slashes, and circles to create Ancient designs. Or, if you’d like to play with modern designs, imagine what figures from nature Woodsy Trolls might have used. Now draw them!
Do you need an EshClue?
If this EshChallenge seems impossible, here are some EshClues:
> How many full moons are there in a Human year? Do you think Woodsy Trolls have the same number of full Moons?
> Do some research. Do different cultures have names for the full moons of a year? If, yes make a list of some of your favorites.
> Imagine the names Woodsy Trolls might use for their full Moons. Look in the Story and elsewhere for EshClues.
> Imagine, too, what the Moon-Tattoo designs might say about Moons.
Once you have some ideas about names for the full Moons in a Woodsy Troll’s Moon-Year, try drawing a Moon-Tattoo based on a name you like. Then draw some others if you’d like. And if you come up with some burnin’ clever designs and you can get them in digital format, email your designs with the names and we will post our favorites. Be creative! Have fun! Extra points to any Storyers who can come up with a Moon-Tattoo for every full Moon of the year!
And if you liked this EshChallenge, stay tuned! More pages about Moons and Moon-Tattoos are coming. Look on our Facebook page for EshClues to find the links.