Lynette & Glenn – Intro to the Faraway Lands

Exploring faraway lands...

Watercolor & Ink, Jan 2016

Welcome to my new blog! I'll try to have the odd update here and there while I get used to the blogging thing, but I currently plan to use this space for my experimental project "Lynette & Glenn". I will be posting paintings, comic strips, and whatever other creative outlets that strike me to show their wanderings and adventures.

To start I'll talk about the characters themselves. Lynette was created from pure whimsy while experimenting with watercolors. I find most of the characters I create come about that way. Their stories start to emerge the moment I see them and I am instantly drawn to them. I've realized that when I try too hard to come up with a character design they'll tend to be bland, but when I'm just daydreaming and doodling the most interesting characters emerge. I've come to the conclusion that my mind works in mysterious ways, but I've learned to roll with it.

Oh hai there, Lynette.

Watercolor study, 2015

Lynette taking shape.

Watercolor study, 2015

I enjoy working with minimal colors with maybe some pops of color here and there, so when I thought of a little companion for Lynette to make her journey a bit less solitary and lonely I thought of a bright little fox. Foxes are pretty mischievous and mysterious so I thought that it would be a perfect companion for the more quiet, but just as mysterious, Lynette.

Lynette & Glenn, final design.

Watercolor & Ink, 2015

I tend to delve into a character's backstory once I've invested some time designing them, however with Lynette I felt I wanted to have her be a mystery even to myself. I know myself enough to know if I go too in-depth about a character and who they are, where they're from, how they like their coffee, etc, I stick them in a box (creatively speaking) and it's hard to take them out of the set world I make for them. I already had the concept of how I wanted the project to go – in an open-ended fantasy world where the rules of reality need not apply – so I'm not planning to start winding it up with my own mental red tape and bore-ify it (That's not a real word but reality need not apply!). I['ll leave Lynette be and I plan to have a lot of fun.

And there you go! I may have some posts with musings on them, some with just illustrations, no real set guidelines for now. Regardless, I hope that these posts will be entertaining and interesting as we follow Lynette & Glenn on some fantastical adventures.

– Angela