As you may know, I collaborated with Book Box Club for their January Geeks Unite box.
The comission was to celebrate bookish life and what it means to be bookish. I had a LOT of ideas roaming in my head, but as I was flicking through my sketchbook I happened upon this piece and thought “I know what I will do*”.
You see this piece is a celebration of the characters that live with you, the ones that stay around and you just can’t help but have feelings for (whatever those feelings are).
It is no surprise that I have a tendency to start my sketch on traditional media (usually A5, it is rare I start a piece in anything bigger). This was already packed with details just as a linework so really, I should’ve seen the complexity of this coming…
Once I started working on it digitally, I kept despairing and loving it at the same time. Just look at ALL the layers I used:
And that’s not ALL of them. Because I do things like making sure the tattoo shows like a tatoo or that the glasses have “lenses”.
And since you’re looking at the close up, you can see the detail on the lips, and the shading and all the willy things that you wouldn’t be able to see in the calendar. It doesn’t matter that you don’t see it, when I am painting/illustrating/making this come to life, I have to do it right. That’s just who I am.
Of course, that meant I spent unnecessary amounts of time colouring lips, eyes and things like that that no one cares about except me, which meant I was struggling to finish on time but somehow it was all done (on the plus side, I now have a reference palette for a lot of my characters).
So now I will let you see the finished piece:
Starting from the main lady, and going clockwise:
- Moon, the artist with all the lovely characters behind her, colouring and enriching her life. (Why am I talking of myself in the third person?)
- Star Fawn, she is Moire’s companion and is part of the Deema universe.
- Naj Reyals (the one in green), part of the Wig Bag Trio.
- Dalv Le Wot, with Ink (the squid), also part of the Wig Bag Trio.
- Knit, Mischief (the sheep), and The Captain, part of Wig Bag Trio.
- Cyx Red, the Soul Collector, she jumps universes/stories and is kind of like a Goddess.
- Child Knit. She is my out of canon character but I still want to draw her since Child Knit usually appears with things that connect her to The Captain despite never actually meeting him. **
- The Lestrange Triplets. At the bottom with a red cross, Etan the healer. Enza, the activist/adventurer, and Edlyn, the creative and nurturing one. They are part of the Deema universe.
- Jellyfish, because I like jellyfish***
- Moire Fox, she’s a hunter and part of the Deema universe.
- Vixy, my artwork logo and my cartoon alterego.
So, which characters would be behind your back?
*I would want to kill the past Moon who decided this was a good idea while I was sick and trying to meet the deadline.
**Theories say that she may be Knit’s subconscious.
***There’s actually more to this but shhhh.