Tremontaine Season 2 Episode 13

 

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

Earlier posts:

• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 11 and 12
• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 9 and 10
• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 7 and 8
• 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

The final episode of a season is almost as difficult to illustrate as the overall season cover. How to represent what happens in this particular episode, while being true to the overall arc of the season and catching the right elegiac or hopeful note…

As a result, there were a lot of thumbnail sketches.

We went with the image of a Kinwiinik ship taking to the waves. Here are the final pencils.

And at last, alas, the finished cover (I’m particularly fond of the poppies). The final layout and design is, as ever, by Charles Orr.

Tremontaine Season 2 Episodes 11 and 12

(And remember, patrons on Patreon get early previews of some projects).

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 9 and 10
• Cover Art for Season 2 Episodes 7 and 8
• 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

Episode 11 or The One In Which Nothing Good Happens. Since I read manuscripts to look for images to illustrate, my reader-reaction is usually somewhat muted. Not in Episode 11. I’ve obviously read Season 1, but also I’ve read the novels that are set later, and suddenly a whole lot of events started rushing together to squish my beloved characters.

I had to keep putting the manuscript down to worry, and then read on with my hand covering the bottom of the page so I couldn’t spoil it for myself. If you click on this link it should take you to the Twitter thread of me mostly just gasping and hiding under the sofa cushions:

Reading #Tremontaine manuscripts and may have gasped aloud

— Kathleen Jennings (@tanaudel) November 6, 2016

However! We decided to go with the silhouette of the city, looking back to the original cover for episode 1.

And it was so much fun to cut out. Sort of a Schroedinger’s Advent Calendar.

Here’s a detail:

To avoid spoilers for episode 11, I have cut off all the captions for the thumbnails for episode 12.

But you can probably guess life isn’t great for all our characters.

Not great at all.

Tremontaine Season 2 Episodes 9 and 10

(And remember, you can see behind-the-scenes peeks of future art if you become a patron through Patreon.)

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 7 and 8
• 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

So much drama! And everything is winding towards the TERRIBLE EVENTS of the last episodes.

So we went for pure drama – a scene at the theatre, and lots of fun to be had with draperies, fringes and evil leaning gentlemen.

And getting confused by all the curly bits.

I should have put together a selection of Diane reaction shots from these thumbnails. She’s such a contained, boiling character.

We had a bit of difficulties narrowing this one down – I ended up putting together full pencils for two of the thumbnail designs, and two of one image, because old fashioned locks aren’t always easily identifiable as such, especially at a small scale (worth image searching, though – so lovely).

In the end we decided on Kaab, emoting.

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.

Tremontaine Season 2 Episodes 5 and 6

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

Episode 5 had some lovely floral imagery, but fortunately Serial Box restrained me from getting too wild with kingfishers in mid-flight, and other embroidered details from the episode.

I still rather like the little Kaab middle left, and Micah, Tess and Kaab at the bottom right, but then I’m very fond of Micah.

But I was pretty happy with the final selection, and still have vague thoughts that it would make a nice crewel embroidery.

As with almost all the episodes, the final image was cut in one piece of black paper, with colour added digitally afterwards. With many of the covers I’ve selected parts to be coloured. In this case, however, the colour was simply added to spaces in the image: the black is all of the original cut-paper.

Episode 6 had some rather fabulous introductions, and I would like the chance to illustrate the opinionated, angular woman at the bottom right and middle one day.

But this image, with its flowing draperies and a chance to attempt an impression of transparency in black paper was the final selection (and a good thing, since she showed up first in the thumbnails for Episode 3, and there was a chance she’d have kept returning indefinitely).

Again, she was cut in one piece. Once the image was scanned and tidied, I chose areas to recolour.

Tremontaine Season 2 Episode 3 and 4

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 1 and 2
• Cover Art for Season 2
• Tor.com on Season 1

I’ve cropped the descriptions out of the thumbnail sketches, in case of spoilers, but as you can see there is quite a variety of actions in each episode (it is an ensemble cast). I make notes on the printed draft as I read the manuscript, then narrow it down to a few thumbnail sketches from which Serial Box can choose. There are quite a few considerations: what appeals to me, what I can practically achieve, what summarises (or at least doesn’t detract from) the main theme of the episode, how it connects to previous episodes and to future ones (which I may not have read yet), how it fits in the sequence of images…

Here we went with the second (top right) image, but the third (lower left) made its way into a later cover.

Sometimes the image is directly from the episode (as above). At other times we choose something more thematic (I’m still fond of the fancy fighters on the lower right, however).

Tremontaine Season 2

Season two of Tremontaine, the prequel series to Ellen Kushner’s Riverside novels, is on its way from Serial Box, beginning October 19.

You may recognise the style from the covers I did for Season One (see also Tor.com’s post on that art).

This year, however, we’re cooking in colour!

I had a lot of fun with this image. A second season can expand out into the world or drill down into characters. This season pulls in more countries and cultures of the world beyond Riverside, but these add to the force and layers of what is happening to our spies and chocolate merchants, duchesses and politicians, swordsmen, forgers, mathematicians, scholars…

Once a final thumbnail was chosen and the sketch approved, the process proceeded much as for the previous covers. I still cut it as one piece, but this season we are reserving key areas for the highlight colour.

 

The late week

• Monsters! This new, Karen Beilharz-helmed anthology of comics (with sea monsters by me) is now funding on Pozible. It’s all written and illustrated but we need the pre-orders to get it printed. Rewards include a map by me. (Because it’s been asked, and Pozible isn’t entirely clear on this: if you want to help, but don’t necessarily want a book, you can enter an amount here: Pledge amount). The first comic, “Monster Hunter”, has been posted already.
• Rapunzel: Fablecroft is publishing Kate Forsyth’s PhD exegesis The Rebirth of Rapunzel: A Mythic Biography of the Maiden in the Tower (background pattern and cover art by me).

• Deep Dark Fears: Late to this party, but Deep Dark Fears is deliciously evocative and unsettling, and I have ordered the book.
• Pride & Prejudice & Zombies: Went twice, went with incredibly low expectations, had a ball, see it while it’s in cinemas. It’s also got a number of Easter eggs for long-term Austen fans. But I mistook Sam Riley for Kris Marshall and was confused (although not unpleasantly so).

I'm just saying pic.twitter.com/uZ8Fam3gKQ

— Kathleen Jennings (@tanaudel) March 1, 2016

• Science! If you like science communication and illustration, the #sciart tweetstorm is currently on.
• Two new books:
  • The first translation in over 100 years of Jules Verne’s Mikhail Strogoff, from Eagle Books (a new imprint of Christmas Press), with illustrations and gold-edged pages and just the right size to fit comfortably in the hand and handbag.
  • The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the way Home, the last book of Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland books, which I will buy but which I am afraid it will hurt to read because they are so perfect in themselves that I am sure the ending will be like a knife.
• Coffee in Oxley: If you are ever in the western suburbs of Brisbane, check out Re/Love Oxley on Blunder Road – a good little cafe with an industrial shed of old and kitschy things, including pyromaniacal sewing machines.

This is a good cafe pic.twitter.com/SIAQlazPCk

— Kathleen Jennings (@tanaudel) March 2, 2016

• Cake: “If your mother didn’t make you a cake from this book she didn’t love you enough…” Or: growing up in Australia (apparently a hit in Israel too, which I did not know).
• Tremontaine! Saga Press is going to print editions of several Serial Box titles, including Tremontaine (no word on art at present).
• Writing: Finished the first pass edit of the current manuscript (the small shapely one, as opposed to the large amorphous one which is still out with friends having its flaws diagnosed).
• Pretty things: If you like them, this is my sister’s blog: Mrs M Loves.

Love pretty things? Skip on over to https://t.co/2AEv6JZb1a for the fun and finer things in life xx #mrsmloves pic.twitter.com/K2H2KqxhmH

— Bec Moore (@mrsm_loves) February 23, 2016

• On looking too long at art reference: Seals are really weird and if you look at them too long it is like staring too hard at the word “walk” or “amongst”. They cease to be unique functioning objects and become gaps in the world, free-floating black holes, units of the matter before eternity. They refuse to be what you desire or believe them to be. If you gaze too long into the seal, the seal gazes back into you.
• ‘A Plot for the Annoying of the King of Spain’ – this whole stream of tweets is delightful:

In love with the fact that in 1585 Francis Walsingham drew up a document titled 'A Plot for the Annoying of the King of Spain'

— John Gallagher (@earlymodernjohn) March 4, 2016

• Style: Peter de Sève on artist’s style, although I believe it applies equally to any creative endeavour:
  “An artist’s drawing is a catalogue 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.”
• Lessons learned: One thing I am repeatedly learning this year is how little you can get done in a day, and how much in half an hour.

 

 

Tremontaine – time lapse

Here is a compilation of a few time-lapse videos behind-the-scenes on the early Tremontaine covers. The making of videos is an ongoing learning curve, and for part of this I had a rather unwieldy camera rig, with the phone attached to my collar by a gorillapod (if you look carefully, you can catch a glimpse of it in the photos on Tor.com’s article). In the other parts, the gorillapod was wrapped around the neck of a bottle.

Season 1 is now complete, but the story has been renewed for a second season.

Little bits left over at the end of the week

22-29 Jan on Twitter etc

• This was Monday: http://www.petermball.com/really-its-one-of-the-best-bits/, and it was and is one of the best bits.
• This may be your last chance to get hold of one of the sold-out hardbacks (the pretty ones, with all the foil under the dust jacket) of Angela Slatter‘s World Fantasy Award winning The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (with 83 tiny illustrations by me): It’s an international Goodreads giveaway, open from 27 January until 12 February.

• A reminder of the long-ago, beautiful happening that was picturebookreport.com – you may recognise some of the names involved! This was where I fell in love with Kali Ciesemier’s vision of Garth Nix’s Sabriel and with Sam Bosma’s art for The Hobbit, and one of the earliest examples that really had an impact on me, of people Not Sitting On Their Hands But Putting Things Out In The World (quote more or less from Karen Beilharz’s original Plan to Take over the World, which was another example at roughly the same time). Putting Things Out In The World is a very important artistic practice!
• I learned a lot at the time from Sam Bosma’s posts on the process of illustrating The Hobbit – just this week I went back to find his description of working with colour flats to explain them to another artist. But whether you love The Hobbit, beautiful finished artwork, process posts or lots and lots of sketches of goblins, that series of posts remain worth a look.
• The final episode of Tremontaine has been released! At least, for this season…

• Based on the title alone, I am very excited about the new Serial Box series The Witch Who Came in From the Cold, created by Lindsay Smith and Max Gladstone, and written by Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian Tregillis and Michael Swanwick. The first episode is out and free! (text and audio)
• Milli and Fink screenprinting workshops are up again (Ipswich, Queensland) – I did one of these a few years ago (post: Screen printing) and it was great: http://www.milliandfink.bigcartel.com.
• If you ever describe a painting in your writing, the descriptions of art in this article are loving, funny & effective: The Emergence of the Winter Landscape. Also, lots of medieval snowball fights. (h/t Sydney Padua)
• “I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.” EB White
• “I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost.” EB White