Down in the Dungeon...

Doctor Beele and his co workers working to the bone

This illustration was just begging for some Bronisms.  There was so much scope for personal hints and touches I hardly knew where to start.

Going from left to right: framed picture of Lincoln, where I studied for year (this picture features in 3 other books too); various fencing swords (husband is a fencer); stuffed platypus (one of my favourite animals); bow and quiver with arrows (husband and I are both archers.)

I was very excited about this final illustration, I just had to share.  

Another step closer to defeating the Nain Rouge.

Bron

Times Have Changed

At the start of high school, just your average teens.

Times are certainly different for the teens at Royal Oak.  Before that fateful basketball game where the Nain Rouge reappeared to them, they were just part of the hustle and bustle of high school.  More faces in the crowd.

Since encountering the Nain Rouge again, high school is a very different place.  No one smiles, graffiti coats the lockers, trips are getting cancelled and things are going missing.  The world is a very different and difficult place.  

But our teenagers have changed too.  In the previous lives, they were no more special than anyone else.  There is something different about them too.  They are lights in the dark, glowing against the ever present shadow of the Nain Rouge.

Times are changing.  But luckily, the people are changing too...

Becoming so much more.

Back in the Red

Well now, my friends, it has certainly been a long while.  When the pencil hits the paper I rarely take time for anything else.

Part two of the Nain Rouge's battle is complete.  The illustrations were finished earlier in 2013.  I had a brief rest before summoning my strength for the final instalment of the Nain Rouge trilogy.

In the spring and summer time, I created the drafts for the book.  As of late summer, I have been starting work on the final illustrations for the final book.

It's been slow going as I battle the Nain Rouge and a full time job, not to mention my secret other lives! There will be food for your eager eyes soon, but first, enjoy a couple of my favourite moments from book II.

The Nain Rouge appears at a basketball game.

Supporting a fallen comrade.

Airplane

The gang outside the Detroit Institute of Arts

The Red Tide is the fourth book I have worked on with Josef Bastian.  Anyone who knows me and knows JB knows there is a hitch in our working relationship.  Josef is in Motor City Detroit, Michigan, USA, where the Nain Rouge Trilogy begins and takes place.  When I first contacted JB, I was living in Cottingham, East Yorkshire, England.  I have since moved from the North of England to the Capital city of London.  Still 3800 miles away from the Nain Rouge's stomping ground.

Research is the visual key to drawing sites I hardly know and the Internet is a godsend for this.  Certainly folks who know where I'm from can imagine how many books on Michigan history there are in Cottingham's local library.  Using other tourist's photos of landmarks from different angles help to create a mental three dimensional view of a place, be it the Detroit Institute of Arts, 8 Mile Road or the Rackham Memorial Fountain at Detroit Zoo.  At this point, the mighty power of imagination takes over and does most of the leg work.

I have been lucky enough to visit Michigan twice.  I have driven down 8 mile road and seen from afar the city of Detroit.  This is the only part of America I've seen, it's certainly a land very different from my own.  The roads are straight, long and wide and I have yet to see a US roundabout.  After spending so much time commuting by train and bus the only public transport I saw was the yellow school bus.  Buildings cloud the sky and the lakes are as huge as oceans.  Cash machines had drive thrus.  I would honestly give anything to go back to a land I illustrated.

If you look carefully, ever so carefully in my illustrations, you can see little hints of my world in a place I only wish I knew better.  The Nain Rouge's world.

A hint of my world; the house across the road was my home for 17 years.

The War has Begun

Above is the first glimpse of the Red Tide book.  This is the first complete illustration, one of twenty, for the novel.  Excuse the poor image quality, this is a picture taken from my phone.  Oh how convenient the world of technology is.

In this chapter, Ellie and Tom tell their new friends Chad, AJ and Jennifer about their experience with the Nain Rouge.  The dwarf himself appears in shadow form in every chapter, and here he appears from the shadows, watching... waiting...

Shadows

There's a strong play between light and dark in this book.  The Nain Rouge is evil, dark and looming, whereas the children are like shining beacons in contrast.  Certainly, the Nain Rouge has grown into something very different in this book.  As I mentioned previously, the Nain Rouge was merely a pesky imp in the previous novel.  Now he has turned into something far bigger...

I have loved drawing the Nain Rouge appearing from the shadows.  His fingers are so thin and liquid, I love creating slightly grotesque characters that are unnaturally thin and wiry.  And no better words describe the Nain Rouge than grotesque and unnatural.

In his shadow self, the Nain Rouge appears in every illustration, always hiding when not in plain sight. His fiery eyes peer out from under his hood and his hand stretches out towards the children, menacingly.  Sometimes he melts into focus, and that is something far more frightening.

New Faces

This has been a strange week, the Nain Rouge has certainly been spreading disaster around me.  So I have started using my positive vibes (aka. pencil) and have started the first of the final book illustrations.

With any new book in a series, there is always a new face.  Or three.  Joining the original heros, Tom, Elly and their friend Dr. Beele, the museum curator, are three other tweens that caught in the Nain's evil plot.  Chad, AJ and Jennifer were an additional consideration during early designs.  Some elements of their characters were obvious, but as I read both The Red Tide and The Red Truth, I saw more and more of their true selves.

So I took a kind of reverse process in approaching The Red Tide.  Instead of designing the characters first, I studied the novel in depth and drafted the chapter layouts.  The characters evolved en route, doing most of the brunt work for me.

Above and below are Jennifer's later designs.  They're a far cry from the overweight, pale, needy teenager from the early trials.  Also below is the Nain Rouge in solid form.  He's undergone a fair transformation too...