Category Archives: Art of the island

Art of the island

Making new friends

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The shed is a wonderful place to make new friends. Here a wizened root, there a broken fork, a rake, some bit of metal and wood that makes no sense on its own, but calls out to become something new. There is always string in a shed, and sometimes wire – magical sources of joints and attachments, uniting disparate things into new shapes. And so you sit down, and ask of the shed what in it wants to be new, and exciting, and you work with what you get. Your new friend takes form under your hands, moving into the world as you find eyes and toes, limbs and a body.

When you start, you know nothing about the new friend. They may well turn out to be an old friend who has been obliged to hover about, insubstantial and lost. You make the form, invite the spark and wait to see who shows up.

(Text by Nimue, art by Tracie Tink Voice, who we’re delighted to have as a new member of the Hopeless, Maine team!)

Art of the island

Should I get in the sea?

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(Art by Dr Abbey, text by Nimue)

Should I get in the sea? If you have asked yourself this question recently please read the helpful answers below.

There are dead people in the sea. Some of them are people who got into the sea of their own free will. You might not enjoy being close to them. You really won’t enjoy becoming one of them.

Even if the air is unusually warm and you’ve seen the sun, the sea will be very cold. Cold like the merciless depths of space. Cold like the uncaring madness of elder gods. Unless you in fact are an elder god, the odds are it will not be a ‘refreshing dip’.

Can you swim? If the answer is no, then getting in the sea is just going to kill you. We have tides, currents, pointy rocks and angry sea life. You are soft and squishy and easy to break.

If you can swim, you probably learned somewhere else where the sea is not so hostile. Our sea is full of beings who can swim faster than you and who are also hungry.

We’ve got mermaids. They can swim faster than you, and they are always hungry. We’ve also got jellyfish women who might not be fast, but are subtle and deadly. There are quite a few sea monsters out there, or possibly just the one sea monster with considerable diversity of body parts. Best not to try and establish the truth on that score.

I don’t care who told you that cold water swimming brings many health benefits. They weren’t from round here, clearly.

Art of the island

When Salamandra went green

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(art by Dr Abbey, text by Nimue)

About four years ago, Dr Abbey started drawing Salamandra with green hair. I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time, only that it belonged to the part of the story that comes after the graphic novels.

We’re in that time frame now. The last graphic novel (Survivors) has been out for a while, and as a community we’re figuring out what island life is like now that the fog has lifted (a bit). The island is still mostly cold, damp, haunted and weird, but people have more options and are finding their own way of doing things.

Hopeless has become a more hopeful sort of place. People are banding together to do what makes sense to them – be that researching the fungi, developing the science, being part of the folklore response squad or trying a bit of piracy. Islanders are getting better at making the most of what they have. Hopeless has become a slightly happier place.

Salamandra has green hair now, because she’s becoming a happier and more playful sort of person. Responsibility doesn’t sit so heavily on her shoulders. Not least because magic washes around the island more than it used to. Philomena Bucket has a lot of power, Lilly May is handling things well, Annamarie Nightshade lives in the sky, there are crow queens, and there’s lots of folk magic out there. Sal doesn’t have to worry so much about what she ought to try and fix, and what she might get wrong.

It’s always been tricky for her. Salamandra is magic, but she’s not always that keen on doing magic. She just wants to be left alone to get on with being herself, and she can do that now. She can be a bit reclusive, but she’s got green hair, and plants to grow, and a desire to live quietly. Whether she’ll be left in peace to do that is a whole other question…

Art of the island

Monsters with Ele Marr

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These wonderful monsters were sighted on Hopeless, Maine by Ele Marr, who shared them during Stroud Steampunk weekend.

Ele is a maker of wonderful, strange and adorable things, and you can find them on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/seaflowerinst/

This isn’t the first time we’ve found terrible things inhabiting glass. Many years ago, Frampton Jones had a camera that was infamously infiltrated by some kind of nameless horror. The trouble with trying to research this sort of thing is that, based on Frampton’s experience, we know there is a high risk of being driven mad when whatever is inside the glass turns its gaze upon you. It may be better not to look too closely.

Art of the island

Sightings from Gary Stenning

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Here are some fabulous creatures discovered on the island by Gary Stenning at the August event in Stroud. We may have to send out an expedition to see if we can find that tree.

Gary is a wonderful steampunk artist and if you’re following our page on Facebook you may have seen the dustcat he’s working on. You can find out more about Gary’s work over here – https://www.garystenningart.com/

Art of the island

From the Gallery

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We recently took Hopeless, Maine to Lansdown Gallery in Stroud – it’s our local, and this was our third time showing there. We had art from the final book.

Last time we were in Lansdown, it was obvious when we would be back in the gallery and what we’d be showing. Having shown material from the final graphic novel, it isn’t so clear what we might have in the next Stroud show, or when that might happen. (We will probably be showing much of the same material in Gloucester in the autumn).

My hope is that by the next show, we’ll have an extra visual artist in the mix, new illustrated books and something that is unimaginable at the time of writing this post.

Here’s a little video we made to give you a flavour of this year’s show

Art of the island

Hopeless Children

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Art by Connie.

There are young humans in the Hopeless, Maine books, but this was never intended to be a project for children. However, there are children who rock up enthusiastically. Today’s guest art was the work of Connie, who introduced herself to us by throwing her hat at us during our performance at Raising Steam last year. She went on to make Tom and James sing her ‘bum in the bumhole’ song.

Not all children are into pretty and innocuous things. James as a child considered the owl demon from the first book to be cute. Connie, as we can tell from the drawing, also likes things with a lot of teeth. We’re aware of at least one other young human who is a big fan of Drury – our resident dead dog.

So here’s a lullaby.

Go to sleep, go sleep

Your parent is screaming,

The night is so black

And the dead things are dreaming.

Rest your bones and your eyes

And your pointy and sharp bits

Just be quiet, little fiend

Even old gods can have fits.

Dream of teeth, and of blood

And cold water rising

Rend and tear in your sleep

Thrash about, be surprising.

Go to sleep, little beast

Oh you darling small horror

Ceasing your gnashing and wailing

You can rampage tomorrow.

Art of the island

SINNERS

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Hello again people (and others)

I’m going to talk about a graphic novel cover again, but I’m also going to talk about the art mischief we got up to with this whole volume.

When Nimue and I pondered what to do for the cover of the Outland edition of Hopeless, Maine -Sinners, we thought of the book as a whole and the visual theme we played with. In Sinners, we borrowed (ahem) from famous iconic paintings and bent them to our fell purpose. Or , looking at it another way, we payed tribute to some of our favourite art and artists from history. So, for example, here is the original painting by John Everett Millais-

…and here is what we did to it, with Mellisandra standing (floating) in for Ophelia.

Pre Raphaelite artists certainly predominated for this sort of treatment but there was also a chapter cover titled Foggy Night.

So, for the wraparound cover for the new hardcover edition we went back to the pre raphaelites. We needed an image that could be tuned to our theme, and that might be recognisable as a source of inspiration. We chose The Magic Circle by Waterhouse-

and turned it into….this.

with Simon in the background, naturally, as Sal with creatures is the theme for the Outland editions.

So…there you have it. Find a copy of Sinners to see what other terrible things we have done, or wait for the Outland campaign for the hardcover edition.

We hope, as always, this finds you well, inspired and thriving.

Art of the island

Survivors cover.

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Hello again people! (and others)

It’s a strange and interesting time for us. We are finishing up the final volume of the Hopeless, Maine graphic novel series and this is the conclusion of something that has been a huge part of our lives (Sometimes too much a part of our lives, sometimes not enough) It brings up memories and associations that I could not even begin to list or describe adequately. It’s been woven into the last decade of our lives (plus a bit) inextricably and it’s a big part of how we got together in the first place!

So, finding an image that would feel right to us and also, hopefully, to all of you for the final graphic novel cover was a pretty big thing. We’ve had a theme in the Sloth Editions for the covers. It’s always Sal performing magic of some sort. We needed that element and something that suggested the huge changes and events that take place in Survivors. It was Nimue, of course, who had the concept. Sal, holding the island, And…not in her wrappings. In a simple dress. It was and is, perfect. (In ways you will not really understand until next year when the book is released) Nimue posed for a reference photo (Again, perfect) and I drew it out, putting the island in perspective and surrounding Sal with the eyes that we have seen before. Nimue coloured it, I did a final clean up and reestablishing of the lines, scanned and added some of the magic effects and small highlights in Clip Studio and here we are. I very much hope you like.

I am, as always, hoping this finds you well, inspired and thriving.

Tom

Art of the island

The front of Survivors, so far

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Hello, again people (and others)

Here at Hopeless, Maine headquarters we are somewhat plague ridden but still wish to bring you all of the island news that is fit to shout into the ether.

Having finished drawing the page art for the final graphic novel volume, it was time to draw the cover for Hopeless, Maine-Survivors. The concept was Nimue’s (she even posed for it) The island is an ever changing place, but here Sal presents it as caught at a moment in time. This is the first time we haven’t drawn the cover first, but have let the finished (ish) book inform us of what the cover needed to be. Next, Nimue will make it amazing with the colours and we will unveil that at some point in the not too dim and distant future!

Hope, as always, this finds you well, inspired and thriving.

Tom