As if writing a book wasn’t a big enough undertaking, somewhere between starting “The Star and the Ocean” and now I decided that I absolutely needed to create illustrations to go with each chapter.
On one hand, I had my marketing hat on: I know text with images performs better than text alone (especially on Tumblr, which is where this all really started). On the other hand, I was inspired by some of my favourite fanfic artists who spend a great deal of time at least coming up with chapter title cards, if not a series of images to go with each instalment of their work.
My sweet friend usuallybutts – @ergotisma on Twitter – is a perfect example. Every chapter of her epic (and incredibly NSFW) SU fic “A Long Way From Home” features her lovely (although, again, very NSFW) artwork and it’s a wonderful touch that makes reading her work that much more enjoyable.
So, I made up my mind: I would do it too.
Because I’m not much of a digital artist, and because pieces coloured with pencil crayons tend to take me a lifetime to finish, I opted to work with watercolours for this project. Whether or not that was a good idea remains to be seen: by the time this book is done I’m either going to be really good at the medium or I’m going to hate it altogether.
I guess we’ll find out!
I spent most of last weekend working on the illustrations for the prologue and chapter one. They aren’t quite what I was hoping they’d be but at least I had fun making them! Enjoy the sneak peek; the prologue (finally!) lands this week!
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