Characters:
Lotus
Acuzio
Rugg

A girl named Lotus sang:

            Blades of grass come from the earth

            Put them together and make a skirt.

She danced in the sun shower next to her best friend Acuzio, who tied his blades of grass around the base of a stick.  “This is my sword,” he yelled. “And I am king of this land!!!”

            The ground responded to their demands with a pulse. The pulse was heavy and deep.  The grass swayed to the right as the two children played. Lotus continued to dance in the sun shower with her six blades of grass to make her imaginary skirt. “Prove your worth,” She yelled to Acuzio. “If you are my king, fight off the dragons!”

            Acuzio turned to the hollow winds and began swinging his sword in every direction! If there were a dragon there, he would have truly been slain by the child’s wooden sword.  And the earth responded with a louder, deeper, and darker pulse. But Acuzio paid it no mind. He fought against the wind and the light rain.  Lotus continued her free-willed dance, and the earth’s pulse continued growing.

Lotus’s father cried out, “ Hey, hurry up and come inside! I feel a bad storm approaching!!”

But Lotus did not hear him. Time slowed in their moment of imagination. Acuzio continued slaying his dragons. And Lotus danced in her grass skirt. The earth’s pulse provided a rhythm to their world. The cold raindrops created numbness to reality, and youth was all that existed. The pulse grew louder and the wind began to breathe. Lotus’s father began running toward the children. Her mother stayed far behind by the cottage door, waiting for him to grab Lotus and return.  But in the midst of his approach, a huge chunk of earth hurdled in his direction knocking him unconscious.

Rugg, “The Giant” stood over the unconscious man, spear in one hand, while his other twiddled something between his fingers. His breathing was heavy, and his mouth constantly murmured something. He stood in battle stance with every muscle flexed. A low floating cloud blocked full visibility of his face, while his body looked almost like a moving tree to anyone who stood at a distance.  He kept his eyes focused forward: piercing at the neighboring forest.  Twiddling his fingers ever more, he kept the kids at bay, and unaware of his presence.

A voice came through the quiet storm. “So Rugg,” it whispered. “I’ve never seen a Giant magician. But you still couldn’t hypnotize the adult. Pathetic!”

Rugg glanced at every corner. When dealing with a God, he knew that his eyes were not to be trusted.  As Rugg pivoted, the earth pulsed. He pulled his spear closer to his waist as he searched for eye contact with the unknown God.  “God or Spirit,” Rugg thought. What was he dealing with? And why did it bring him to this one place.  The children began to play closer, still unaware of the giant.  Lotus danced wildly, while Acuzio kept swinging at the dragon. Each swing became more vicious.  His eyes widened slowly, revealing a red glow. His wooden sword grew darker and greyer as each second flew by. Rugg noticed this and lifted his spear to the heavens, only to slam it at the forehead of the boy. The boy evaporated and reappeared at the edge of the giants spear.

“Very good,” said Acuzio.  “So you can see what the children see. But you are no magician. You need to stick with your calling.  You have no self-control! Look for yourself.”

Rugg turned to see an entire village staring at him in shock. He had hypnotized no one but the little girl. He finally stopped murmuring and twiddling his fingers. The girl stopped dancing and ran to her father. As her father came to, he picked her up and ran back toward the cottage. Rugg’s anger grew, but it was only directed toward himself.  He returned to the forest, discouraged, and alone. Today, he was just a giant.

So... I promised myself that I wouldn’t do more than 2 pictures for each story, but I just can’t help it. When Jason first sent me the “In a Field” story, I wanted to do a complete animation on it. It’s one of those tales where it has the perfect amount of everything. From beauty and innocence, to magic & plot twist. It does take quite a while to draw these pictures (let alone animate some of them), but who cares. Anyway, I had allot of fun illustrating for this one.

Lotus: I wanted to depict her as free flowing and elegant like a flower pedal floating in the wind. Lotus is in a trance and daydreaming at the same time, so I felt it necessary to draw her with her eyes closed. I also decided to have the clouds moving in fast motion to show how She lost track of time.

Here's an Early Sketch of Lotus that I did when we first began to develope her character.

Acuzio: So he’s the Villain of the story. As oppose to Lotus, Acuzio has his eyes open all the time; awaiting Ruggilius. I wanted to give him a look between Aladdin and one of the kids from Slumdog Millionaire (I just watched both of those movies, so they’re still fresh in my mind). This isn’t the last you’ll see him. He’s one of those reoccurring tricksters that just gets off on toying with unsuspecting victims and annoying the hell out of them. He's pretty mysterious, so we'll put a write up on him in the characters section when we get some free time.

Here are some early concept sketches of Acuzio

Rugg: I guess Acuzio had to toy with someone. Why not Rugg? As if our favorite giant wasn’t already having a hard enough time with his magic studies. It's important that we show his "wonder years" of Sorcery, because He's more of a warrior during the time period of the "Dirty Feather" film.

Music: Ryan Came up with an awesome piece for this story. It fits perfectly with the mood. It's great to be working with such brilliant dudes. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.