I am currently writing a novel to help me visualise this story titled Oh How the Leopard Hunts. Here are some of the concepts so far.

This piece depicts one of the settings in the story, a continent called Shurk where Hootis reside. The Hootis are a shark-like species which believe water is intrinsically holy. Hence, they settled in coastal regions of Shurk and water motifs are central and present in both their architecture and clothing. 

In terms of composition, I positioned the focal architecture in the middle of the page. Lines (such as the edges of the buildings in the foreground as well as the clouds at the top) and shapes (such as the birds) also point towards this centre of focus. The colour scheme consisted of a variety of blues, due to the presence of water, and especially cobalt blue as I felt it was the calmest. I used blue's complement, orange, for the area of focus.

The continent which the central characters come from is a setting reminiscent of North Africa (and more particularly Algeria). The three characters depicted here belong to the Tuareg culture, and the two youths are characters who embark on the protagonist's journey with her. The girl, Samia (for now- I need to do more research on Tuareg names), is a gentle soul, and her cousin, Basem, is more serious and is blind. 

However, one thing I learned when using references of the Tuareg was to be wary of colonially-rooted portrayals of them. The photo I had referenced represented Tuareg women as comfortable showing their arms, which I later found out from non-Tuareg people who had grown in Algeria that that was not the case.

I attempted to make the most of the white space in this piece.

This piece was to experiment of how I would portray the deserts in which the Tuareg reside.