I illustrated The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum! You can buy it in print here. Rice Boy Comics / Patreon
The sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the Land of the South. They were all in the best of spirits, and laughed and chatted together. Dorothy was once more filled with the hope of getting home, and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were glad to be of use to her. As for the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time.
Chapter 19; leaving the Emerald City on the last leg of their journey. Tried to show a perspective on the wall distinct from this one.
Really in the home stretch, now! I finished the last of the drawing, and everything should be colored this week, before I go to SPX!
“It is kind of you to like a Scarecrow,” he replied. “But surely you will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain is going to turn out." Then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful voice and went to the Throne Room, where he rapped upon the door. "Come in,” said Oz. The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the window, engaged in deep thought.
Chapter 16. This is the first time we see the Throne Room in full, and I thought it would be nice to have little Oz on a tiny folding chair as a counterpoint to the throne.
The four travelers walked up to the great gate of Emerald City and rang the bell. After ringing several times, it was opened by the same Guardian of the Gates they had met before.
“What! are you back again?” he asked, in surprise.
And we’re back! I just finished the first half of my webcomic Vattu and I’m taking a break on updating that for a month; one of the (several) things I’ll be working on in that time is the Wizard of Oz project! Halfway done; expect more soon.
I skipped ahead for this one because I wanted to draw more Emerald City stuff (previously). This is Chapter 15, when Dorothy and friends return to the City from Winkie-land.
The Chapter 11 illustration is probably the most ambitious one yet so I thought I would make a post about the process! People like that stuff, right? I hope you like that stuff.
I had a vague image of the city as a complicated, squarish M.C. Escher-looking place, and did a lot of obtuse little thumbnail drawings to figure out how to convey that in a way that made sense. Sticking to every single detail of Baum’s elaborate description of the place probably wouldn’t make a very readable image, so I tried not to do anything that deviated from the text too much, and focused on what I saw as the most important aspects: shining stone and metal and general opulence, a sense of total otherness from every previous location, and some shops and people walking around. Also a sort of sterility makes sense, in light of the characters’ experiences in the city and discoveries about it. A kind of interesting paradox I’m figuring out: if an illustration is to serve the story, it isn’t always the best thing for it to illustrate every single detail as written in the text.
I penciled and inked the final drawing at 8 by 12 inches– I pencil very loosely because I don’t like things looking too neat, usually. The inks are done with india ink and G-nib, which I have really only started using with this project and I like it a lot.
Inks are cleaned and colors are done in Photoshop in several layers: flat colors to designate everything its “local” color, and then one Multiply layer for general shadowy stuff, and then a few layers of soft light, hard light, overlay, or any other sort of thing to be tweaked endlessly until I am sick of it. This version is adjusted a bit from the previous one and I think it looks a little better! I will probably mess with it again.
A couple more chapter illos will show the City, so we’ll see a bit more of it. And it is really fun to draw, so I am looking forward to that!
The road was smooth and well paved, now, and the country about was beautiful, so that the travelers rejoiced in leaving the forest far behind, and with it the many dangers they had met in its gloomy shades.
This was a fun one. Chapter 10! Still going out of order, a little. These are the outskirts of the Emerald City, where everything is green. Green is a hugely frustrating color to work with and I have no idea if this even looks right; I might tweak it in future… and I’m allowing myself some yellow/gold for the Emerald City scenes, because why not.
I want the different peoples of Oz to have different consistent architectural styles. Munchkins build domed, slightly naturalistic buildings; Emerald City folks build harsh geometric spires; Winkies (eventually) build jagged, stalagmitic things.
Excited to get to the city, but probably doing chapter 9 first.
