Brian Froud

The Jim Henson Company has teamed up with Australian-based Omnilab Media to produce The Power of the Dark Crystal, a sequel to the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal, it was announced in a May 4, 2010 press release. (Note: The press release is a PDF file and requires a reader to view.)

The new film, using the latest technology in animatronics, traditional puppetry, CGI and stereoscopic 3D, is set hundreds of years after The Dark Crystal. It follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, with the help of a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the Dark Crystal hoping to reignite the dying sun at the center of the planet.

Brian Froud was the conceptual designer of 1982's The Dark Crystal and will reprise that role for The Power of the Dark Crystal. While the original film was only a modest success in its theatrical release, it became a much greater success on DVD and has generated a large cult following.

(Photo of Brian Froud at Faerieworlds 2008 by MobyD)

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"In the countryside, the old stories seemed to come alive around me; the faeries were a tangible aspect of the landscape, pulses of spirit, emotion, and light. They insisted on taking form under my pencil, emerging on the page before me cloaked in archetypal shapes drawn from nature and myth. I'd attracted their attention, you see, and they hadn't finished with me yet." -- Brian Froud (quote from "Portrait Painter to the Fairies")

Following his work with Henson on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, Froud returned to his home in Dartmoor. He resumed drawing and painting faeries. He's been called a "fantasy artist," and while he's grateful for the support he gets from readers of modern fantasy, it is not modern fantasy that informs his art. He says he reads very little fiction, preferring history, mythology and archetypal psychology.

While he draws on the inspiration of the landscape, his readings, and the faeries themselves, Froud's art is grounded in realism. He starts with a human figure which is generally based on a photograph he takes himself. He plots out the picture using a grid, circles, triangles and similar shapes. Where the shapes overlap is where he puts the major figures. This gives an overall sense of order to what may look rather chaotic. Other characters in a picture are always in relation to the main character, and he has many sketchbooks filled with material he can select.

He doesn't want to feel his drawings and paintings are too fixed, or even too finished, preferring the enchantment found in stories told in semi-darkness around a fire, where the storyteller's magic takes form. Dartmoor's misty landscape with its twisted trees and rock outcroppings is a perfect place for him.

(Photo by MobyD, July 2007: Brian Froud autographs a fan's book at Faerieworlds)

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For ten years after Faeries became a New York Times best seller, Froud sought to get more of his work published, yet in spite of his success, publishers were reluctant to follow up. Finally, Froud decided to use humor, and came up with the idea for Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book. He was friends with Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, and Jones agreed to write the text. The success of that book has led to sequels done with Jones.

Success with Lady Cottington also allowed Froud to do the book he'd always wanted to do: Good Faeries/Bad Faeries. He wanted to write it himself, but not being as familiar with the tools of writing, and not wanting to over-explain, he enlisted the help of editor and folklorist Terri Windling. This was another success, and suddenly faeries were everywhere. Since then, Froud has published books on goblins with Ari Berk, a faerie oracle deck and book with Jessica Macbeth, and he has hosted and lent his talents to the annual Faerieworlds Festival on the West Coast and FaerieCon on the East Coast.

(Photo of Brian Froud at Faerieworlds in 2006 by MobyD)

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