The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

Layout and Design of Artwork

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

"If you're going to do a likeness of somebody, it really ought to look like the person being depicted. It is also nice to do a flattering likeness.

"In this case, it just so happened that the photo of Juan was the perfect size -- it was traced right off the photo proper, a bit of editing done, then the drawing was transferred onto the vellum. If the photo hadn't been the right size, this would have been adjusted by using an enlarged (or reduced) xerox copy. As my college art teacher was fond of saying in painting class, "Why draw it from scratch if you can trace it? It saves time."

"The landscape in the background was refined here as well. Careful attention was paid to the placement of lines in the background -- the line of a hill should not intersect the figure at a natural "break" point on the body, as it will chop the foreground figure up into pieces. The tree line to the right of the figure was adjusted upwards in the final drawing, as it was intersecting the figure right where the top of the sash was. It's too faint to see here but a thunderstorm cloud was drawn to the left of the figure. The sword on the table in the foreground forms a strong diagonal -- the coins on the table, a lightning flash, and the cloud tower will drawn the eye up the left side of the composition. Juan's hand with the wand will bring the eye back to the right, his gaze is focused to the right on the cup in his hand, and the line of that arm leads the eye back down to the sword again." -- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

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