Years ago I took some photos of friends wearing the novice robe I'd made, to send to Les Peterson, the illustrator who did the covers of the Australian editions of The Novice and The High Lord. So I already had some usable photos for Stage Three.

With all these photos, what I needed was the pose and drape of fabric. To get the faces of the characters they represented I'd have to rely on my imagination and lots of pics I'd collected from magazines, catalogues and the internet of people who looked kinda-sorta like what was in my head.

I had to wait until I'd finished The Traitor Queen and my hand had a chance to heal. Then I got to work, first doing a pencil sketch then, when I was satisfied with that, doing a line drawing.

It was great to use my old illustration skills again. But it was December by then and if I was going to have the Sekrit Project ready in time I had to have at least one character done by January 1st, so I decided to not colour them. I also had to keep Stage Four simple, but that turned out to be exactly what it needed. More on that final stage of the Sekrit Projekt tomorrow.