Brace for critique.
A big success. A good angle, helped considerably by four or five messy ink thumbnails in my sketchbook. You should really see them. You’re going to have to trust me that … oh, for god’s sake, hang on.
honestly, I do so much work, and then I do even more documenting it. But I’m going to bother getting up and taking a photo of these thumbnails and you’re going to take my word for it that my absolutely gorgeous and sexy creative process operates just like this for all my work.
Here, you can see in the bottom right of this spread and top left of the next spread I figured out Antonia’s pose as she speaks to Whackus Bonkus. Key points I needed to showcase were hand casting light (for interesting lighting point), sword on lap. This meant slightly top down perspective to showcase the sword best. Toyed with an over the shoulder shot but I preferred the frontal shot. Makes you feel like you’re watching her more intimately.
In the first spread you see notes for the comic and piece of writing I created before (see this post).
In the second spread you see some thumbnails for a more complicated scene, where I try and capture the bath houses of Cerric. I’ll try to remember to ATTACH it when I make that visual diary post, because I completed the illustration this morning.
Important that you see evidence of the way my creative process takes shape in these notes and thumbnails.
Oh, and I almost forgot. You get to read a snapshot of my writing, you lucky, lucky thing.
“So… You’re Whackus Bonkus?”
There was no-one in sight as Antonia spoke, and on first glance you might be forgiven for thinking she was insane. As she looked down, it became clear that she was addressing the huge, ornate sword laid across her lap.
“Mitzi named you that, didn’t she? I haven’t known her very long, but it sounds like something only she would do to an ancient, magical heirloom. Do you like it, or is it torture every time she says it?”
Antonia was sitting on a tree stump in a little wooded area about five minutes’ walk from Cerric. Cerric was a town – mercifully larger than Plinton – that was known for its Spas and Baths. Set low on an ancient mountain, water flowing through there was fresh and clean, having fallen only a mile or so upstream in the hills. People travelled to Cerric to “take fresh air”, but Antonia suspected it was mostly a marketing thing, and had little basis in geographical or medical knowledge.
It was night time, and the woods were incredibly dark. Occasionally, Antonia would cast a small light-spell in her hand and check her belongings, but she tried to restrict this to avoid drawing any attention to herself.
Looking down, she allowed herself a tiny magical light between her fingers as she admired the otherworldly blue-green of Whackus’ metal blade. Although it had been dangerous, she had to admit that getting the sword repaired in Loreel had been a good idea: it had always looked scary, but now it looked formidable.
“I bet you had other names before Whackus Bonkus. Probably slightly more noble ones.”
The sword did not respond: only Mitzi could hear it speaking. Antonia had to assume that Mitzi wasn’t pulling some elaborate prank. Otherwise, she was just talking to herself, but this was far from unheard of.
“Mitzi has named herself as well. Mitzi Harper. Do you call her Lyra Casseopeia, or do you call her Mitzi? I don’t suppose many people would call her Mitzi. They would probably think the Princess picking a name for herself would be a bit of a folly.”
Antonia looked into the distance as she talked; she was speaking more to herself than to the sword.
“… I picked a name for myself, too. When I was nine. Although, my name before that was Antonio, so I wasn’t particularly creative with it.”
Whackus Bonkus listened patiently, which he seemed to be very good at doing.
SEASIDE ILLUSTRATION 