The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

Layout and Design of Artwork

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

"As Stephen King puts it, "getting an idea" is not the same as "having an idea." Add to that, "having an idea is not the same as executing said idea." Here the Tarot cards which sparked the idea for the scrolls. As previously mentioned, "Strength" was the original idea for Rose's scroll, but as the depiction was going to be a realistic one, this had to be discarded because drawing a lion from scratch in a realistic manner in that crouching position would have pushed the bounds of my drawing ability. One must work with what one has. A quick shuffle through the cards of the Major Arcana turned up "Justice" which would serve the purpose much better -- not only did it have no critters in it, but Rose works for the Justice Department mundanely, so this worked on several levels.

Aldith and I discussed ideas for the design to back the large central letter -- I had thought to do rays again, as I had used on Obadiah's scroll. Inspiration struck Aldith and she suggested lightning bolts -- GOLD lightning bolts! This was duly executed on the tracing paper layout, as seen here. Also on the preliminary layout are the Lombardic capitals which run down the side of the central "miniature" -- you know you've been scribing too long when you can sketch Lombardic capitals freehand (I rather amazed myself when I did it)." -- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).