But Who Will Bell The Cats?: The Bedroom

Here is the final bedroom scene with the mouse sleeping below it as printed in the book.

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Test Shot 6. This is similar to the final image, but I added the fire and fixed some of the details through the windows.

Rough collage sketch:

This shows the two pages that will be facing each other. When working on a book you have to think about how the facing pages will look together.

Test Shot 5. This is a lilac-toned version. My editor and I really liked the lilac colored room, but in the end we felt that the golden tones was a better match for the facing page. The colors are achieved by placing colored gels in front of my lights.

This lilac version didn't look as good as a facing page.

Test Shot 4. I had two matching beds, but the vertical lines made the composition too busy, so I exchanged one canopy bed for a single bed. I also experimented with tree branch shadows on the walls, but this also made the scene too busy so I scrapped them. I moved the cats around until they felt right. This is the beauty of working 3-D, you can easily move things around until they look right.

Test Shot 3.

Test Shot 2.

Test Shot 1.

Character Test Shots
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The Bed Linens
I bought some antique French embroidered lace and gave it to my mother so she could sew it into coverlets. My mother also cut up an old silky blouse from the 1970s for the bed curtains and linens. The bedroom wasn't done yet so I did these bed tests photos in the powder room.

The Bedroom In Progress
These are the bedroom walls with the windows cut out. This is how the walls looked before I plastered and carved them to look like stone. The molding was glued on before plastering.