Alanna! Oops.

Yup, I took precious time away from finishing Christmas Open House stuff to complete my Alanna of Trebond and Olau sketchy.

Tamora Pierce seems to have fallen out of fashion in Britain, and you don't see her stuff about as much as you did when I was a teen. I gather she's still very popular in America - a status she very much deserves. I can't say enough nice things about Tammy P. In a genre full of flat, generic characters and poor Middle Earth-rip-off settings, Tammy has always managed to create books that are full of life and humour and convincing detail. It's not that her stories are necessarily founded on ideas that have never been explored before - in fact, her two first series in particular are founded on almost folkloric bases: the girl who disguises herself as a boy to train for knighthood; the girl who can talk to animals etc.

It's that she fills these stories with characters who you care about - who can be petty and stupid sometimes, and who have fun, and who interact with each other like people really interact. If she's writing about a girl who runs with wolves, you can be sure that Tammy's done her homework and that the behaviour of the animals is based on solid research. As she has set more and more books in Tortall the land and its neighbouring countries have grown in depth and subtlety, and changed with the passage of the books timeline, in the way the best fantasy lands do. There's something of Terry Pratchett about Tammy's world-building. She's another writer who stops to think about how a magic-influened, pseudo-medieval city would actually work.

('The Healing In The Vine', one her none-Tortall books, must be pretty unique amongst fantasy novels, in that the meat of the story is the outbreak of an epidemic in the city, and follows the efforts of the characters to fight the disease and find a cure - it's a drama of research-magic. It's also a great read.)

But back to the point: this is Alanna, star of Tamora Piere's first quartet of novels. Actually, this series came second in my personal Tammy P chart to 'The Immortals' (the one with the talking-to-animals-magic) but that is not to say I didn't read and reread the Alanna stories and still turn to them now for some serious comfort-reading.

I'm happy with the picture, though I weakened and made Alanna look more feminine that I originally intended. I had meant for her to be about age 15 here, and thereby still disguised as a boy. But it works as well to think of this being fully-knighted Alanna, and so openly female. Despite myself, it goes against the grain to make a girl look too boyish. I do the same thing with Maladict/a from Terry Pratchett's 'Monstrous Regiment' - in my head she's androgynous, but she comes out looking no more convincingly male than a twenties flapper: boyish in haircut, but of extremely feminine face and figure.

It's been ages, so I'm going to stick a few photos up of (some of) what I've been up to. Firstly, above, life drawing (painting).

I had a few months when I wasn't doing it regularly, and I've picked it up again now I've moved back to Brighton (here: http://brightondrawing.tumblr.com/) I felt pretty rusty starting back, but I feel I'm getting back into the flow a bit. My favourite at the moment is the blue one cuz of the skellington.

Also this <--

The very first thing I posted on this blog was

a variation on the same theme. Basically, I once drew a large picture, compositing Brighton landmarks which I called 'On A Clear Day You Can See Forever...' (hm, I must update the image on my website with a better quality one).

It was a million-hours (or so) well spent, because I've been deconstructing the image and using various bits of it in various ways ever since.

This <-- and this are where I've cut apart the elements of the drawing and used them to form layers in papercuts set in deep frames. Sounds relatively straightforward, but requires an awful lot of fine craft-knife work, as well as lots of work where you need to fill in gaps that are on show in 3D form, where they weren't in 2d.

In fact I have (just about) done two cut-outs recent based around elements from 'On A Clear Day...' and this is the second:

Actually a good 70-80% of the image is stuff drawn anew for this project. Partly because it's rather larger than previous variations - the biggest cut-out I've ever done. I was lucky in coming across a large deep-set frame. This piece has a theme: Brighton Rock. One of my very, very favourite books, and also a great film/s, Brighton Rock references crop up pretty frequently in my work.

I'm feeling pretty smug with regards to this project so far, I frankly think it looks pretty awesome :)

However I can't work out whether I should leave it monotone and just finish it by adding in more black areas - or colour it. And if so, how? For original 'On A Clear Day...' I was looking at 30s railways posters, and the limited palette of ice-cream colours they employ so effectively. The same palette suits Brighton Rock because of the period, and because it's nicely ironic for the town to be so pastel and innocent, in a way that echoes the novel's lines about 'cream houses like a pale Victorian watercolour...' and so on, that I've quoted within the picture. On the other hand I don't want to retread the same ground, it's boring. So, stumped.

Anyway, what with these, creating cool stuff for our Christmas Open House (pictures to follow, I hopes) and updating my showreel and website, that accounts for the past couple of months' creative output... I might also have a illustration-type-picture to post soon of Alanna from Tamora Pierce's books if I am not successful in keeping my nose to the grindstone of Open House oriented work in the next few days. I started one last night, you see...

The Retiring Room

Now here's a picture with a long history of very gradual development. It's a His Dark Materials illustration; Lyra Belacqua in the Retiring Room of Jordan college at the beginning of Northern Lights. She's just heard someone approaching and is about to leap behind the armchair to hide.

It's been about three? four? years since I started this. In fact! I've got a picture of it at an earlier stage here. And I wouldn't exactly say it's finished, because where's Pantalaimon? But the elements that are there, are... finished, I guess. The latest burst of activity is the third or fourth such since the thing was begun, each representing several weeks of attention to the thing.

Phew.

As for Pantalaimon I'm stumped on what form he should be in and where he should be placed. In the book he's a moth throughout this scene, but when I was in the earlier stages of painting this I imagined maybe I'd make him a bird of paradise for a couple of reasons: a bird starting into surprised flight would bring a lot of movement to the picture; the colours would pick up on their more sombre versions of the room; a bird of paradise would be quite incongruous with the staid, English surroundings, implying the uncanny, magical nature of daemons.

But I've become uncertain. I feel like he should maybe tie in with Lyra's grey-scale colour scheme rather than the room's colour scheme.

Um... Harry Potter fanart. Apparently.

My feelings about Harry Potter have traditionally ranged from the actively vitriolic to the mildly dismissive (although, to be fair, this is more inspired my the disproportional love the franchise receives rather than the books themselves which I have read and mostly enjoyed).

Actually, my attitude mellowed considerably recently since seeing the final film. It was pretty poor stuff, and it made me realised Rowling's not inconsiderable skills as a storyteller - that with the same materials she could produce something ten times as exciting, moving and satisfying as the filmmakers mustered. Although the 'nineteen-years-later' coda has a the quality of bad fanfiction no matter who is doing it.

Anyway.

As posted previously I started this picture with different characters in mind but couldn't get the idea of the Marauders (plus Lily) out of my head once I'd thought of it.

If not clear, it's Lily, Peter, Sirius, Remus and James l-r.

It's a Sherlock jamboree

More Sherlock Holmes pictures. Specifically BBC!Sherlock. Although the above picture seems to have turned out to resemble the movie version of the characters more. Partly because I put them in Victorian clothes, those being more fun to draw than modern day childrens' clothes.

A roughly 14-year-old Mycroft and roughly 7-year-old Sherlock. Yes, like many I'm a sucker for the idea of a fundamentally close realtionship between the brothers. In particular I was wondering why, for all the 'young Sherlock' franchises no one seems to have thought of partnering him with his big brother. Possibly because canonically there's meant to be much more of an age gap and you'd want them fairly well matched... but I do like the idea of a little sidekick Sherlock, hugely admiring of his brother but also desperately competitive. The more energetic but impulsive one to Mycroft's more reseved and careful intelligence...

Anyway, this has very little to do with this picture as I think even Sherlock Holmes would need to be a little more than 7 before he started crime fighting. And more importantly, this:

Possibly I've spent too long working with children's books, but when I thought about how popular pictures of young Mycroft and Sherlock were, and how their parents are always absent giving the impression that Mycroft is raising his brother singlehandedly, I thought of Lauren Child's Charlie And Lola books.

Then I thought of 'I have this little brother Sherlock...', giggled for half and hour, and doodled this. Then I went to have a quiet lie down and log hard think about my life. Didn't work. I still think it's funny.

Finally from my page of Sherlock obsession is one of Sherlock Holmes and Mrs. Hudson. For some reason. She was meant to be toasting the view with her mug of cha, but it looks more like she's offering it to whoever she and Sherlock are talking to (Lestrade?), which I rather like. To me it looks like a scene taking place after some dramatic denouement at 221b Baker Street: Mrs. Hudson's providing the police with tea and biscuits and Sherlock Holmes looks very pleased with himself. He also looks like Kevin Bacon and has a weird neck. Which is a shame. And controversially, his biscuit of choice is the pink wafer. Why did I draw this? I think it may be time for another quiet lie down.

What larks

Cos the Sherlock Holmes picture was so quick I thought I might be able to set myself the task of churning out a finished picture a day... I can't. But I done this to, well, this extent. I'm unsure of how to proceed: in paint? Collage? The usual mix?

It's characters of my own again. The other one I was doing which included these characters is still ongoing.

A Study In Mixed-Media

Lolz.

It's Holmes and Watson!

... Okay, not by any traditional standard, but I'm a big fan of the BBC version and also love the Downey Junior/Law portrayal (though I find the film otherwise patchy). And the way in which I appreciate things is by putting them through the prism of my own convoluted character design process.

The thing that particularly fascinates me about Holmes, apart from all the obvious things that ake his a popular character, is the little acknowledged fact that he's 27 years old in A Study In Scarlet. Not only has this been worked out according to other canonical facts - to me he really reads like a young man. The nervous arrogance, the ambition of a man at the beginning of his career, the lack of money, the need to share his flat. Indeed, when Watson first meets Holmes, he mistakes him for a student. Arthur Conan Doyle was 27 when he wrote the story. I'm 27 now. It's no wonder I find a 27-year-old Holmes interesting.

Watson, I think is a bit older - he's gone through medical traing AND seen active service in the army. Early 30s at least.

The thing that makes them one of the great partnerships in fiction is the same thing that ALL great double-acts boil down to - not that I can define exactly what that is (the right balance of mutual dependancy and antagonism?) but I mention it because I was thinking about Russell Brand while I sketched Holmes. His relationship with friend and radio show co-host Matt Morgan prompted me to relate him to Holmes: the sharp intelligence, the ego, the bohemianism, the outsider status (which I think all comedians have to some extent - interested in people but not of them), the dependance on a few strong human bonds, one in particular...

Anyhoo. A vague narrative evolved as I was working: a Hound-Of-The-Baskerville's-style situation; Holmes and Watson called urgently to the murder scene from their beds (I guess explains Holmes shirtlessness?); an outdoor murder scene drenched in mud and blood.

So this, therefore, is Holmes and Watson having a quiet smoke in a blood-trampled porch, recovering from the gore in the case of Watson, who is remarkably squeamish for a soldier and a doctor; and beginning to theorise in the case of Holmes.

It was really just a character design exercise but I'm tempted to contextualise the figues more - hint at the nighttime setting, the stone wall they're standing against etc...

Dido Twite and Simon Battersea

...And in the meantime:

Young Dido Twite, cockney street-sparrow-turned-repeated-saviour-of-the-English-monarchy and her friend Simon Battersea, one-time-long-lost-heir-to-the-Duchy-of-Battersea and briefly king of England.

As far as I'm concerned Joan Aiken's Wolves Of Willoughby Chase and its sequels are some of the great childrens' books. Despite the 'classic' status of the former, the books get no where near enough attention (not least on DA). Dido is the hero of the bulk of the series and Simon, star of Black Hearts in Battersea, recurrs as well. I love their friendship and loyalty to one another. There's a bare hint of romance towards the end of the series but mostly Aiken never seems to feel the need to examine their relationship. They meet in youth (Dido's nine, Simon's a teenager) and grow up an undisclosed amount in the book

I've drawn them both as young adults, so some time after the end of the series, and tried to depict an interaction that could be romantic or not. I based it on a photo by Venetia Dearden. Dido seems to have grown her hair but it doesn't look as if she ever brushes it, the perennial urchin. I had trouble with her wolfskin jacket: she looks like a biker. I'm more pleased with Simon's Regency coat... except in the Wolves alternate history, there is no Regency of course... buh.

I should also add that , for extra London authenticity, the brown paper it's painted/collaged onto is a paper bag from the last time I had fish and chips.

Inspired particularly by finding actual (and brilliant) Joan Aiken fanfic

Work progresses.

New paint/collage work

The thing what I'm working on at the moment, when I'm not working on what I'm meant to be working on... heh.

It's based on a drawing I've had lying around for a little while, of some characters of my own, but my reason for working on it now is essentially to try out some of the collage ideas I've been thinking about lately. As I mentioned in my last post, I like how a couple of things I've done recently have had a bit of a stripped-back look compared to my usual approach.

Therefore I'm working on this quite slowly, having a big ol' think before I apply any more paper to stop myself from overworking it.

Also, my desk looks like this: