Illustration Notes for Episode Three

So—why start Episode Three with this rather hideous distortion of Dusty’s face through a doorway peephole?

Well, as explained in previous episode illustration notes, I try to find some element from the scene itself to depict, and just a few sentences into this one, Colleen does go look through her apartment door’s peephole to find Dusty standing outside. But my primary reason for choosing this image was that both the peephole itself and the distorted and distressed image of Dusty seen through it seemed so perfect, metaphorically, for where we find him at the beginning of this tale.

As you have likely begun to figure out already, Dusty has come a long way in life from where he started, and has learned to manage a great many things—within and around himself—far better than he once did. But he is still a profoundly ‘haunted’ young man—whose view of himself is still far more occluded (the peephole), and distorted (by shame, guilt and emotional trauma—to be clarified as the story continues) than he realizes consciously.

Hense, this occluded, distressingly distorted Intro-image, lent me so handily by the scene itself.

At the end of the episode, I have also provided an ‘undistorted’ portrait of Dusty, as a nod to how both others and Dusty himself—consciously, at least—see him. But even there you may notice that his eyes are not really looking at you. His gaze is focused inward, or perhaps on the past.

As far as he’s come from his challenging beginnings, there is still much for Dusty to resolve as his part in this tale proceeds.

And here’s what this week’s illustrations look like, whole and uncropped: