{"id":5093,"date":"2020-04-28T09:29:22","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T15:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5093"},"modified":"2020-07-13T14:43:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T20:43:17","slug":"the-phantom-twin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5093","title":{"rendered":"The Phantom Twin<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nToday, author-illustrator Lisa Brown<\/a><\/strong> visits to share some process images from the creation of her newest book, a graphic novel called The Phanton Twin<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (First Second, March 2020). It’s the story of conjoined twins \u2014 the Peabody Sisters, Isabel and Jane \u2014 raised, since the age of three, in a carnival sideshow. <\/p>\n

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When the girls agree to a risky operation to separate themselves from one another, Isabel wakes to find that Jane didn’t survive the experimental surgery. Jane, however, lingers in her sister’s life in the form of a ghost, who haunts her \u2014 she’s a phantom twin, hurt and angry. Isabel, in the meantime, must adjust to life with a prosthetic arm and leg, as well as life at the carnival without her sister as part of the show. She and her sideshow friends must also survive a local reporter, trying to denounce the carnival entertainers as “gaffs and grifters.” Isabel also finds love in Tommy, a local tattoo artist. <\/p>\n

It’s a story about the human side of so-called “freaks” and the bonds that such people form, as well as one girl’s attempts to overcome loss, learn independence, and find her place in the world. It’s a story whose tone is, at turns (and delightfully), both creepy and touching, and it’s drawn in Lisa’s distinctive, beautiful line. Also, it’s impressive the ways in which she delineates the twin girls \u2014 both physically and character-wise. (As for physically, you’ll see below that she had to create a kind of conjoined twin map.) <\/p>\n

Here’s Lisa to share some images, and I thank her for visiting 7-Imp today. <\/p>\n

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Lisa<\/font><\/strong>: Below is my conjoined twin map. It\u2019s hard to remember who is on which side when drawing conjoined twins.
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\nAnd here is a tattoo map! Creating consistency when drawing a tattooed lady also turns out to be rather difficult.
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\nThis is a rough sketch of the tattoo parlor:
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\nA rough thumbnail sketch:
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\nSome tight pencils:
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\nBelow is a color test in traditional watercolor. I was planning to do the entire book this way, until I was convinced by LeUyen Pham<\/a><\/strong> that I would be insane. She was so adamant that she created a template and taught me how to color digitally. (She was right, by the way.)
 

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\nBelow is the fight scene in its final color. This one I think was the hardest for me to draw.
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\nThis is a tight pencil from that fight scene:
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\nHere are some sample final pages:
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\nAnd Tommy …
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Some More Final Art from the Book:<\/em><\/font><\/strong><\/center>
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* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

THE PHANTOM TWIN. Copyright \u00a9 2020 by Lisa Brown. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, First Second Books, New York, NY. All other images reproduced by permission of Lisa Brown.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Today, author-illustrator Lisa Brown visits to share some process images from the creation of her newest book, a graphic novel called The Phanton Twin (First Second, March 2020). It’s the story of conjoined twins \u2014 the Peabody Sisters, Isabel and Jane \u2014 raised, since the age of three, in a carnival sideshow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intermediate","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}