As you know, I set myself the challenge of doing Inktober, one sketch a day throughout October. Since I had, in the end, 32 new chapter illustrations to do, split evenly between Willoughby the Narrator and The Princelings of the North, it worked out well. I’ve put the last one as my header and published it today.
One thing I noticed was the style of my illustrations settled down, and possibly improved as time went on. My trees, always a bit iffy, seemed to stop being lollipops on sticks and turn into something more like a tree. The shading got more consistent. I stopped worrying about any tendency to be scribbly and just went with the flow. And I occasionally used something else for reference – Rebecca’s picture from the top of a mountain gave me just the right setting for Vexstein from the rear; the Dragon Hall, home to Writers’ Centre Norwich, has just the sort of beams I wanted for Vexstein’s Hearing hall.
I’m trying to decide whether to post all of them here, which is something I did for the early books. But until the books are edited and ready to publish, I don’t know whether they are really going to appear or not. Maybe I’ll just post some of my favourites from Willoughby, and some from book 8 (Dylan & Dougall) later in the month.
One thing I wonder, is how much of the story you can guess from the pictures and the very short descriptions I posted of them, on Facebook and Twitter, if you can’t get the Pinterest board. Hopefully it’ll add to the intrigue.
And apart from the illustrations, I’m pleased to welcome the person who bought Bravo Victor last month – you’ll be all ready for Willoughby when he comes out in the new year. I’ll be revealing the final cover when I get the launch date. Watch this space!
