Concept Sketches for Ransom: Trial by Time & Shards of Crystal
This is somewhat spoiler-y
We are back with drawings again, this time, miniature sketches that I came across in my notebooks of Ransom from 2020-2022. I’ll be sharing in-depth colored character and costume designs at a later date, but these are, for the most part, rough sketches that helped me visualize sets, costumes, or details.
Unfortunately, I haven’t come across any sketches from Cross of Secrets, as I wrote the majority of it directly on the computer. Still, these sometimes detailed, sometimes not, sketches will give you an idea of what a writer does with the notebook margins!
I’ll share some snippets from the story to help explain what each sketch is, too!
We begin slightly out of timeline with Samantha in Marauder royal garb, more or less imprisoned simply by a time gap of 1,000 years, not to mention the Marauders themselves.
“Her duties as Medrhos’ queen were indeed important. She had pulled at the laws until the slaves were well-cared for, well-housed, clothed, treated, and fed. The law to keep slaves treated as less than human had been changed as much as Medrhos would humor her with. . . . But there was much more to be done.”
—Shards of Crystal, I: Interrogation
Followed by the puzzle that is the stranger at the wedding banquet, who is soon to be known as Orion:
Two of the ideas for the clasp he wears:
“Two men were her last well-wishers. The first was tall, wrapped in an indigo cloak, and his foreign costume dictated that she could not see his face. The only thing that stood out to her was the ornate clasp on his shoulder, of three suns bound in a diamond frame. It seemed to be a crest of sorts, but not one she recognized. It certainly was not of Marauder craftsmanship. . . this man, she was sure, was not an upholder of slavery.
What kind of man was he?”
—Trial by Time, XIII: Bound
This is more in the realm of costume design, but here are several tiny sketches of Samantha’s gowns worn on the glacial lake, Tal-Estilla:
“Glaciers like carved diamonds walled in the wide labyrinthine fjords, sheets of icicles falling from them like starlit sapphires suspended just inches from the water’s surface. They glittered with all the colors of the aurora reflected below. The water itself was like the clearest glass. Samantha could see stars shimmering in the depths among the rocks and silverine fish that swam along. It was no wonder that the place had been named Id-dmurħ Tal-estilla, ‘the lake of the star’s tears.’
Samantha felt like a heroine trapped between gilded pages as the reader hesitated to turn to the next cliffhanger; for Medrhos spoke no word as he stood on the bow and the night was still. Karthos had finally lifted his chains from them and judging by Medrhos’ silence since, he was weighing the difference between unleashing his full royal powers and heeding the dire warnings which Karthos had spoken to him.”
—Trial by Time, XV: Glacial
“Medrhos and thirty of his men – half of those on board – were disembarking the ship in a hydrofoil when Samantha ran out on deck. Medrhos looked annoyed when he caught sight of her amidst directing the men and speaking to the yacht’s captain. He was giving orders for the ship to be taken back up the inland lake to Almedran country until his return. . .
“Well, Ancilla,” he smirked, “I have a chance to outfox a hunter and I don’t think you want to be there to see it.’”
—Trial By Time, XVI: Entry
Next, my attempt to figure out the general size, not so much the design, of all the most important battleships, including Marc’s Lumenara V, the Cythian Galateia, the Realtra’s Icebreaker, and Medrhos’ own Harbinger.
Which, he will tell you, he refuses to have out-sized by any craft.
(And he’s not happy that he failed here.)
Also, accidental water stains in notebooks can be nice for drawing and writing notes in smaller or larger scale, since they handily erase the lines:
“The answer came when something massive materialized, uncloaking itself, and overshadowed the entire convocation. Swanlike wings wider than three Harbingers placed wingtip to wingtip glided overhead, coated in pearlescent sheets of some unearthly metal. . .
Medrhos was open-mouthed, for no one was meant to have a ship greater than he. The prized Harbinger was dwarfed by the ship that now embraced the group between her wings as a mother swan her cygnets, eyeing the still sparkling cloud drifting over the frozen mercenary craft.”
—Shards of Crystal, XIII: Vital
Coming to the end, both in this post and the story, the concept of a throne room, which doesn’t even belong to Medrhos. The poor fellow can’t seem to have it all.
“A low strumming sound emanated from somewhere ahead, mingling with metallic rain at a lulling pitch that softened the senses and dampened their thoughts. Through the shadows they caught glimpses of ugly metal pipes and structures covering much of the walls, and a faint acrid smell of working gases lingered in the air. . . .
A blinding pale cast of white light fell into cerise and lavender as a wall of sheer crystal rose before them. It was fractaled and bound by metallic vines and spears resembling insect antennae. Within came the deep droning, and before the wall stood a throne like frozen fireballs and flame in the drama of pagan drums. It was guarded by two drooping reptilian wings bearing cauldrons of rainbow fire. A thick theatrical mist curled and lingered across the floor.
Two beats of the mages' staves upon the tile sent peals of thunder rolling through the room, and the men could have sworn they felt the solid stone floor ripple beneath their feet like gelatin.”
— Shards of Crystal, XIV: Twisted
I hope you enjoyed this backstage-style post! Hopefully I’ll be able to share some colored images with you next, after Easter.
In the meantime, if you’d like to read more of Ransom, you can find the books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and more. You won’t find it in-stores since it’s print-on-demand, although you might be able to request it.
If you do read it, I’d deeply appreciate if you could leave it a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or any platform that works for you. Thank you!
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I love these! I just found another stash of early sketches (it's all romancey stuff, and why am I surprised?) and was wondering about other author/artists' casual illustration habits.
Incroyable comme toujours.