Out of the three illustrations, this one of the malt keeper was by far the hardest one to come up with. I knew monica the least at the time, and the character it was based on (the vault keeper) was the one I had the least knowledge of. It was a bit too open ended at first. I had to find a way to make it work.
I had to look at what I knew about both the character and the person it was based on. I’d originally depicted her as some kind of spooky ghoul or phantom, and monica was a huge part of why the brewery worked so well behind the scenes. In my head it all started to tie together. An image formed of her looking out over the brewery, with only her skeletal hand initially giving away that something was amiss. Until you notice the reflection was missing half her face. I wanted it to be dark, the room and decorations look dated, as if she was from another time. The moonlight spilling in with an eerie glow.
Sometimes the hardest concepts to nail become the ones you take the most pride in. The challenge and work put into them being what you remember the most. It’s so important as an artist to push through the obstacles in front of you. It’s not just that the reward is on the other side, it’s the process and struggle that makes you better. If we only ever drew what we were good at, we’d never get any better.
