Cassal di Caelkriss

Kiki Strike is the title character of Kristin Miller’s Shadow City fiction series for young adults. It’s a fun and interesting read, really well written, and really well researched. I had started reading it shortly after I came back from a trip to New York, and I found myself being able to almost picture the exact corners of the locations that Kristin was writing about. The characters are a blast, and the interactions between them hold a lot of wit and charm.

I enjoyed the books so much that, after reading the second book, I was inspired to do sketches of the characters. I had planned on eventually painting them, but not any time really soon. However, I recently had the itch… that itch you get when you just have to complete something. It’s sort of like that feeling you get when you’re convinced that you can fly and you want to leap of the roof of a tall building just to prove it. Well, I leaped (figuratively) and this is what happened in the follow two days:

I’m sure I’ll find time to do the other characters soon, but for now my itch is leading me to work on other things.  Perhaps I’ll make the next one a tutorial.

Edit 12-21-2009
A few weeks ago, I had the idea to send this illustration to the author of the Kiki Strike series.  I was told by another fan that Kirsten Miller is very prompt in returning emails to fans, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Last week, she got back to me.  Here’s a snippet of what she said:

“I am completely speechless. (Yet oddly I can still type.) I can’t tell you how flattered I am to hear that my book inspired an artist of your caliber…  If you do end up sketching the other Irregulars, I would love to see them! … Thanks so much for this. It made my week.”

Well, that was a very pleasant read for the day.  Made my week too.  Well, as soon as I have more time to myself, I’ll get going on the other sketches.  But between church, wedding photography, wedding planning, and other work that needs to be done, we’ll see how much spare time I have.