It was such a big, white space! This one gave me a lot of trouble too, mostly because I needed to fill it up. I drew a bunch of different flowers that I hated and never finished before I got inspired to do these giant stylized dandelion puffs, which are excellent and magical.
Sweet Lorena is probably the most blameless character in the book, even though she certainly has to suffer through the nonsense everyone else creates. The story puts some distance between her and the reader, while marveling at what a standup person she is.
As mentioned previously, I wrote most of these stories in a kind of fugue state, which led to me writing Lorena’s story twice because I forgot I had already written it. I ended up discarding the second one, in which she is characterized as “the strong girl” but has to go through basically this same nonsense. (Rose is a siren in that one.)
After I drew this image, I felt like it wasn’t quite done and then I realized it needed a squirrel laughing at the prince in the tree, so I added that.
I’m very pleased with Princess’s bloody arm in the last panel. I’m afraid that I just couldn’t get a background that I was happy with for either image and gave up. Imagine that these picture are drawn in the royal seer’s dark workshop.
I made the lindworm intentionally simple after drawing the 52 thousand scales on the dragon. She’s a little derpy but I love her.
This story took the longest to write, and is 1 of only 2 that I actually remember writing. All the others were generated in an intense flow state, basically a trance of pulling archetypes from the collective unconscious. But I had to think more deliberately to write the poems.
If there’s one thing literature teaches us about lindworms, it’s that you shouldn’t just yeet them in to a confined body of water and not expect them to turn up again in 15 or 20 years bit enough to eat a man.
This is the page that gave me the most trouble of the book, because I desperately wanted to draw a magical ice bridge and none of my attempts look magical, or icy. Eventually I spend 3 days drawing 60-odd individual snowflakes in stupid detail that probably won’t even be visible in print and I’m satisfied with the result.
I originally had bigger plans for this page, but I scaled them back once I got the main details. It was saying pretty much what I wanted it to say, but something did seem to be missing on both sides. On the Summer Queen’s side, I realized it had to be her losing her crown, but on the Autumn Prince’s side I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, it could have been some bits of hay? But that is not very interesting.
But I took a page from my very early vision of the comic and dashed out this funny little crow, who I love. Obviously there are crows aplenty in the Autumn Kingdom. And they also think it’s weird that people make so much trouble for themselves by not saying what they mean.
But also, let’s face it: Titus and Rose did NOT belong together. That’s the point of this story. You can love someone as much as it possible to love anyone. That doesn’t mean you’re the least bit compatible or share the same goals or even see each other clearly.
I haven’t said anything about the illuminated initial caps yet. I drew most of them before I drew the illustrations. Some of them I had a very clear vision and others I just sort of made it up as I went. I always knew that the first comic would start “Once upon a time,” and the initial cap would have a little farm scene with a barn inside.
This one also was very clear in my mind. I actually have that same garden swing, which The Man built for me in the backyard. I could not get it right. The arms and legs and bodies weren’t sitting properly in the swing no matter how many times I drew it. I made the made model with me for a reference pic. Then it was easier to adjust.
Spent a very long time drawing that dragon’s scales. The Fox assured me they are perfect but they don’t look perfect to me but anyway they are done and that’s pretty close to perfect from where I sit.
That small king is a real creep so I drew him creeping.
Women, don’t betray your own principles for some guy.
This egg is awesome. What do you think could possibly hatch from such an artifact? I guess you’ll have to check back tomorrow.
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