Behind the Explorers
Behind the Explorers
The extra something something
If you have followed my Substack journey, today’s post is the essence of why I started this publication in the first place, to put to paper the thoughts behind the illustrations. A deeper look that may not always come through in the final product.
I have peppered around this information, but I’m not sure if I have properly explained how the Explorers stories relate to the larger “Magic Lantern” tale.
This actually started as a world building problem, I made a map and several little entries about places around the world, not an uncommon thing to do when building a new setting, but I had a realization that I know many others had before me.
This is an issue that books like Tolkien’s Silmarillion or George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood tackle. When creating a world with enough new elements you need to explore how they all play together, and even if I do not plan on having the same depth of historical lore as them, I still wanted to achieve this one “simple” task.
To go for a walk around the world of Obalan before the events of The Magic Lantern.
So for fun, I started discussing how to go about it with my wife during our weekend walks, and we came up with a set of characters. Each with a different speciality, each with something to say about the world, and they all come together to form a league of explorers. Slowly, I started getting my whole family and friends involved, helping me to come up with names, stories, character traits and quirks. It was a lovely way to give everyone around me a sense of ownership with their contributions, and they are now very invested in these characters.
Challenge
Here’s a little challenge for you if you’re interested.
Before I reveal more information about the characters, you can have a go at trying to match these “fields of interest” with the respective character.
I will have a prize for whomever gets them all correct 🏆
Characters:
Fields of interest:
Entomologist
Chronicler
Plant Hunter
Zoologist
Troubadour
Occultist
Cave Explorer
Ancient Wizardess
Grand Couturier
Gastronomist
Hostelry Guide
Navigator
Cartographer
Weaponologist
Artist
So now I’d like to share the behind the scenes process of coming up with some of these characters, who have been a few of years in the making.
Alexander Woodchip
So in this story, Alexander, or “Chip” as we nicknamed him, is our main character. As an outsider to The Explorers he gets invited to come and meet with them. Also, let’s not beat around the bush, this is a self insert character, just with better a better hairline and a glint in his eye. Originally, I was writing him as just a young man who was really into the idea of exploring the world, but my wife swoops in with another great idea and suggests making him a painter and honestly everything fell into place from there. The plot just started making more and more sense after that.
So technically, if it was my wife’s idea, does it still count as a self insert?
Magdahlia Vex
She may just be the most important character to me, for the Venerable Mother Magdahlia Vex is our explorer of magic. And with the trazillions of ideas I have swirling around in my head about magic in this world, when writing her stories, I have to solidify and work out a lot of those “maybes” into “ares”. And that is a little scary sometimes.
I have made a couple of decisions when creating her character to help me set the tone of the worlds relationship with magic. For starters, I am declaring her a Wizardess, which, as far as I could find is not a word. I’m also writing her as clumsy old woman and with a talent for creative swearing, mostly as a reminder to not make the magic stiff and boring, and be free to have fun with it. It is far too easy to take it all much too seriously.
Rodric Blackwood
Rodric has been with me the longest. It started in 2019 with the first sketch, that was actually made by my older brother. At the time I was asking a couple of people if they would like to make up a character for me to redraw and so the bi-peg-legged pirate Rodric was born. And me and my brother have since had many conversations about his backstory and adventures.
But I think that above all he represents to me the progress I made in my artistic studies, looking back I reminisce on all the videos and exercises that I was focused on for each of the drawings. His story is also my story, and within it live the people I care about too.
Gaspar Bogavante
Honestly, if I had a favourite though, Gaspar may be it. He has been one of those, “let’s see how silly we can get” kind of characters, silly moustache - check, beachcore fashion - check, huge arms and tiny legs - check and check. There has been many a time when I will just say his name out loud as if Antonio Banderas was pronouncing it just because it amuses me. Making sure to roll those R’s for extra effect. Gassspar-r-r-r Bogavante!
This is my character, who is just there to make everyone else around him feel better and have a good time, always with a snack and a friendly word.
At some point I had started working on some illustrations exploring each of the character's different quirks, but at the time I didn’t have the opportunity to finish them. I remember thinking that my style at the time didn’t feel completely mine yet, so it took a while until I took another shot at illustrating the whole cast.
But here are the ones I made for Gaspar Bogavante, Oliver Delta and Aléonor Copperclaw.
Sidra Twinley
I may have learned the most from writing Sidra Twinley, I got the idea for her to be a Plant Hunter when going out to Exbury Gardens a few years ago, where I learned about the trade. It immediately gripped me. Researching more into it has just been a treasure trove of intriguing ideas and adventures.
She was also the first character that I needed to do major redesigns on. I’ve been gradually simplifying some of her characteristics to make it all more coherent. Drawing something overly busy is a pitfall that you’re never too experienced to fall into.
I’ve added a photo of the sign that started it all for this character! I was very surprised I still had it after all this time.
To you, from the home of magic.
Marco D Blanco.
On the 28th of October @The Anonymous Artist guessed all the roles of the explorers correctly.
Their comment has been removed to allow others to have a go at guessing without spoilers.
Congratulations! 🏆