Introducing 'Mute'

As mentioned in my previous post Mute centres around the relationship between a young boy and a wolf, though this relationship is not a friendly one.

Mute focuses on a young boy from the Deer Clan named Tarka. Tarka has white hair, is a mute and is not too hot when it comes to fighting. These things make him stand out in a village of dark haired, vocal warriors. Because of this he is shunned by the rest of the clan, not least of all by his father, the clan's chief warrior.

The world of Mute is divided into clans who all worship their own sacred animal. Two of the largest clans, the Deer and Wolf clans, are at war. Tarka's farther, Oszkar, get's severely injured during the war and is forced to return home never to fight again. This shames him, but once his wife gives birth to a son, his hopes of a warrior legacy are reignited. A flame that is only to be extinguished once Tarka's shortcoming become apparent.

The fractured relationship between them both is the catalyst for why on his 9th birthday, Tarka steals his father's shield and dagger (his sword was much too heavy to wield) and runs away to prove himself.

Not long into his journey, Tarka comes across a huge white wolf. Being of the Deer clan a wolf pelt would make a pretty sweet trophy and before he realises how outmatched he is, Tarka attacks. Amidst the struggle, the wolf bites hard onto Tarka's arm, and in retaliation the boy plunges his father's dagger into the wolf's neck. The two combatants collapse and when they next awaken, they find themselves in a strange room filled with crystals and incense being tended to by a withered old woman.

The woman has a strange quality about her, and is dressing the wolf's wound with a long piece of white cloth. Once she has wrapped it tightly around the wolf's neck she begins to wrap the other end around Tarka's arm. Too weak to resist, Tarka allows the strange woman to continue. As she finishes tying the cloth, the woman starts to talk. She mentions a lot of things about fate and some sort of great darkness that Tarka can't understand in his semi state of consciousness but as she talks, he notices that the blood from his wound is turning the once white cloth a deep red. The colour seeps along the cloth, and as his eyes follow it, he sees the same thing happening the other end. Suddenly their blood meets in the middle and after a bit of magical what have you, the two are bound. You see, in order to save their lives the old woman had to bind them together so that they can share their remaining life force.

This bond allows them to communicate to each other telepathically, and do lots of other neat things. The downside is that if one dies, so does the other, and if the bond is severed, they both die. A difficult situation for sworn enemies.

After filling them in on the rules of their new bond and informing them that their union has been foretold as the thing to end all evils or some such, she sends them on their way with just the small responsibility of saving the world.

And that's a brief (though perhaps not quite succinct) summary of the beginning of Mute. And if you've managed to read this far, or just scrolled all the way down, then here is the first look at the heroes of the tale.

More artwork and story tidbits to come.

New Project

It's been a while, but I've come out from my illustration cave to share what I've been working on. I've decided to create an online comic as a way of showcasing my art and also (hopefully) providing some mild entertainment.

After walking my dog one day I had an idea revolving around the premise of the lead, and the bond it creates between the human and the dog. After it had gone through several mind filters it ended up becoming a young boy and a wolf, and in place of the lead, a magical rope, cloth...thing.

I was in love with the imagery of a young boy and his wolf fighting off bad guys. The juxtaposition of the weak human child and strong adult wolf lends itself well to awesome illustrations. Once I had this relationship as a starting point I needed to work on fleshing out the story and world they would be a part of. Unfortunately I'm no writer, so I've collaborated with a couple of people to help me create the plot and write the text in the comic.

It's all very much a work in progress at the moment but over the next few days I'll be sharing some early details about the story and some preliminary artwork. Watch this space.

Done!

Here is the final result of the crab/cove picture.

Whilst I was painting it I felt it would benefit visually from being a beach rather than a cove, so I removed the rocks and replaced them with sand, sea and more sky.

I also dropped the detail on the boy's face so that the image gelled more cohesively.

I'm very pleased with the results though I'm experimenting with a new style at the moment and I'm still getting used to it.

New pictures soon!

Gone fishing

So here is the boy who's going to be catching crabs in the rock pool. I wanted him to be as cute as possible so that it felt even more sinister that he was being stalked by a ginormous crab.

Crusty Crustaceans!

I loved the idea of the little boy crab fishing whilst he's being watched by a huge crab so I decided to turn it into a full illustration.

I've done a simple colour block to get the feel for the composition and tone of the image, which I wanted to feel nostalgic and whimsical but at the same time a bit mysterious. In order to not make the image feel too dark I decided to choose a more vibrant colour for the crab. I chose a pinky sky because I feel this best conveys the feeling of nostalgia, like looking at sepia coloured photos.

Coves, caves and crabs

Last week I went camping in Cornwall near the Lizard peninsula. On one of the walks we went on I came across this awesome little jetty in a cove. It had a rusty old cog wheel at the top of the slope and then a tiny beach of rocks across the water. I thought it would be a great starting point for and illustration so I took lots of pictures and did some sketches...

The crank (complete with someone's doggy bag...at least they picked it up...)

The slope down to the water

The cove with cave

This is a quick water colour sketch I did of the cove, complete with a little doodle I did based on an idea I had for an illustration about a boy crab fishing being snuck up on by a giant crab...

I gave the sketch some colour to use as a guide.

Now to make an image!

Shrinking...

Progress on page 13. In this page the main character (Ruben) has been shrunk by the Tooth Collectors (Aqua and Cole) so he can go with them to their home world of Dentalia.

I wanted to capture a sense of scale in the background, and an expression of dumbfounded wonderment on Ruben's face as the furniture begins to loom overhead.

I'm not sure if it's finished just yet, the book describes lots of coloured light as he shrinks, but I can't decide if it's too much or not enough....