#riddlemasterofhed

In response to the tragic news of the passing of one of my favorite authors, Patricia McKillip, I feel compelled to explain something of why I unintentionally went silent on this account. I’ve been hesitant to acknowledge that for the last year, instead of going back to working on my original webcomic narrative, I continued developing concept art for McKillip’s masterful Riddle-Master trilogy (which I grew up knowing by the name Riddle of Stars). I had a powerful creative urge to expunge. Was I just trying to more deeply explore the powerful themes of McKillip’s work in order to understand my identity as a creative; to understand better how to tap my creative energy to tell stories of redemption and healing? Just for that, I suspect the past year’s odyssey will prove to have been worth it.

Was I compelled by a feeling that modern society perhaps needs this story to be revitalized by being adapted into a new medium? It always felt like a long shot to convince the fanbase to trust me with the film rights for an animated adaptation of the story, but still, I kept drawing.

I’ve been trying to become more comfortable with sharing rough artwork that hasn’t been hardened, but going back into my old posts, it’s evident how much my drawing of these characters has improved. I had to study the best of my rough and inconsistent initial drawings to begin nailing down high-fidelity style guides for the major characters.

The challenge with Morgon has been to find ways to visually represent his character growth, and especially his descent into darkness and return from the brink. The person we see the Anuin scene I storyboarded isn’t exactly Morgon’s best self, so it was therapeutic to focus on his gentler side for a change.

With Deth, it has always been a struggle to deal with the gap between his appearance and mental age, as well as between the level of emotion he expresses compared to what he feels. I’ve begun to really enjoy finding ways to break past that impressive poker face of his, while realizing that most of his emotional cues are probably too subtle for the average person to catch right off.

These style guides helped me fall into a cadence where I can keep the initial emotional energy of my rough storyboards AND get the drawings on model much more reliably than when I started.

My favorite headshots from Anuin seem to have settled down to these two. That unexpressed fright of Deth’s came through much more clearly than I expected. Wish I could hold that panel longer....

I started to verge into some more detailed exploration of other major characters (courtesy of a storyboard from that scene at Trader’s Road with Raederle and Ghisteslwchlohm).

And started to really nail down that ending scene at Wind Tower. What can I say? It’s just been too much fun.