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"Please....please, your highness...please believe me, I'm not who you think I am. I'm not the one in the prophecy. Please don't hurt me - if you let me free my Uncle and I will leave and never come back, I swear. What have I ever done to you? Why would I WANT to hurt you? I wouldn't do anything like that, I'm only a boy, I'm not a soldier. I've never hurt anyone in my life! Please don't torture me, please....!"
The Mouse King sniggered wickedly at the child, whose pleas for mercy were falling on deaf ears. For all his glory, his crown, and his throne, he was a coward. And cowards take no chances when their own skin is on the line. "Oh-ho-ho, no. I'm not going to torture you, Toymaker's Apprentice....I'm going to kill you! Kill you in a way that will set such an example that NO ONE matching the prophecy would dare to come here ever again!"
The soldiers, all as much cowards as their king, dropped the chains and scattered in all directions as the foul, blood-red gem at the head of the magic staff gave off a fiery aura of light. The King struck the prisoner's chains with the weapon - it wasn't much of a blow, just a tap, really. But that was more than enough......
I am working on writing and illustrating a reboot of the Hoffman fairytale "The Nutcracker", off of which the beloved Tchaikovsky ballet is based. It is based of of A) What I see mentally when I hear the music, B) Research into the original origins of the story, and C) My attempt to make sense of things about the original story that don't seem to have a straight and connected plotline. I will be posting several illustrations over the next couple months.
This is a picture of the Mouse King and Peter Drosselmeyer, who becomes the Nutcracker. This scene takes place about eight years before the main body of the story. He's only about nine in this picture. His clothes are based off of some of the least-girly boys' clothes of the regency era that I could find pictures of. I discovered that in several regency-era paintings children wore little leather slippers like this and not boots. Considering part of the original description of Drosselmeyer's nephew in the Hoffmann tale was that he had never worn boots (I gave him the name Peter in my story, he didn't have one in the original) This seemed to fit well enough. The Mouse King's ornaments almost all have little mice in them somewhere, barring the crown. I figured because he is a pompous, self-centered character, he'd want to stamp his likeness on everything. I also give him gold fur in my story, which makes him stand out from his brown and grey furred subjects.
This is the scene where Peter becomes the Nutcracker. However, his Uncle, the original Herr Drosselmeyer, manages to break into the castle and rescue him before the transformation has fully taken effect, so he is still alive and retains his powers of speech, sight, and hearing - though the speech part is almost gone, and only those who believe he can talk are capable of hearing him. But because he knows Peter isn't dead, the Mouse King is constantly hunting them trying to finish them both off and prevent the prophecy of his defeat coming true.
Peter's pose was freehanded for the most part, but the Mouse King's pose was very loosely based off this reference here. senshistock.deviantart.com/art…
The Mouse King sniggered wickedly at the child, whose pleas for mercy were falling on deaf ears. For all his glory, his crown, and his throne, he was a coward. And cowards take no chances when their own skin is on the line. "Oh-ho-ho, no. I'm not going to torture you, Toymaker's Apprentice....I'm going to kill you! Kill you in a way that will set such an example that NO ONE matching the prophecy would dare to come here ever again!"
The soldiers, all as much cowards as their king, dropped the chains and scattered in all directions as the foul, blood-red gem at the head of the magic staff gave off a fiery aura of light. The King struck the prisoner's chains with the weapon - it wasn't much of a blow, just a tap, really. But that was more than enough......
I am working on writing and illustrating a reboot of the Hoffman fairytale "The Nutcracker", off of which the beloved Tchaikovsky ballet is based. It is based of of A) What I see mentally when I hear the music, B) Research into the original origins of the story, and C) My attempt to make sense of things about the original story that don't seem to have a straight and connected plotline. I will be posting several illustrations over the next couple months.
This is a picture of the Mouse King and Peter Drosselmeyer, who becomes the Nutcracker. This scene takes place about eight years before the main body of the story. He's only about nine in this picture. His clothes are based off of some of the least-girly boys' clothes of the regency era that I could find pictures of. I discovered that in several regency-era paintings children wore little leather slippers like this and not boots. Considering part of the original description of Drosselmeyer's nephew in the Hoffmann tale was that he had never worn boots (I gave him the name Peter in my story, he didn't have one in the original) This seemed to fit well enough. The Mouse King's ornaments almost all have little mice in them somewhere, barring the crown. I figured because he is a pompous, self-centered character, he'd want to stamp his likeness on everything. I also give him gold fur in my story, which makes him stand out from his brown and grey furred subjects.
This is the scene where Peter becomes the Nutcracker. However, his Uncle, the original Herr Drosselmeyer, manages to break into the castle and rescue him before the transformation has fully taken effect, so he is still alive and retains his powers of speech, sight, and hearing - though the speech part is almost gone, and only those who believe he can talk are capable of hearing him. But because he knows Peter isn't dead, the Mouse King is constantly hunting them trying to finish them both off and prevent the prophecy of his defeat coming true.
Peter's pose was freehanded for the most part, but the Mouse King's pose was very loosely based off this reference here. senshistock.deviantart.com/art…
Image size
5017x5691px 12.96 MB
Date Taken
Jun 16, 2015, 2:05:50 AM
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Comments5
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The details are stunning! This is a very cool project and I can't wait to see more.