Maxime Illustrations Part I

Unfortunately I haven't had much opportunity or desire to draw or paint much, until just recently. It's been a dream of mine for a while now to make a very special edition of one of my stories, complete with glossy illustrations dotted throughout the chapters, hardback, with a lovely dust jacket and gold lettering... (I could even paste in the Ex Libris that my dear friend's sister inked for me... *sighs dreamily*) 

Naturally, when the urge to draw came over me again, my thoughts turned to Maxime, the character of my upcoming novel! 

Hiding - © Ellie Morris

In this case, I wanted to sketch out how certain characters looked, what they were wearing, and their expressions in particular scenes. What I intended to just be a character design of Maxime, turned into a fully-shaded illustration, also featuring Leopold and the dastardly Monsieur Dalle! I was having far too much fun adding details, shadows, and more characters to it. 

It shows a scene from Chapter 2, where Maxime is caught in an awkward situation, listening to his new co-star, Leopold, and his director, Dalle, talking about him. He hides in the bathroom to avoid them (Dalle especially, since he makes him deeply uncomfortable from day one), but in this picture I had him hiding behind the boxes of props and cameras to avoid detection, since the set is disorganised and in a messy state.  

I wrote the chapters first, then drew from how I imagined it. 

A Night Alone - © Ellie Morris

 I'm pretty pleased with how my design for Maxime came out, as it is happily just as I imagined him to look. I usually struggle to draw men/boys a lot, so the facial features on Leo and Dalle might not be the best, but I had fun with designing them, too. The more I dislike Dalle, the more wrinkles I add to his face!
Drawing out characters and scenes is a good way to build on ideas, from my experience. It helps to imagine the angles and where everything is situated, as well as mood, expressions, body language, and colours. I'm a very visual person, so it works for me!

In the second image, poor Maxime is collapsing on his hotel room bed after a long first day at work. He'd been awfully nervous and excited all day, so his tiredness caught up with him, and the poor boy has the flu, to boot! His parents and sister could not make it to Paris with him for his first day at the film studio, so he had to go alone, and dreaded staying in a faraway city at night, all alone.
I just want to give him a big hug - and I know my friend that has been reading the chapters so far, does too.

I'll update with more illustrations as I finish them, as I have quite a few planned.

ℰllie