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 |