The Reason for the Silence... such as it is.

As per usual I begin with an apology - and this the most earnest of those so far: so very sorry for the abruptness and the length (!) of my silence.

I am in fact, still alive, still working, and most significantly, preparing for fatherhood.

I do suffer from chronic, low level depression which most often presents itself as a strong desire to be left alone and excessive computer gaming :\ ... yet the main reason for the sudden stop was more particularly two things:

1/ fear, as I approach the moment/scene in ECONOMOUS that motivated me to start his story in the first place; &

2/ realising that I had no idea who Miss Swift actually is (since *-SPOILERS AHEAD!-* I want to make her a main character) and not being able to proceed without her being better realised.

Well, happy day \o/, thanks to my writers' group of Michael Hawke, Ben Morton & Rikki Lambert, I have a much clearer sense of her now (and quite different she is from how I have penned her so far) so proceeding can begin again.

That said, I am currently in the thick of illustrating a growing list of picture books which have most of my creative professional attention, and what of that is left for writing I am thinking of applying to the other fruit of the WRITERS' GROUP: the continuing story of Europe, the Branden Rose, taking up where FACTOTUM left off. Excitingly (for me, at least) I have a beginning, middle and sense of the end (or a final catalysing moment to work towards), so it now simply awaits for me to take the start I have already and turn it into a finished tale.

I would like to thank you all for your persistence and Tom Wamstad for his expressed concern (which prompted me to speak up at last). I am still here, a little overwhelmed, but getting there.

For my next post I shall seek to respond to the comments from the last long ago post, so stay tuned...)

Europa of Naimes

Forsooth, the Branden Rose is a real soul, you can go see her activities get all Tumblr-ed over at Europa of Naimes, where she and other bright-souled Sundergirdians keep the energy of the Half-Continent roiling.

I go there to remind myself that the Half-Continent is not just me in a room on my own in front of a blank screen.

Thank you, Branden Rose, thank you.

Europe - Stages of Development

Today I reckon I would like to show folks the growth of Europe's character design. Being one of what I think of as the intermediate stage characters she pops first into existence in 2001.

This was back when frockcoats and jackcoats were not yet a major feature of the Half-Continent. What she wears is called a lambrequin, what I have now-a-days as cheap easy to produce proofing for quickly armouring a semi-professional mass. As you can see the crow's-foot hair tine has always been a feature. Indeed, early on the day I penned this, I was drawing a crow for a puzzle at Catchphrase and thinking the structure of their feet was rather exquisite - one thing flows into another. At this stage Europe is a slightly friendlier soul.

And so she remained until 3 years on I have an opportunity to put her in a story and there she gets meaner, colder, sharper and I needed to know how she appear in her refreshed guise.

By now frockcoats and tricorns and all that a right in and here I am simply attempting to get a feel for the Branden Rose even as I am writing her. I formalise the flowing fringe here, the precise look of her sleeves and vambrins (those proofed fore-arm/hand coverings) and the wrap-around fastenings of her coat.

From here I proceed to a final character drawing, about A2 in size and very close to the one in Book 1 now.

Yet something was not quite right here either... You shall win the esteem of everyone else in the room if you can tell what the difference is between this and the final image.

Once I solved this for the final book illustration (which dare I admit, involved a very sturdy eraser) I then went on to colour the version of the Branden Rose you see as a background to this very site. I would dearly love to have that produced as a poster some day - I guess it goes on the pile with the full-size map.