Middle Grade Ninja: GUEST POST: “Visions Of Ore” by Cam Baity and Benny Zelkowicz
When we set out to write our trilogy, THE BOOKS OF ORE, we ambitiously (and quite naively) attempted to build an entirely new world from scratch. Why hold ourselves to the familiar fantasy building blocks of medieval Europe, or magic, or talking animals? Our experience as animators taught us that every cliché could be challenged, so that even basic assumptions of what makes a tree and how the planets move could be turned on their ears.
It sounded like a great idea at the time––if only we had taken a moment to look around at the massive hole we had dug ourselves into!
So we labored to invent and envision every detail of two worlds: Albright City, a “Deco-punk” metropolis of streamlined retro futurism, and Mehk, a mysterious realm of living metal and organic machines.
That meant that we first had to communicate these concepts to one another to ensure that we were on the same page. In this process, we found that drawing was an invaluable tool in unifying our vision, and over the course of writing the trilogy, we have produced hundreds of sketches, maps, and schematics.
Here are three illustrations that stood out from our years of development, images that say something unique about our worlds and the nature of our story:
1) PHOEBE FACES OFF (Art by Cam Baity)
When our heroes, Phoebe and Micah, go on a daring rescue mission, they find themselves stranded in Mehk. There they learn that all of the machinery and technology of their world is not invented, but rather poached from the living mehkan creatures. This illustration is one of our earliest, back when we were just starting to brainstorm the possibilities of Phoebe’s epic journey. It captures the threat of a young girl facing off against a titanic, unfathomable being. There is a suggestion of the mechanized biology that defines mehkans and of the immense danger that an unprepared human child would face.
2) CABLE BIKE ADVERTISEMENT (illustration by John Foster)
Phoebe and Micah’s home of Albright City is an amazing place, full of lightning-fast Auto-mobiles, glittering skyscrapers, and a never-ending parade of gadgets and gizmos that delight the eager citizens. Every machine and scrap of metal is produced by a powerful global corporation called The Foundry. One of their most popular products is the Cable-Bike, a thrilling means of transport that allows riders to shoot across the city suspended on a network of cables high above the ground. We wanted to create an image that would not only convey what the machine looks like, but that would also express some of the slick 1920’s design aesthetic that permeates the book.
3) UAXTU (Illustration by Cam Baity)
Another important part of our process was the development of the myriad mythologies, histories, and cultures of Mehk. We knew we wanted the world to be populated by numerous sentient species, which required us to think deeply about what they believe and why, and how those beliefs evolved over time. Among the legends that play an important role in the trilogy is the story of the Uaxtu, mythical necromancers who used amoral practices to cheat death. Mehkans fear these vengeful spirits that are said to wander the landscape in pursuit of living souls to consume. This image captures the dread that the mythic Uaxtu inspire, fogged by uncertainty and—like so many things in THE BOOKS OF ORE—it is not necessarily as it appears to be.
