Some More Sketches

Here are some more rough sketches from Mortal Engines. I have limited myself to drawing 6 characters, two airships and just one city, due to time constraints and the desire to produce quality over quantity. Like before, these are not definite designs...only the first images from my mind. I have discovered that it is incredibly difficult to develop people and places from your own mind, even when you possess detailed descriptions, so I look forward to photographing real people who I can use as a basis for each character. I understand that I mis-spelled 'Jenny Haniver' for some time, adding in an extra 'n' but this has since been rectified. No detailed plans for London have been laid yet, but I intend to visit the city soon to photograph St. Paul's, and to begin some detailed designs for the seven-tiered monstrosity. Admittedly, I am not completely happy with some of these designs due to minor details, but some, such as Hester and Valentine, are quite accurate to how I imagined them, and I have received some praise from other fans of the book.

Photo Edits (Quarry)

As you can probably tell, I'm no photoshop genius. All I've really done with these images is adjust the brightness and contrast, and on some, the colouring. However, I dislike heavy photo editing as I feel it really detracts from the image you photographed in the first place. I enjoy emphasising the sun and cloud formations, as it seems like the world is somehow altered by some catastrophic event such as the Sixty Minute War, whilst I pretty much experimented with the colour schemes. I did this because I imagine the futuristic world of Mortal Engines to appear quite hazy, miscoloured and dim, due to the centuries of chemical and nuclear warfare, geological upheaval and burning of the planet's resources.

 

Credenhill Quarry Photography

On the 15th of March, I took a walk with my family to Credenhill Quarry, where I got some photographs to use as inspiration for the Out Country of Mortal Engines. I remember walking there as a child and I believed that it would be an interesting site to base some of my work. The quarry has flooded in recent years, and was rather muddy due to the recent rainfall that Hereford has seen. The whole place mostly reminded me of the Rustwater Marshes, with dregs of rusted metal left over from the SAS camp nearby. I plan to use these images as a basis for the final paintings that I will produce. The sky in particular was quite striking, as the sun began to shine through the clouds after the morning's shower. I am pleased that I chose to use this oppertunity to visit the quarry as I now have a whole new set of ideas to use. I feel as if I have taken a massive step forward in designing the complicated world of Mortal Engines, and I wish to edit these images further in order to fully develop the desired landscapes.