Moonlit Spiral: Mollusca Publishing House

Today is World Book Day!

In the spirit of that, I'd thought I'd share some more concept art that I created for my next book, The Moonlit Spiral*, which also has to do with (dot dot dot) BOOKS!

A good chunk of the first act of TMS takes place in a generations-owned publishing house whose primary specialization has been in printing Treasureographies: Personal accounts of adventures written by famous treasure hunters. As interest for treasure hunting has diminished in recent years, the Mollusca Publishing house is now struggling to make ends meet. It's just one of the things that propels Rion, the main character of the story, to leave the comforts of his home city of Dahl and off on his quest throughout the region of Helix.

The shop's current owner is Henry Mollusca, Rion's adopted father. He's mostly influenced after Jim Henson's The StoryTeller and the book shop owner from The NeverEnding Story. He doesn't look much like the latter, but that is the vibe I wanted to give off. Murf, his pet Woolly Lop, was especially fun to include in parts of that first act. I must have a thing for creatures with wide, surprised-looking eyes.

Rion's room is in the basement of the publishing house so he's got a ton of living space, although he does have to share it with a good chunk of storage. It made his room fun to draw, but was also designed this way for a particular sequence in which he has to chaotically run around the entirety of it.

And Rion is really quite content living in a publishing house/book store! He loves reading. He love learning new stuff. And he loves that he's safe from any possible dangers. This is important so his leaving those comforts holds some weight.

And there you are! Hope you enjoyed one more look into the visualization of this upcoming graphic novel and definitely the one I'm most proud of thus far. I even plan on sharing the entire first chapter here once we get closer to a publishing date. That won't be until a still undetermined date next year, but at least something to look forward to. Until then I'll try to sprinkle in stuff like this about it from time to time.

Don't forget to read a good book today!

❤️📚

*This title might be changing! THE MOONLIT SPIRAL was always sort of a working one that sorta got stuck and then I got used to. I might gage interest in an alternative with everyone here in a cover process post coming up real soon.