Four Witches - An Illustrated Novel

[hollinrake]

Four Witches is a working title whilst I dither about with the actual plot. I haven't written for years so I'm still pretty insecure about the whole thing, but I'm giving it a shot. Feels good. Prepare for excessive quantities of paragraphs and the words 'witch', 'ritual' and 'sacrifice'.

I aim to create an illustrated fantasy novel based around four witch daughters of an ambitious matriarch in a lesser house. The basis of their culture is simple – to gain power and insight into their land they must sacrifice part of their body and commit it to the Earth so that its power can be channelled through them. These sacrificial rituals take place upon hills or mountains – the higher the better – as these landmarks have the strongest connection to the Earth. Through these sacrifices the witch is permanently mutilated, but the return is tenfold as the connection grants the witch control over the elements or the ability to manipulate physical objects, depending on how and what was removed and buried.

In the beginning, this was enough. Small covens existed on blustery cliffs and high hills and when a young woman felt ready, she would leave on a pilgrimage, perhaps with a partner, to find her own hill or mountain to sacrifice to. The sheer act of finding untrodden ground at committing to it was enough to be blessed with great power, but over time the witches spread out and all the lands were occupied.

After this came The Famine. Devoid of suitable grounds, witches were forced to sacrifice to already claimed mountains and hills. The power hungry mutilated their bodies to gain favour but instead suffered slowly and died because the rituals could no longer support their wounds. Those that survived were left in sorry states with little strength to justify their loss. For seventy years the faith in the Earth floundered and began to fade.

However, two discoveries revolutionised the operations and rituals that were undertaken. Intricacies – circles that used symbols and runes – allowed the manipulation of the sacrifice and the increase of its power. Additionally, accumulative bloodlines began to emerge as families began to dedicate themselves to the same hills and mountains for the first time in history. Larger families that kept true to the faith would find themselves with gradually greater power than smaller families that gave up. Many richer families began to experiment with intricacies to maximise or specialise in their Earthly gains, and so large houses began to rise up and these powerful families built castles and towns on their hills and mountains.
It’s at this point that the story begins. There is still a great deal to be known about intricacies and although there are strong houses, they are not all powerful by any means. Lesser houses look to close the accumulative bloodline gap between them, causing tensions to rise. The age of peaceful, intimate covens has long since passed as powerful witches are once again emerging from the ranks, this time with better provision in healthcare. Infection and pain are still very much present, but the rise in practical prosthetics and the ability to control them through object manipulation allows confident witches to make far greater sacrifices than ever before. It was once said that you would never see a witch with ten fingers, but now you would never see a witch with four limbs.

In terms of practical application and storytelling I aim to write the novel as I would a normal book, but go through it including illustrations, portraiture, examples of intricacies and other images along the way. The main focus will be on illustrating key scenes and possibly having the text interact with it – overlaying across the edges and breaking up in interesting ways. There won’t be an illustration on every page as it isn’t a graphic novel at all – I want to concentrate on creating Magic the Gathering-esque illustrations that demonstrate what I view to be the most interesting parts or clear images I had in mind whilst writing it. A picture book for adults, if you will.

Now for the stuff I've been scribbling out. It's all very vague and self indulgent at the moment but I'm enjoying it and designs are gradually appearing. I've also included my initial brainstorm, although a lot of the ideas have changed since. Here's to an intensive summer of painting, studying and writing!

[hollinrake]

Last night's experiments with a character design and implementing the use of prosthetics. Not really sure about how to use them and I definitely need to do more research into the materials used as they look very simplistic and robotic. Still, it's a start.

[OtherMuzz]

Nice start, that character design looks good.

Is she winking or is she blind in one eye?

[Heavenwill]

Niice Anna, Can't wait to see all those cool projects realize !

[hollinrake]

OtherMuzz - she's supposed to be missing an eye. I'm gonna add a vertical scar or something because it's not really coming across since a few people have asked that.

Thanks guys :)

[anzhou]

Interesting premise Anna. Can't wait to see how this develops!

[Amit Dutta]

Great stuff Anna...Keen to see this world develop. Keep pushing it!

[Finnjamin]

World concept sounds really interesting, also pretty messed up.

[YOLOLEX]

this idea is really cool, plus really dark heh.

[hollinrake]

So I've been struggling with updating for a little while, but about four days ago I realised I was going about producing work all wrong. Because of this I've finally got a few things to show, although not as much as I was hoping. Regardless, I've started writing first and then illustrating the characters afterward, rather than trying to create a world with very little to go on initially. Here's to greater productivity I suppose!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments by the way! It means a lot.

I'm not going to bother posting the actual writing since this isn't really the place, although if anyone has any experience editing or fancies reading it I'd be happy to pass it along. Just promise not to laugh.

Initial silhouettes - this was before I started writing and I feel they're pretty unfocused. Now that I've started getting stuff down I'm getting a better handle on it all.



First character sketches -



WIP for an illustration for her at the moment, although I'm not that impressed since it's not particularly dynamic. Crits and advice would be really useful -

[Damien Levs]

I love this idea. I'll be keeping an eye out here. Your work is cool :)

[hollinrake]

Thanks Damien!

I've finished my first illustration that corresponds with the first couple of pages of the first chapter. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out -

[Xcarbon]

You dont really have to give her a scar you know [unless really necessary]....it all depends on the other eye [how normal the other eye looks]. the reason she looks like shes winking is because it look like her other eye in squishing abit. make the other eye look normally open and it'll look ok
here is an example
http://i.imgur.com/no0I7AO.jpg
not one of the finest examples but i hope it helps a little :]
everything else looks good ..im excited to see how this project progresses !

[mateusrocha]

Wooow, Anna, good stuff (: I liked the story! As I love witches and this dark things haha

Have you read The Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney yet? It has some nice witches and an original form o dealing with them.. could give you some inspiration.

[hollinrake]

Xcarbon - I see what you mean about the other eye being squished slightly. I think I was trying to make her look cocky but it came off wrong :P

Mateus - I haven't read them, no. I'll give them a shot for sure, I'm in urgent need of finding new things to read. I pretty much just read Game of Thrones and Harry Potter over and over. I feel this may say something about me.

Initial ideas and designs for the 'Witchghast', a witch from a cautionary folk tale based around the dangers of going too far with rituals. She killed herself intentionally and is now trapped in limbo within her ritual circle. I've been trying to find a way of representing the parts she cut off beforehand without it looking like she's just a torso and an arm.

[Xcarbon]

interesting designs...i think im in love with the sand one!!

[hollinrake]

hahaha whoops I've not updated much shhhh

Here's another illustration! I got a tonne of help with this one and it actually got accepted into The Luminarium's Elements exhibit, which is pretty cool.

[Wardy]

Loving where this is going, the story behind it is really awesome. I like the idea of sand pouring out the limbs, but you'd have to make it fit somehow- how would sand be relevant in a cave for instance? Perhaps it could be according to the environment- for example on a mountain top, it could be fine soil/dust, whereas in a cave it could be tiny broken rocks? Just an idea!
Keep up the momentum!

[hollinrake]

Ha, momentum falls flat on its face. Sorry!

HOWEVER, I'm hoping to make parts of this into my final major project for uni, so I can devote a lot of time to this AND people will see this in 3D! Exciting stuff :D

[hollinrake]

Another illustration in the series. Hoping to maybe create this chamber in 3D? We'll see. This one was lots of fun.