A lot goes into the Game On books. Not content with just plotting and writing, I like to come up with concept artwork too. It helps me if I can imagine what the characters actually look like.
Naturally, some things are hit and miss, but it is only human to keep wanting to improve. Take a look below and see some of the original pencil sketches/doodles of some of the key characters from the books. Would you have done them differently? Feel free to send in your interpretations.
The Cover for ‘The Dark Queen’
1. It starts off
with a general idea
I sketched this whilst I was on a trip on the back of the free stationery you get from a hotel. This was a nice rough piece of vellum paper – from an Intercontinental Hotel, from memory – and I just used a normal blue-inked biro.
The idea was to have the Dark Queen as the main image and her dark cloak would form the backdrop for the main protagonists i.e. the children.
2. Refining the idea
The idea is expanded and modified. You can see I used pencils for Draft 2 (underneath the colour). I’ve included a dragon and an old lady, both of whom are important and the Dark Queen now holds a sceptre with a glowing orb.
I’ve tried to define the characteristics of the two main protagonists through their facial and physical features – the tall, lanky Tim and the slightly plumper Bell.
3. Colouring the Vision
A good part of the fun is deciding colours. Initially, I had wanted a brighter palette – setting the backdrop of the children as a sunset. A blue dragon with a pink underbelly looked quite nice, I thought. By this point, I had decided to add in little Scamp, as well, by Bell’s foot.
4. The Final Wraparound Cover
As you can see, I decided to change the mood of the cover by changing the colour. When the children first come face-to-face with Lupier, they are in a forest – hence, the forest background. The dragon is a little more ominous as it seems to have woken up compared to just lying down. In the background, the Petal Plantation shows scores of colourful flowers, and presiding over this is Mawishka Banescroft and her faithful Calistrian.
