The perfect scEEN

The manuscript for The Crack in Kazah is due to go to my publisher’s next week. That means a big EEK for me, but for YOU, that means a big hooray—because you’re that much closer to getting a chance to read it.

I’ve been working fiercely on final edits to the manuscript before I turn it over, tweaking it here and there and, as Ratchet would say, working out the kinks. It’s kind of hard to show how a manuscript changes and make it interesting, but I can show you some of the revisions to my illustrations.

I haven’t completed all of the pictures for this new book yet, but I have already gone back and redid some of them.

Here’s the original illustration I did for the opening battle in the book:

I didn’t quite like the way it was looking too squished into the bottom half of the frame, so I moved the skarm upwards. I also realized that I needed to have Kendra holding her wand in this scene. Sometimes I can digitally edit my illustrations, but when there’s just too many changes, I might as well start from scratch.

This next illustration is of a scene from later on in the book, when Kendra is sneaking through the Elder Stone. She comes upon a statue of the famous ancient Een, Leemus Longbraids. At first I wanted to make sure the focus of the illustration was on Kendra, so I intentionally left the walls blank, as shown below.

But, in truth, the walls of the Elder Stone tells stories with their pictures, so I realized that I really had to find a way to illustrate the character of this mysterious setting. So, I added in some architectural reliefs:

I liked it, but I did indeed find that the walls were a little too distracting, so I tweaked the illustration one more time. Here’s the final:

Stay tuned for more sneak-peek illustrations soon!