Sketchbook: Loungin' Around - Initial Sketch

Pencil on Bristol board

Space doesn't mean much if nobody uses it. As the Castle develops in my mind and on paper, the characters grow with it. After all, it's not just a backdrop for their adventures. It's their home - for some of them, the only one they've ever known.

The neat thing about this sketch was thinking about how each member of the cast would sit on the roof - if they did so at all. Jadinn spends nearly every second on guard duty, so she only left her post briefly to look at the stars. Narumi isn't about to compromise her ineffable feline dignity by laying about on shingles, so she remains in the tower. Her physical distance, with her face shielded from the other characters' view, echoes her emotional distance from them in the story.

The others also prompted me to think about how they'd sit in relation to each other. Alyssa spent part of her childhood in the country, and she missed watching the stars during the years she lived in New York City. I tried to make her look both comfortable and introspective. Ferkus couldn't care less about stars, but he's always trying to hit on either Alyssa or Narumi, so he's focused on them. Cheshire and Dzeriel, having seen this sky a lot, are more curious about Alyssa's past. Chesh empathizes with her need for breathing space, but I tried to make Dzeriel look a bit more eager; he wants to hear exciting stories about humans in the Big Apple.

Now you can go back to the previous week's Sketchbook entry and see if you can tell where they're sitting!

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