I've found out recently that talking about your ideas for a piece out loud to someone else can have great repercussions on your work. For instance, I was explaining my dirigible piece to my very best friend (and boyfriend), Chris, who happens to be a mechanical engineer. He wanted to know all about my little made up world, and because I needed to give him answers to it, he helped me to cultivate a more interesting, well rounded illustration idea.
So the story now is that because this is a little cloud, flying civilization boy, he is much more interested in the ground he has never been able to touch rather than the clouds that constantly surround him. So he sneaks away in a little hot air balloon dingy to go see it for himself. When he arrives, he accidentally happens upon one of the ground natives that he's been warned against his whole life - in fact, it's one of the reasons he's never touched ground and part of the reason his people have never left the sky they had ventured to many many years ago. They didn't flee the natives, they just have lost so much time with their land bound cousins that they have invented all sorts of crazy beliefs about them. The natives are equally as wary of the boats in the sky, and it's been hundreds of years since they've seen the people that man them. The boy and the native are at once shocked, and in awe of the other, and that childlike wonder will probably win out and the two will become friends. Anyway, this is their meeting. And it might look something like this. (Ps, the contrast to help my focus characters stand out will be in the color, and less in the value. I'm referring specifically to around the boy's head)
Are you more interested?
