Tumbleweed

A little while back, I wrote that I would be using the characters Pinnochio and Raggerty from Rupert the Bear as inspiration from one of the folk tales contained in my next novel, Lore. Well, the second draft of that story has now been completed and I have now also finished the illustration I wanted to go along with tale.

I had the opportunity to visit the British Museum a couple of months back, and whilst there I saw this fella:

He is a wooden carving of a water spirit (I am sorry to say there is little further information I remember about the object) and as soon as I spitted him, I knew I wanted to use him as the character in folk story. I had to change a little of the detail of the actual structure of the figure as the water spirit in this tale manifests itself, not as a piece of sculpted wood but from tumbleweed. Anyway, the photo below shows the drawing I finished of him this afternoon...

...and here is the finalised imaged that will be used in the book:

The completed illustration of Tumbleweed