The Needlehole Mysteries [3]

Congrats to Amarie and Norc on wrapping up the story, and to Norc on her 18K postaversary!

Norc wrote:and Ringdrotten gotta read this soon... like srsly... also Eldorion!! u nitwit! write more canon pleaaase!! <3

I can never decide actually what I want to write. Half the time it's a political thriller that quickly devolves into a discourse on counterinsurgency theory. The other half it's a psychological drama that is a thin mirror for my own depression. Other times it's a lighthearted adventure story but I've had a hard time keeping the heavier elements from encroaching on that because I want to be able to explore them through fiction, I'm just not sure how. Although part of me does miss the simple adventure stuff.

I'm nearly done...

Ok, here goes.... It's not overly elegant, but it will have to do.

Eventually the tissue box on Amarië’s desk had been thoroughly emptied, and all were suitably cried out. The three hobbits were gently escorted to the door by the ever smiling Magnolia. It had been a long day and Elthir was very reluctant to pay for overtime. Amarië waved from the door to her office, dabbing her eyes now and then with a monogrammed handkerchief.

The three police hobbits left with a nice fluffy, warm feeling inside. The days quarrels and arguments seemed to have evaporated. Nora even tipped the youth who came with their pony and cart. Soon they were on their way back to the pony rental, with the sun on their faces and the merry sound of cloppety-clop of pony hooves in their ears.

“Not all cases can be solved.” Eldo said casually. “Sometimes cats simply disappear, never to be found. But we know we did our best and went beyond the call of duty trying to solve the case.” All three tried really hard not think about how far they nearly had gone. Clearly the paper work would need a slight creative touch.

Nora felt a sudden tinge of doubt.
“Say, you don’t think we are putting too much trust in the words of a Dark Planet ambassador, do you?”
All three looked briefly at the others and then away again.
“Nah!” said Nora.
“Nah.” Said Eldo.
“Nah,” said Ringo, smiling. “This was the consul, remember?”

Eldo hummed in agreement.

“But a consul is pretty much the same as an ambassador, isn’t it? What kind of consul is she?”

Eldo looked thoughtful. “I think the stationary had the Fjordianland crest. The giant herring and the troll is rather unique.”

“Well it doesn’t really matter.” Ringo decided. “She likes us. She gave me a bottle of cod liver oil. Snuck it into my hands without you noticing!”
“Oh. Well, I got a small pack of dried cod!” Nora pulled it out to show them. Ringo ooo-ed while Eldo frowned.
“She gave me a bottle of ink for writing. Can’t say I understand why. There’s ink at the station.”
“Oh. Uh. You’re not easy to shop for, Eldo.” Nora patted his arm for comfort. “I am sure she had only the best intentions.”

---

When Magnolia closed the door, she looked expectantly at Amarië. Hugh and Blue stumbled forward from a side corridor. Blue had a thick law book in his hands which he closed as they came close.
“That was a long meeting, at least 69 pages long!”

Hugh –or Hu for short – was following at his heals holding a tray.
“Look! I made banana bread!”

Magnolia practiced how to look surprised without looking surprised.
“Banana bread?” she said, still smiling politely.

“Yeah! Banana bread! Peal ‘em, mash em, put ‘em in a bread. Banana bread!”
“I have never heard of bananas. Are you sure it's a local ingredient?”
“Yes ma’am! The Shire has wast fields of mais, so why shouldn't there be bananas too?”
“Now that is a good point, mr Fjuff. It does smell delicious!”

Amarië smiled fondly at her workforce.

“How very thoughtful, Hugh. Your mother did mention you were fond of baking. I do hope you will share with us, we have work to do. Magnolia, please be a dear and book a meeting with Elthir. The Fjordianland consul wishes to discuss why Fjordians are paid less than other foreigners and locals. Then the Dark Planet Ambassador wishes to discuss the security issues concerning the use of rental ponies rather than trained police ponies and how this will affect the response time of the police in a crisis, and if the Embassy needs to bring in its own security personnel now that the police force appears weakened.”

Magnolia nodded and dutifully noted it down while Amarië turned her attention to Blue.

“Mr Bottél, any information about employment you may find in the local rules would be highly appreciated.”

Blue hugged the book closer to his chest.
“It will be my pleasure! Hu, come help me carry stuff!”
“Sure! I am, as you know, quite strong!”

“Wonderful! Get to work gentlemen, kjappa på!”

With the two young men gone, Magnolia's moderately polite smile widened to ha toothy grin.
“Oh can I please deliver this message to mr. Elthir myself? I really wish to see his face!”

Amarië laughed.
“Yes, be my guest, Maggie!”

Magnolia punched the air with a happy squeal.
“Oh this is so exciting! I thought you said you needed more time, but here we goooo! It's just like the stories! Only... more tears! You really do care about them don't you?”

“First of all; they are not stories, they are real. But yes, they are quite adorable, don't you think? There should be someone taking care of them. Besides...”

“Besides...?”

Amarië lowered her voice. Magnolia automatically leaned closer.
“Remember how cranky DP was a while back?”
“Yeah, poor kitty, he was all over the place quite literary.”
“Yeah... he was having trouble adjusting from the Dark Planet and arriving here at this...”
Amarië moved her hand in a circular motion, as if that might help draw out the correct words.
“...new place.”

Magnolia nods, so Amarië continues.
“But now he spends his days at the Esoteric Bubble bath place. Making sure everything is nice and friendly like. It is a family place after all, nothing like say the Eel Emporium.”

“Yes, he is well liked and getting terribly spoiled if I dare say so. How does this relate to the police hobbits?”

Amarië went to Magnolia’s desk, pulled out some paper and wrote on it.
“From what I can tell they arrived at the Bubble bath during lunch with the staff was out. I fear Ally and CC have been a bit overly creative in their work and DP found it necessary to intervene.”

Mognolia gasped and hid her mouth with her hand.
“You mean to say DP moderated the police!?”

Amarië sighed.
“I believe so, he might even have sabotaged some character development. But they all appear to believe it was all a hallucination from having spent hours trying to find Ally’s cat.”
“Well, I never! So, did they find the cat?”
“Well… Ally may have told the police her cat was missing. But I have hardly heard her say anything that didn’t need interpretation or a philosophical approach. I have a hunch I have her cat right here.”

She handed the piece of paper to Magnolia. It had to word ‘cat’ written several times in Amarië’s unmistakable handwriting.

“Oh… I should throw this in the bin out back then? And that would be the end of it all? Why not come here but and ask about it?”

Amarië shrugged.
“Esoteric thinking follows its own rules. But there is hardly anything that happens around here that I do not know about. She could have told anyone, and it would get to me eventually. Assuming this is what she wanted to find.”

Magnolia frowned and stared at the paper for a while, then her eyebrows rose high.
“Miss Ambassador/Consul! Do you know what this means?!”
Amarië had already thought about several things this could mean, lead to, be a catalyst of or achieve.
Magnolia threw her arms in the air, not waiting for a reply.
“I am part of solving a Needlhole Mystery! This is even better than reading about it!”

Amarië laughed generously as Magnolia hurried to put the paper in the trash, where Ally might find it later and hopefully be pleased.

Before Magnolia left home for the day she also left a bowl of Buckie so that Petty the newspaperman might find his way to the door and maybe deliver his paper on time. Inside the Embassy/Consulate the Consul and her two Fjordian assistants were still hard at work discussing laws and interpretations and eating banana bread.

Did a quick speedsketch maybe i'll actually get my shit together and make some actual illustrations and not just doodles

I love your doodles

Aggh so much to catch up on!!! I know I said to keep the fires warm whilst I was away but this is bloody ridiculous (Good work everyone! )

So i finally had the time and will to do some actual illustrations.. though i was too lazy do actually to real detailing and like... yeah, it's a bit half assed BUT(T)! i thought i could make a sort of step-by-step thingi  sooooo.....!!!

1. I start with a sketch. This is definitely the most important part of the job and where you really should be focused and putting a lot of energy. This is the step i almost always do very halfassed (which is a bad thing, don't do like me).. if you skip this step or don't do it properly, the end result will always be sort of .. meeh... never as good as it could have been. Though it should be mentioned that you're not to tinker too much at this step, forget details! details are for the next few steps! The sketch is important because you figure out where to put different things, like are they the same size, does it make sense for the hands to be that big, are they proportionally ok???

i can't say this is a very good sketch, i should've spent more time in the cart but well... i should perhaps have taken one shot earlier to show when everything was just circles and lines and shit... 


2. Here i choose what lines i am happy with and want to keep. i did it in pen so ofcourse i messed up their faces like shit.. oops. the important thing here is anyways (since it's a pen!!) to just do the lines quick with no regrets! details and tinkering (like if you forgot something) can be done later.. avoid thick, clumpy lines. faster and slimmer lines are preferable  then it looks effortless 


3. erasing the pencil.. this is a stage you most certainly want to give up.. because when you remove the pencil it will look naked and weird and awefully bad. you will see lines that doesn't add up and look clumsy. i guarantee it. look for instant below the left arm on Ringo or how empty Agent Nora's face look.. not to mention the cart.. most of the time i would give up at this point because it looks shit! BUUUT!!!!!! be patient and keep working! because.....


4. NOW IS THE TIME FOR DETAILS! i did some different shades of grey, made the outer lines thicker and made small, pen-detailings like the hair, pockets, belts  this step you can't really overdo. the important thing here is to never have the same tone of grey beside each other! that will look boring. be bold and don't be afraid of contrast and to work that pencil! i used a normal HB pencil (for the sketcup and shading) and 4B (darker shades). 


5. the last step is basically just more details, fix-ups and some adjustments on the picture, because camera sucks. I removed all the colours (because it is a black and white drawing) and upped the contrast a bit.


now you do it.

Norc out.

this was fun.. imma do one more, but with faces!!

(ppsst Amarië... who's DP?)

Illustrated fanfic.

DP is the Dark Planet cat in my siggy. Originally at least. Could do with more explaining perhaps?

The Dark Planet has a cat? I knew there was something sinister about them.

He's only been in my signature since forever.

{{{The dark planet has been depicted as a large planet with a huge cat mouth that devours other worlds/forums. I just gave it a cat body and made it/him my beloved pet. }}}

aha i getz it

the epilogue makes a whole lot more sense now..

Okili dokili!


Perhaps DP should get an illustration too. A sneaky shadow with glowing eyes.

I think I just spent more time trying get this uploaded than I did making it.

Maybe you should write a story set in the embassy.

Amarië wrote:He's only been in my signature since forever.

{{{The dark planet has been depicted as a large planet with a huge cat mouth that devours other worlds/forums. I just gave it a cat body and made it/him my beloved pet. }}}

Ah, I just thought he was yours. Like, i don't think of you only as a Dark Planeter, I think of you as.. err.. Amarië..

Loving the drawing, so empowered

I love the glimpse inside the mysterious embassy, Amarie!

I knew there was something sinister about them.- Blue

They ate our old forum, stole all our lore, extracted Orwell from Odo (dont ask) and we had to escape to here. And since then Ambassadors Amarie and Leelee of the Dark Planet have lived alongside us and gathered a suspicious number of newspapers and Forumshire periodicals for sending back to the Dark Planet whilst becoming close to the Admin and taking a keen interest in our elections.

And you are only suspecting there is something sinister about the Dark Planet now?

I can only suggest you brush up on your Forumshire history here-

http://www.hobbitmovieforum.com/t336-dark-planet-day-challenge-forumshire-fanfic?highlight=the+dark+planet

Its for your own good


Love the picture Amarie- the Ambassador at work.