Tremontaine Season 2 Episodes 7 and 8

Here is the cover art for the next two episodes of Season 2 of Serial Box’s serialised prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Riverside novels, Tremontaine!

Earlier posts:

• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 5 and 6
• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 3 and 4
• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 1 and 2
• Cover Art for Season 2
• Tor.com on Season 1

I still have a soft spot for thumbnail D, with Rafe and Kaab rolling drunkenly through the streets.

The image we chose was that of the game of strategy – Shesh, not quite chess. It is always enormous fun devising glimpsed bits of games.

Although the border was quite fiddly to cut out!

Apparently I was going through a phase of wanting to draw brawls. It would still have been fun! There were a lot of nuances and connections to earlier (and Season 1) episodes, so more thumbnails than usual.

We settled with the bird, which I promptly realised would not be as simple to cut out as it seemed at the time! It was definitely one of those situations in which one begins to appreciate Peter de Sève’s statement that “An artist’s drawing is a catalog of the shapes that he loves. When I’m drawing something, I’m trying to find the shapes that please me. I believe that’s what makes up what people refer to as a style”.

And I am very happy with it! I love those swirls around the bird (as with the other covers, it was all cut as one silhouette and areas selected for recolouring after it was scanned in). It obviously owes a lot to the “whiplash” of Art Nouveau style.

And remember, you can see behind-the-scenes peaks of future art if you become a patreon through Patreon.