The plan is that this piece will be included in the next Mouse Guard sketchbook (hopefully out mid-next year).
I've colored it for that eventual sketchbook and in today's blog, I'm going through the process for drawing, inking, and coloring the final image you see here.
The fan's request was a mouse from Sandmason (a location on the map of the Mouse Territories I've never taken readers to in the course of the books––but a style of dress I did show in the extras of the Winter book when delegates from various cities come to Lockhaven for a summit) on some kind of a mount in the desert sand ala Luke on a Tauntaun on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.
The only lizard in Michigan (and I know you're thinking Michigan isn't a desert––but we do have sand dunes, which to a mouse...) is a Five Lined Skink.
I penciled the lizard and the rock on a sheet of copy paper, the mouse on another, and then on a light pad with a fresh sheet of copy paper over the lizard drawing, I drew the saddle/seat and assembled them all together in Photoshop.
This piece had some tricky textures that had to be subtly managed: the scales, the belly, the sand, the rock...over doing any of those would not just make the piece too cluttered and unreadable, but also would lose the contours of those forms.
It's also at this stage I added in color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) and I established those on the sand, the flag emblem, and the goggle glare).
Hopefully I'll get past my current deadline crunch and get to a point where I know I'll have enough finished images to combine into a sketchbook collection for 2025.
