Illustration Notes for Episode Five

Oops! I forgot to include these illustration notes on Friday! Sorry! :]

So, this week’s illustration was a lot of fun. I love drawing weather—any and all kinds of weather. And however it may have seemed to you, the real point of this episode is the weather. This is intended to be the moment in this tale where it becomes clear that all the rough, rainy weather so ubiquitous in previous scenes is more than just a ‘decoartive’ dramatic device. One frequent aspect of the stories I enjoy most is the introduction of seemingly trivial or ‘background’ elements that at some point farther along suddenly resolve into focus as more meaningful and important information than I’d realized.

One additional ‘confession’: This week’s image of Anna’s office tower coming apart in hurricane-speed winds depicts a bit more structural damage than what the story itself actually describes—or I intended to suggest—in the written episode itself. I made the decision to exaggerate the damage being depicted in this drawing because the actual degree of blowing debris Dusty and Colleen would really have seen in that TV news video would be almost invisible in a single still frame. I feared it would just look like a tower in a rain storm unless people were searching carefully for the few relatively small chunks or sheets of debris that would actually have been in play there. So, I hope you’ll forgive my somewhat heavy-handed 'dramatic license’ in this week’s illustration. (Though you should feel free to write and berate me, if that feels better. ;])

Also, if anyone wants to write and let me know when they first figured out that all the ‘weather’ in these scenes might be more than decorative, I’d be interested to know. (Always trying to better gauge how my attempts to convey underlying nuance and/or foreshadow coming developments are—or aren’t—working! :])

In the meantime, here’s the uncropped image for your perusal: