Beginnings and Endings

Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project which evolved into the fantasy story "The Girl Who Writes the Future" began just over a year ago and has come full circle. The first group of my Crowd Sorcery character sketches was published in the July/August 2014 issue of Cricket and the final part of "The Girl Who Writes the Future" printed in this year's May/June issue. If you missed any issues the entire story is available to read online. Now that Fable's adventure is complete, I thought I'd look back on the illustrations that opened and closed her story.

When I say "look back on the illustrations," I don't mean that I've already forgotten how they look! But while working with deadlines on a long-running project such as this, it's sometimes difficult to take a step back and evaluate all the work I'm doing with a fresh eye. I thought it would be interesting to compare side-by-side the first and final images I painted for the story to see how they relate to each other visually and thematically.

Fable reads by the light of the setting sun before she is suddenly thrust into a harrowing journey.

The first thing I noticed about both illustrations is that they have similar palettes. Both have a triadic color palette of orange, green and violet. I didn't plan this in advance so it was a happy coincidence that helped bookend the story. Both illustrations also feature warm light: in the opening image it's the rosy hue of a setting sun and in the closing picture, a luminous light radiating from the face of a sculpted full moon.

In the middle of the story, Fable and Luminè descend into darkness and mystery. Many scenes take place at nighttime or in the corners of ancient buildings and forgotten passageways, so for those images I frequently made use of a cool palette and a lot of blue hues. When the girls are successful in their journey they come back into the light once again.

I took a risk with the closing illustration and tried what I felt was a bolder color palette than many of the other images I painted for the story. Even though the palette included the same triad of colors as the illustration that opened "The Girl Who Writes the Future," the way I used them was a little less conventional. The swath of bright orange-yellow against violet could have been a disaster, but luckily it gave me the magical look I wanted. My art director and I worked hard to find room for this illustration in the space allotted for the final chapter, and I'm glad we were able to squeeze it in. It turned out to be one of my favorites. I hope that when readers look at this picture they feel the same satisfaction, relief and triumph Fable and Luminè do at the end of their adventure.

Luminè and Fable, exhausted but triumphant after completing their quest.

I write frequently about my creative process and I thought anyone reading this might like to hear about the creative process from the perspective of a writer. Frederic S. Durbin, author of "The Girl Who Writes the Future," shared his insights about the development of the story on his blog. He also wrote about the interesting relationship between authors and their characters here. I really enjoyed his posts and I hope you will, too!

Crowd Sorcery Sketches: The Villain Khaos

It's time to reveal the last group of character development sketches I did for Crowd Sorcery: Khaos!  

 

The Villain: Khaos

Created by Brooke E., age 11

“The spirit of a wicked sorcerer who was killed in a huge battle that wiped out his monsters, he lives in a huge, ancient cave—a shrine for worshipping Mael-Koth, the pagan god of death.”

Khaos actually appeared in the very first part of "The Girl Who Writes the Future" but not in his "true" form. He was described by his creator as "disturbingly handsome" and Fred tells us that he has "dark hair...slicked back from a face so handsome it might have been that of an angel –– except for its cruelty." I had my work cut out for me! Help me, Ayami Kojima.* You're my only hope!

When I talk about designing characters I discuss how I work on the face first so that I can feel like I know the character better before I continue the design. I usually start sketching from my imagination, but if I get stumped, or even if a face is going in a direction I like but I want to make it more distinct, I will sometimes turn to reference for inspiration.

Round one of Khaos sketches.

I did this first round of sketches from imagination. I already had a general idea of how I wanted Khaos to look and I was exploring attitude and expression. But I wanted to draw more tangible facial features, so with some reference of faces in hand I refined the character design. I also fixed his bone crown so it'd look less like it was made of french fries!

Round two, taking features I liked best from round one and refining them.

Artists often have a sort of default face that they draw. Although our characters may be distinguishable from one another, there's a shorthand many of us tend to use when drawing facial features. To break away from the reliance on those stylistic tropes it's good to look carefully at real facial features from time to time and concentrate on the way faces are made up of an interesting variety of shapes.

The final drawing for the illustration of Khaos with his creepy crawlies.

"The Girl Who Writes the Future" by Frederic S. Durbin has just concluded its run with Part Six in Cricket Magazine's May 2015 issue. To follow the adventures of these characters pick up some issues at the bookstore. If you missed the earlier chapters of the story you can now read the whole thing online on Cricket's Chatterbox message board or follow the instructions for downloading the digital editions here.

*Ayami Kojima draws and paints what one might describe as disturbingly beautiful people. She is well known for her art for the Castlevania video game series.

Crowd Sorcery Sketches: Final Characters

Within each page of Cricket's Crowd Sorcery character spreads was the name of a character who would eventually appear in the story "The Girl Who Writes the Future." Coincidentally, I didn't happen to draw any of the winning characters until after they were chosen. Did you guess which characters made it into the story?

Even though the sketches of these characters would not be printed in Cricket, I wanted to carefully develop each one since I knew I would be painting them many times throughout the course of the story. As I mentioned in my first Crowd Sorcery characters post, taking the time to sketch each character also helps me understand who they are – what type of clothing they might wear, their mannerisms, how they might react to a challenge, etc. – all of which help create engaging illustrations by including subtle cues the viewer can pick up on and then, in turn, develop their own understanding of the characters. I've referred to my pages of drawings each time I've started working on a new chapter of "The Girl Who Writes the Future," so the preliminary development work definitely came in handy!

The Heroine: Fable Thatcher

Created by Madeline T., age 13

"Many people would call it a gift to write as well as Fable. To her, it is a curse. Whatever she writes becomes true."

Subtle variations in the search for Fable.

Fable has an amazing talent, but it's one she doesn't think she wants. Because she fears her mysterious ability I wanted to draw a girl that looks smart and empathetic but reserved and unsure of herself. It took a while for me to nail down exactly what felt right about Fable, including the combination of her facial features and expression. The little asterisks indicated to my art director the sketches I felt were going in the right direction.

The Sidekick: Araceli Luminè

Created by "Katniss Everdeen," age 14

"The only child of the mysterious Booksmith, she is raised by the Silent Sisters in the library and holds in her possession the Book of Shadows, which has the power to control all knowledge ever written."

She has a little bit of that "goth" vibe...

The image says it all: it did not take me long to develop Araceli Luminè.  Luminè's creator gave us a vivid, detailed description of the character and she quickly emerged from the shadows of my imagination.

My "model sheet," referred to many times while illustrating the story.

The Villain: Khaos

Created by Brooke E., age 11

“The spirit of a wicked sorcerer who was killed in a huge battle that wiped out his monsters, he lives in a huge, ancient cave—a shrine for worshipping Mael-Koth, the pagan god of death.”

Khaos can take on many forms. So far I've only depicted him as a shadowy figure. I don't want to spoil his appearance before his true form is revealed in the story. For now, he is hidden, even from me!

"The Girl Who Writes the Future" by Frederic S. Durbin is currently being published in Cricket Magazine. To follow the adventures of these characters, pick up some issues at the bookstore or see the instructions for downloading the digital editions here.

Crowd Sorcery Sketches: Fantasy Dictionary

And now for something completely different – the Crowd Sorcery Fantasy Dictionary.

In addition to characters, readers participating in the Crowd Sorcery project were encouraged to submit ideas for a Fantasy Dictionary: objects, places, creatures, concepts, and expressions that could be used in a fantasy story. The kids were inventive – some even came up with insults in an imaginary language!

Since it's harder to convey something intangible like a concept or slang with simple sketches, for this round I decided to focus on drawing objects. I approached the sketches as though I had been asked to design item icons for a role-playing game.

Senwilke: A warm drink which gives whoever sips it the power to fly.

Since the drink itself probably looks ordinary, I used the vessel it would be served in to communicate its magical properties.

Sesf: An ember used by water people to make fire in water with magic.

I pictured the sesf enclosed in a bubble that would be undisturbed by any water that surrounded it.

The sidekicks and fantasy items as seen in Cricket's October 2014 issue.

Which characters were eventually selected to appear in "The Girl Who Writes the Future?" Stick around for my next post to find out!

Edited to include an introduction to the post. Before it sounded pretty awkward!

Crowd Sorcery Character Sketches: Sidekicks

The last few characters I sketched for Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project were sidekicks. Once again there were some wonderful submissions, but I was only able to illustrate two. Space was also needed in the double-page spread for drawings of Fantasy Dictionary words, which I'll share in my next post.

Kitara is described as a descendent of Medusa who has a deadly crimson eye that turns people to stone when she looks at them.

I did a a quick sketch of her face and was satisfied with the first one.

The creator of Rax wonderfully conveyed his dashing personality in a brief story paragraph written as part of Crowd Sorcery's character creation exercise. It was (almost) easy to transform him from that vivid first impression into a tangible drawing.

Rax is a confident young swordsman who can talk to dragons.

I wanted to vary the illustrations that would be published in this issue, so I decided to submit at least one complete sketch as opposed to a bunch of loose sketches of faces. Luckily, I only needed one or two quick development sketches of Rax's face before I was happy with it, but I did play with a couple different hairstyles on a piece of tracing paper. This drawing isn't as clean as the one I posted of Aciere Steele last week, but I like the gesture and the balance between rough and polished lines.

Check out next week's Fantasy Dictionary post to see the sketches as they appeared in Cricket.

Crowd Sorcery Character Sketches: Villains

The next group of characters I sketched for Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project was the villains. There were dozens of interesting submissions, but my schedule only allowed time to realize a few. Sketching Cricket readers' characters is a project I would have loved to spend months upon months doing, had I months upon months to do it!

I was so excited about many of these villain characters and was personally rooting for a couple of them to to be chosen when the time came to cast votes for the antagonist that would appear in the story. Alas, my favorites did not come out on top, but at least I got to draw them. (And regardless of whether they "won" or not, their creators should be proud to have brought them to life.)

Aciere Steele comes from a world with a magic vs. technology theme. I really wanted to draw Aciere Steele! I drew a bunch of heads, but I felt compelled to move onto a detailed drawing, because she's essentially a steampunk cyborg and how could I not draw a steampunk cyborg? I so badly wanted to make sure I finished the drawing that I took it with me on vacation and worked on it late at night in our hotel. A good friend we were visiting whom I hadn't seen in years even came with us while I took a terrible scan of the drawing at FedEx/Kinko's! Luckily, I was able to scan it again when I got home, and the high-res version made it into the magazine. Whew!

The aforementioned heads, including various hairstyle and lab coat ideas.

Even though I love sci-fi stuff, I don't draw it often, so I was a bit nervous about my ability to design some cool robotic parts that didn't look like "traditional" Victorian Era style steampunk. I was aiming for a more broadly defined fantasy version of steampunk that also wasn't too high-tech. I hope I succeeded.

The finished drawing of Aciere.

Margaret O'Shanahan, the defiant pirate with an enchanted ship that can soar through the sky, took second place in the villains poll.

Yet more portrait sketches, with what I considered to be the final designs at the bottom.

There were quite a few animal characters submitted in all categories. There were several I liked and I wanted to make sure I drew at least one of them.

The final villains page as it appeared in Cricket Magazine. Click to enlarge and read more about each character.

Stay tuned for the sidekicks!

Crowd Sorcery Character Sketches: Heroes and Heroines

Earlier this summer, while readers were still generating scores of amazing characters for Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project, I shared one set of sketches I had done of a submitted character: a young girl named Minna of Afting, who was raised by gigantic birds.

Now that Frederic S. Durbin's Crowd Sorcery story "The Girl Who Writes the Future" has begun and many of the character submissions have been published, I thought I'd share all of my sketches.

First up are the heroes and heroines. Brief summaries of their background or abilities can be found in the image of the Cricket spread at the bottom of this post. Many kids wrote fascinating paragraphs-long biographies describing their character's personality, background, talents, fears and hopes.

Any time I begin a character design I start with the face. If I don't get the face "right," meaning a look that matches the character's essence as I see it in my mind, I can't convince myself to move on with the design. Sometimes it took me a while to get a face or expression that felt correct to me, so given my time constraints some characters did not progress past portrait sketches.
Fionn Pierre Nelson was the last character I worked on in this set, so I only completed a few face sketches.

Listette takes on the familiar "raised by animals" theme. I wanted her to have somewhat sharp, angular features, and I carried that through to her hair. Her creator described her as wearing wolfskin, so I included a few very rough doodles of costume ideas. It was hard not to be influenced a little by San from Princess Mononoke, but I tried to avoid doing anything too similar.

When I read Listette's description, I was reminded of this illustration by Arthur Rackham.

Will Gust is a fun and lively character that I was sorry I didn't have time to develop further. I guess I actually felt that way about all of the characters. If I had my way, I would have liked to make something like a model sheet for all of them.

I'll tell you a secret...the drawing at the upper right corner is actually of Detective Tim Bayliss.

When I turned the drawings over to my art director, I indicated a couple of my favorites of each bunch and she picked from those for the print edition of the magazine.

The spread as it appeared in the July/August issue of Cricket.

Next up: Villains!

This post has been edited for clarity and to add a link.

Last Chance to Vote on a "Crowd Sorcery" Sidekick!

It's the last day to cast votes for "Crowd Sorcery" characters–this time for heroine Fable Thatcher's sidekick. Will her partner be the swashbuckling boy who can talk to dragons? The mysterious girl who possesses the Book of Shadows? The Fledermouse in hiding? It's all up to you!

Development sketches for one of the potential "Crowd Sorcery" heroines.

There are twelve characters to pick from. Fred and I had a difficult time narrowing down the many submissions for each character, but it was especially tough this round. All of the "Crowd Sorcery" participants should be proud of their amazing efforts at coming up with so many unique characters for this project.

Some of my hero sketches were printed in the July/August issue of Cricket Magazine. Villain sketches will appear in September, and sidekicks in October. Finally, the November/December issue will feature Fred's finished story and my illustrations. I'm grateful to be a part of this fun project and excited to see how the story and characters develop from this point forward.

A preview of the "Crowd Sorcery" spread from the July/August issue of Cricket.

For more information about "Crowd Sorcery," including instructions for downloading the digital editions of Cricket click here.
To become a Crowd-Sorceror by sharing your ideas, visit the "Crowd Sorcery" section of The Chatterbox and get posting!
For my earlier post about "Crowd Sorcery," see my original blog post here.

Vote for Your Favorite Crowd Sorcery Characters!

Minotaur voted. Did you?

The time has come to vote for your favorite "Crowd Sorcery" heroes and heroines. Go to the Chatterbox to cast your votes!

There is still time left to submit your character ideas to "Crowd Sorcery!" Now we are looking for some bad guys to cause trouble for our heroes and heroines. Visit the Villain thread to add your villainous characters to our fantasy story.

For more information about "Crowd Sorcery," including instructions for downloading the digital editions of Cricket click here.
To become a Crowd-Sorceror by sharing your ideas, visit the "Crowd Sorcery" section of The Chatterbox and get posting!
For my earlier post about "Crowd Sorcery," see my original blog post here.

Help Us Tell a Fantasy Story Using Crowd Sorcery!

Click the image to enlarge and read more about "Crowd Sorcery!"

If you're a Cricket Magazine reader, you may remember the fantasy story "The Star Shard" written by Frederic S. Durbin and featuring my illustrations that was printed in the magazine for a year from April of 2008 through April of 2009. In 2012, Fred and I put together a series of posts that we called "Star Shard Week" on each of our blogs to commemorate the publication of Fred's novel of The Star Shard.

Fred and I have been given the opportunity by the editors at Cricket to work together once again on a new project called "Crowd Sorcery." It's a collaborative project involving Fred, me and you! Kids that would like to participate can go to Cricket's message board, The Chatterbox, to help us invent characters, items, and a fantasy dictionary that describes the world you would like to create. Participants will vote on the ideas they like best. Throughout the summer, I will be doing sketches of the chosen characters and items for the digital edition of Cricket. Then I will illustrate the story that Fred writes using your contributions and it will be printed in the November/December issue of Cricket!

For more information about "Crowd Sorcery," including instructions for downloading the digital editions of Cricket click here.
To become a Crowd-Sorceror by sharing your ideas, visit the "Crowd Sorcery" section of The Chatterbox and get posting!
To see Fred's post about "Crowd Sorcery," visit his website here.

We can't wait to see what fantastic ideas you come up with!

Star Shard Week: Favorites

There may be minor spoilers for some parts of the story during Star Shard Week. 

Welcome to the final day of Star Shard Week!
Don't forget to check out The Star Shard author Frederic S. Durbin's final Star Shard Week post over on his blog.

Thank you for joining us during this week of reflection upon the world of "The Star Shard." From late 2007 through early 2009 I completed 39 paintings for "The Star Shard." It was the most expansive project I had worked on before I wrote and illustrated The Explorer's Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures. I'm honored to have played a part in the telling of Cymbril's story.

To bring Star Shard Week to a close, I'd like to share some of my favorite paintings from "The Star Shard" not yet featured on the blog.

Sleeping Urrmsh
Illustration for "The Star Shard" Cricket Magazine, July/August 2008

Cymbril in the Grape Arbor
Illustration for "The Star Shard" Cricket Magazine, September 2008

 

Telepathic Magic
Illustration for "The Star Shard" Cricket Magazine, September 2008

Cymbril to the Rescue!
Illustration for "The Star Shard" Cricket Magazine, October 2008

Stuck!
Illustration for "The Star Shard" Cricket Magazine, October 2008

Goodbye, Urrt
Illustration for "The Star Shard" Cricket Magazine, February 2009

If you enjoyed this wondrous week of posts, I hope you'll make a journey of your own into the world of The Star Shard! Thanks for reading!

The Star Shard, by Frederic S. Durbin, is a fantasy adventure story about Cymbril, a girl on a journey of self-discovery.

Star Shard Week: Visual Themes

There may be minor spoilers for some parts of the story during Star Shard Week.

Welcome to Day Six of Star Shard Week!
Don't forget to check out The Star Shard author Frederic S. Durbin's companion posts over on his blog. You definitely don't want to miss Fred's discussion of one of the story's fundamental themes in his post entitled Coming of Age.

I tend to tell stories less through complex symbolism, which some illustrators are outstanding at doing, and more through characterization. Perhaps because I was so influenced by comics and animation from a young age, I often focus on the emotional components of a story as expressed by characters' faces and body language. There were a few visual themes, however, that I did try to carry through my illustrations for "The Star Shard."

Windswept flower petals and leaves:
There are a couple of reasons I like to use these elements in an illustration, and they were especially relevant to "The Star Shard." Visually, they add movement and interest to a composition. Symbolically, leaves falling from the trees in autumn represent the passage of time and the cycle of death and rebirth. Plants go dormant or die in the fall. Animals migrate or hibernate to survive the cold winter months. In the spring, life is born anew. In Japan, the fleeting beauty of cherry blossoms is symbolic of the impermanence of life.
In "The Star Shard," Cymbril is growing up. She's learning new things about herself. She feels compelled to leave the Thunder Rake and find a new place in life, somewhere she feels she belongs.
 

In this illustration of Cymbril, the petals are representative of change.

Cymbril reflects as she prepares to embark on a new journey.

Birds:
I'll admit I like to sneak animals into a lot of my illustrations. In this case, though, I made a conscious effort to depict birds in many of my "The Star Shard" paintings. They represent freedom and, most importantly in "The Star Shard," the power of song. I wanted to emphasize their connection to Cymbril, the Urrmsh, the Sidhe, and the music of nature itself.

Some of the many birds that appear in my "The Star Shard" illustrations.

The bird turned out to be my favorite part of this illustration.

Birds everywhere!

Both birds and leaves make an appearance here!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to stop by for the final day of Star Shard Week!

The Star Shard, by Frederic S. Durbin, is a fantasy adventure story about Cymbril, a girl on a journey of self-discovery.

Star Shard Week: A Precarious Perch

There may be minor spoilers for some parts of the story during Star Shard Week.

Welcome to Day Five (and Six) of Star Shard Week!
Sorry about the delay in posting! I should be able to catch up with a Day Six post later today.
Don't forget to check out The Star Shard author Frederic S. Durbin's companion posts over on his blog.
 

The September 2008 cover of Cricket Magazine: A Precarious Perch

I had completed illustrations for several parts of "The Star Shard" when my art director presented me with the opportunity to illustrate a special "The Star Shard" cover and the table of contents for the September 2008 issue of Cricket Magazine. The assignment was wide open. I could illustrate anything that had appeared in the story up through Part Four, the chapter waiting for readers in the pages of the September issue. There were a number of memorable scenes to choose from. I had so much fun coming up with ideas there were enough left over to repurpose into interior illustrations for Part Four.  Click here to go to Cricket's website to see all of my thumbnails for the cover.

The final sketch for A Precarious Perch.

Though it's been years since my Cricket cover was published, I admit the painting hasn't been displayed on my website. It's a large painting that was tough to scan, and I wasn't very happy with the original color correction I had done on the image. In the years since, we bought a better scanner, and I decided to invest more time in correcting the scan to better match the original painting. While I see a few flaws that I'd like to fix someday should I revisit the piece (I'm not sure there is such a thing as a perfect painting!), it was one of my favorite illustrations from "The Star Shard" and I'm pleased with the way it printed on the cover of the magazine. "A Precarious Perch" was also printed as a poster that is available on Cricket Magazine's website.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to stop by for Day Six of Star Shard Week!

The Star Shard, by Frederic S. Durbin, is a fantasy adventure story about Cymbril, a girl on a journey of self-discovery.

Star Shard Week: The Harpy

Boo!

There may be minor spoilers for some parts of the story during Star Shard Week.

Welcome to Day Four of Star Shard Week!
Don't forget to check out The Star Shard author Frederic S. Durbin's companion posts over on his blog.

Harpies are fearsome winged creatures that hail from Greek mythology. They're frequently described as a gruesome cross between a woman and a bird. In Part 6 of "The Star Shard," Fred described the harpy as a creature with a body "as broad as a horse’s, its sharp talons as large as an Armfolk’s hand." I imagined when she swooped down upon her prey the span of her wings would blot out the light of a full moon.

Concept sketches for the harpy.

Some more traditional bird-like renditions of the harpy.

In sketches, I toyed with the idea that her hair would be a collection of greasy feathers sprouting from her head. Eventually I decided long, ratty grey hair would show more movement and contrast in the illustrations.

The thumbnail sketch for the illustration.

The harpy swoops to attack Cymbril!

I don't often have elements breaking the borders of an illustration, but it was a suggestion for this image that I thought worked. Alternately, a composition that crops the wing would create a claustrophobic feeling appropriate for the scene.

Loric is captured!

My favorite part of both harpy illustrations is the painting of her face.

The harpy illustrations were among my favorite to work on during the ten-part run of "The Star Shard."

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to stop by for Day Five of Star Shard Week!

The Star Shard, by Frederic S. Durbin, is a fantasy adventure story about Cymbril, a girl on a journey of self-discovery.