Study of Renata During the Binge (Full Body Version)

A blue pen and ink figure drawing of a tattooed woman with black curly hair and a dazed expression kneeling on the floor with a liquor bottle next to her.

Study of Renata During the Binge (Full Body Version), 2025. Blue ink on vellum, 6 x 8 in.

Renata is a character who shows up in several stories. In the original draft of The Vaster Conspiracy, I gave her a brief cameo in which she is passed out drunk in a banquette next to Dr. Rasteban at the Breslin Bay Old Colonist’s Club. In the second draft, I wrote a scene in which Vaster and Renata go on a binge together, with Vaster interrogating her about Dr. Rasteban’s dubious medical experiments until he gets so intoxicated that he forgets what they’re talking about.

The black square tattoo on Renata’s shoulder is a cover-up. This raises the question: if the rest of her body is covered with demonic sigils and arcane talismans, what was so dangerous that it needed to be completely blacked out?

The composition of this study was inspired by Caravaggio’s strong use of the edge as a framing device, as seen in paintings like Self Portrait as Bacchus and Conversion on the Way to Damascus.

Study of Walcher Balgrave the Augur

A brown pen and ink drawing of a stern-looking man with streaky white hair wearing black robes staring at the viewer

Study of Walcher Balgrave the Augur, 2025. Brown ink, Conté, colored pencil, and gouache on vellum, 4 x 6 in.

In The Vaster Conspiracy, Walcher Balgrave serves as the shadow of the protagonist, art counterfeiter Vaster Vrain. An astrologer/fortune teller with an uncanny ability to remember flashes of possible futures, Walcher seeks to control the course of history by manipulating people and events according to his predictions and those of his blind sister, Elsasara, who has even stronger prognosticative abilities. This is in direct contrast to Vaster, who becomes obsessed with hallucinating events from the past to solve a deeply personal mystery.

Vaster and Walcher shadow one another in other ways, too: while Vaster dresses in flashy designer clothes he can barely afford, Walcher wears the humble ink-dyed robes of an augur despite his wealth; while Vaster has a self-destructive taste for Sperrin whisky, Walcher exclusively drinks medicinal Kinarin tonic.

Study of Balladine in Brown Ink

A brown pen and ink drawing with highlights in white gouache of a woman wearing large round glasses and with her hair in a plaited braid, giving a slight smile.

Study of Balladine in Brown Ink, 2025. Brown ink and gouache on vellum, 4 x 6 in.

This is the first work that I’ve made in color since August of 2023. According to Pantone, brown is a color, right?

Balladine changes her look from time to time: I wanted to see how she looked with her hair worn back rather than parted in the middle as usual.

I went on to develop this into a charcoal, mixed media, and gouache drawing. See my post about it or the finished drawing.

Study of Balladine's Bird

A black and white pen and ink drawing of a small bird with runic text

Study of Balladine’s Bird, 2025. Ink and gouache on vellum, 4 x 6 in.

The character of Balladine has changed drastically since I started the first draft of The Vaster Conspiracy. Originally named Claudine, she started off life as a stock housekeeper character who did little more than answer the door at Cairngorn House. Since then, her role in the story has expanded, to say the least. Her latest character development involves a new hobby: seeking out wounded birds that flew into the Underground City’s ventilation and exhaust fans and nursing them back to health.

This sketch of one of Balladine’s birds was based on a painting by Bolognese Baroque painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi, an artist whose output varied wildly between sacred religious scenes and more informal genre paintings.

The bird, named Gallaper, goes on to appear in a finished drawing of Balladine.