In progress shot of a painting of a geoduck.
I've had a great time using fude nib fountain pens recently. They're comfortable and convenient to use, and you can get a variety of line widths from them. I got some waterproof and archival inks that are safe to load in them (Platinum Pigment Inks and De Atramentis Document Inks), and have been sketching away in between working on The Golden Net. The new paintings that are available use them for the line art!
Some of the paintings are of food that has been featured already in The Golden Net, like cardoon, while others like geoduck will be featured in upcoming sections.
The Great Blue Hole in Belize.
The last update (Deep-Deep Divers) focused on the different divers in the Green Sea, as well as the kinds of trading that happens within this area. At one point, Kefa dives all the way to the bottom of a black-hole (a sort of extreme version of blue holes), and Iru also recounts seeing a pearl-diving slave fish a massive pearl from the bottom of a black-hole...
Left and right: Mimosa trees in the Tanneron Massif. Photograph from this article by Emilie Johnson.
Center: The sea by Parc du Mont Boron. Photograph by Daniela Martins.
There were a few bits of the Main Guys hanging out and chatting in the last update, but the next section (Inland-Sky) will focus more heavily on that… I am particularly excited to show you a little location that Atan and Kefa will discover! It's very loosely based off of Parc du Mont Boron (as in, it's an area with trees directly next to the sea), but with some imaginative, lush vegetation and orange-red earth based off of the Mimosa Forest in the Tanneron Massif.
A path framed by mimosa trees. Photo by Isabelle Chauvel for Getty Images.
Mimosa trees are not native to France, and were not introduced there until the 19th century (from Australia!), but this fits in with the theme of importing plants and animals and fruits into the Green Sea from very far away... Such as geoduck.
We'll see when I can get that update out... Maybe some time next week. Either way, see you around!
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