This winter I was asked by Irene Gallo of Tor Books to illustrate a gritty short story by Christopher Rowe called “Jack of Coins.”
When Irene described the story like this, I was hooked:
The story has a great atmosphere. (The writing is just odd enough to feel unfamiliar but not so much to be distracting or overly self conscious.) A urban dystopian setting. A group of young men without enough to do…And then an oddly dressed stranger comes in to give them some direction.
You can read the story here: “Jack of Coins.”
After reading the story I was obviously drawn to the stranger and his uniform. Part band uniform, part military with a bit of face card thrown in. Here are the sketches I narrowed it down to:
Once Irene and I tossed the sketches around and talked about what we felt worked best, the building began.
Here are shots of how the buttons for his jacket were created:
a collection of references for the uniform:
The ArtCraft Theater in Franklin, IN was my inspiration for the theater that needed to be constructed:
Here is the group of “kids” that hang out under the marquee in the story: topping out at about 1″.
The final:
Thanks to Irene Gallo for thinking of my work for this project and to Christopher Rowe for the story.
Chris Sickels, the creative force behind award-winning Red Nose Studio, creates an eccentric world we’d all like to visit.
