Ruth warmup sketches I did before diving into the very first thumbnails.

Ruth is from the upcoming illustrated novel, The Valiard Mansion.

Hi folks!

I'm so excited to reveal some thumbnails of the illustrations for The Valiard Mansion, my illustrated novel. We're planning to have over 150 traditionally inked illustrations in the novel across its 140,000+ word count. (That's roughly the length of Pride & Prejudice!) The book will be released as a hardcover and it's looking amazing so far!

We're also going to release clips of the animated trailer soon, as well as making-of videos, so I'll keep you guys updated on that.

Thanks to everyone for joining me on this long, long road to getting Valiard published. Some of you have been with me since 2013, which is insane to imagine!

Hey, guys! Ezelle here! :)

I’ve just returned from America where I worked on-site with Golden Bell on all things Valiard for 3 months.

There we began shading and compositing shots for the Animated Trailer, and it’s looking amazing!

What I’m sharing with you here aren’t even the finished shots. Layers of effects and other fixes will still be added. Some effects shots have already come through and I’m not allowed to share them yet, but I can tell you they absolutely blew me away. 

Soon we’ll begin posting actual clips from the Trailer, as well as making-of snippets for those of you interested in the animation process.

Please keep an eye out for more updates. Production often means keeping lots of secrets — but there are SO MANY exciting things that I’ll soon be allowed to share with you guys!

Theodore and his loving old mare, Florence.

Theodore and Florence are from the upcoming illustrated novel, The Valiard Mansion.

Flipping through an animation preview!

The Animated Trailer of The Valiard Mansion is created using a combination of traditional and digital techniques, but a vast majority of its character animation was started on paper with a pencil.

For this shot, the pencilled keyframes were repositioned digitally and printed out so that inbetweening could continue on paper.

Remaining inbetweens and animation fixes past this point are then done digitally.

This animation preview was done for the Animated Trailer of The Valiard Mansion

This Animated Trailer is being produced by Golden Bell Studios

Thumbnails of inked illustrations for The Valiard Mansion, an upcoming novel published by Golden Bell’s Polar Press.

Theodore and Ruth here — but I won’t reveal anything else because it’s spoilers. ;)

We're planning to have over 150 traditionally inked illustrations in the novel across its 140,000+ word count. (That's roughly the length of Pride & Prejudice!) The book will be released as a hardcover and it's looking amazing so far!