Pirate Season is Upon Us! (CH5 pencils and two recommendations)

Huh. It sure is September, isn't it.

This week: a few select panels from my progress on Chapter Five pencilling, and then two recommendations: a very piratey one ("International Talk Like a Pirate Day" is right around the corner on September 19th) and one tiny pro-tip if you have a lot of kids books in the house.

As always, the pencils are spoilery, so if you think that might bug you, don't read too far. I put the pencils below the recommendations.

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PIRATE BUSINESS

In my usual lackadaisical research-as-you-go manner, I just picked up David Graeber's PIRATE ENLIGHTENMENT, OR THE REAL LIBERTALIA. It's a non-fictiony look at Madagascar of the 17th and 18th century, and "considers how the postdemocratic… practices of the Zana-Malata came to shape the Enlightenment project, which for too long has been defined as distinctly European."

It's more fun than the subject matter might lead you to believe! I like Graeber's writing style. I think a lot of this was lost on me, though, since I know next to nothing about Enlightenment Europe, aside from hints in its direction from… BLACK SAILS?

So as International Talk Like a Pirate Day approaches (a week from today, as I write this), remember: pirates do not necessarily speak in a West Country accent. That was just one actor in one movie. When pirates talk, they talk about equality, democratic processes, and the health of the community.

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CASE ART

Have you noticed this about kids' books? Sometimes the artwork printed directly onto the cover of the book (the "case art") is different from the jacket art (what you usually see on the outside of a book). Here are some we have on hand right now.

Sure enough, if you peer beneath the library-laminated jacket, ooh look what we see.

Secret treasures! I don't know why I forgot about this — the case art for my own LET'S GET SLEEPY is different from the jacket art (and delightful, if I may say so). It's probably the library lamination that makes it extra special. You have to work to see what's underneath there.

Big kudos to everyone who goes to the extra effort to do this.

(The endpapers in A SPOONFUL OF FROGS are also excellent. Good job, Vera B. If you're looking for a halloweeny gift for the witch in your life, this is a super fun book.)

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Let's see what I've been spending my extra efforts on lately.

Ahh yes, my old friend Crowd Scenes. How I have missed you during the last twenty-or-so pages which never featured more than two characters.

I drew the image above referencing my own hands, though only noticed half-way-through that I'd put the ring on her right hand, which — assuming it's supposed to be a wedding band — is not the right hand. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to the problem. I've written "FLOP" on the right-hand side. All I have to do is remember to reverse this image horizontally sometime between scanning and colouring. (I drew the cameo backwards so that it would be facing the right way after the flopping.)

Everyone's getting along!

Running poses are hard to communicate properly underneath all that dress material, but sometimes it all works out (to be clear, I think this is a drawing where it's all worked out).

Finally: OMENS! Are they good? Bad? Who can say?

This owl is sitting in a pine tree, whose branches (the tree's, not the owl's) turned out to be a real treat to draw once I started looking closely at my reference images. They just go anywhere, they're so chaotic. I like the way the one small branch here turns back underneath itself.

Foliage is tricky to draw. Often times your best results come from abstraction, and sometimes you can get away with being generic about it (see the running image above, where most of the foliage will be in shadow anyway). The toughest thing to do is to come up with a system of abstraction that represents your flora in a distinctive, characterful way. That takes a lot of experimentation, even if your job is made easier by the fact that your chosen environment features the already-distinctive tall, skinny cypresses of the Mediterranean.

All to say that when I get a panel like the one above, it's nice to be able to bend the branches the way they should bend, or make them stumpy because they get so brittle in the heat, and note the way the bark flows along the direction of the branch. It's nice to give it the detail it deserves and show you something specific.

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Okay, I am specifically going to do more drawing now. It is a busy day.

With one of the internet's stupidest holidays coming up, if you feel so inclined to share a certain pirate-related comic with them, I would love that.

Until next week,
I remain,
a spoonful of frogs,

TC