Illustration Notes for Episode Twenty-Four

This week’s episode image left me facing a familiar dilemma.

Last week’s image depicted the room they had just entered—as Piper had disguised it. This week, I wanted to ‘suggest’ the utterly transformed room Matt suddenly finds himself standing in a short while later. I dare to hope I’ve done a pretty decent job of describing that amazingly transformed room in words that are both vivid enough to conjure its lyrical beauty and grandeur, and ambiguous enough to allow my readers to imagine a wide range of possible visuals suited to THEIR imaginations and tastes.

All that works fine—until I draw an actual picture of it. Then the countless completely different—and just perfect—images in the heads of all those readers are shoved into conflict with whatever I’ve drawn. No matter what it is, it WILL be wrong—for everyone but me. :] And, in all honesty, I’m unlikely even to capture the fullness of my own mental images. It’s the same issue I’ve mentioned earlier in regard to depicting the story’s characters in these illustrations. I want the splash image to ‘evoke’ what’s happening in the story. But any picture I draw is just going to fight with your even better mental image. The more detailed and explicit I make my illustration, the MORE it’s going to contradict yours.

So, this week I opted just to depict a tiny fragment of the domed glass ceiling straight above Matt’s head as he looks up in astonishment when the room changes around him. Hopefully this little visual fragment is sufficient to convey a feel for the sweeping, gracefully organic shapes of the new room, while actually depicting so little of it that whatever wonderful image you’ve already conjured in your own mind while reading this episode remains unchallenged.

Or that’s the hope, anyway.

As always, find an uncropped version of this week’s image—uncluttered by ‘text overlay’—below.