Through the Pines
Story Art and Notes
New Pharaohs_New Gods
With both the story and art for “Through the Pines” I wanted to convey a threatening surrealness happening in broad daylight that mixed technology and nature. For the colour palette, I used shades of green and gold, leaning into the naturalistic and royalty themes in the story.
I don’t know why, but I really wanted to draw a pharaoh, and “Through the Pines” gave me the perfect excuse, and I love how it turned out.
After looking at a bunch of photos of Egyptian statues, I drew a face based on certain features from the statues and then added layers of shadows till it was moody enough. Using flowing shapes, I added in the gold tones and blurred the lightest shade, hoping to give it a strong lighting effect.
For the background, I made a quick drawing of pine trees and duplicated and mirrored it in different shades. Eventually, I got this and really liked how the square paneling and strangeness fit the story.
Bottle-Lensed Prophet
Harry Truman comes up in the story in a weird way, so I did a weird portrait of him. The image in his glasses is a drawing I did based on a surreal photo of an atom bomb at the moment of detonation. Most of that drawing is cropped out and hard to see in his glasses, but it’s fun knowing it’s there.
Flatline Console Pirate Retreat
The only piece to use a colour other than gold or green, this one was tricky — and my least favorite of the bunch.
Sycamor.exe
In the story, I use an Egyptian sycamore to start building the surreal tension and hoped a distorted drawing of one would add to that sense.
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