“Theirs is the stuff of real magic; not sparks and smoke. Living and breathing and jumping things. Little one, I could no more catch and hold a rabbit made of smoke than I could catch and hold one made of fur and bone. To live and run and go on living, that is real magic.” Kanin of Glimmer

 

Over the last couple months I’ve talked some about a few of my writing projects. One in particular, and it’s the big one, has taken a meandering path over the last decade. As I’ve come close to completing the next draft of this story, I’ve also been building out more of the characters and world. Mostly, these are creatures and beings that live beyond the walls of the tale, you could say. The book’s not about them, exactly, but it’s been helpful for me to try and think beyond needs of the narrative and main characters and to take the time to imagine a lived-in world.

Ah, a troll wizard! Thought I’d walk you through the entire process for this one. In fact, this month I’ve made the demo video available to watch for free!

We’ll start with the rough thumbnail. I’ve had a thing about rabbits made of smoke. I don’t know where it started but if you look back through my work you’re bound to see more than one spring across the page.

From there I moved on to the actual drawing. I’ll never tire of gnarled walking sticks and troll tails. Here’s the sketch or “under-drawing” as I’ve always thought of it.

And now the finished drawing. I handled the smoke rabbits themselves mostly with a paper blending stump.

Now, here’s the interesting part. As I said above, I wanted to make this video available for the month of June so you can see the complete process. Enjoy!

I’d been thinking and thinking about what could I possibly write with my time on Muddy Colors this month. It’s such a complete mess out there right now and I’m brokenhearted over everything. There’s nothing I can say, nothing I can add. And, outside of donations and words of support, truly feels like there’s nothing I can do.

What I can do, and it’s about the only thing I’ve ever had in my bag of tricks, is draw. I can give my work to people. And that’s what I wanted to do this month. All thanks to my patrons for supporting this work and making it possible.