The text to illustrate:

“Thin cities 5 

If you choose to believe me, good. Now I will tell how Octavia, the spider web city, is made. There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks. You walk on the little wooden ties, careful not to set your foot in the open spaces, or you cling to the hempen strands. Below there is nothing for hundreds and hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; farther down you can glimpse the chasm’s bed.

This is the foundation of the city: a net which serves as passage and as support. All the rest, instead of rising up, is hung below: rope-ladders, hammocks, houses made like sacks, clothes-hangers, terraces like gondolas, skins of water, gas jets, spits, baskets on strings, dumb-waiters, showers, trapezes and rings for children’s games, cable-cars, chandeliers, pots with trailing plants.

Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long.”

Mr. Italo Calivino’s prose is rich and beautiful in its vast imagination. Unfortunately there is only so much an illustrator can do when confronted with the power of imagination. Disregarding the fact that I was not really able to match the image that this text created in my head with what is now on paper, I could not compete with the image conjured by Calvino in someone else’s head when he is so specific, yet so free of description when writing about fantastical cities “seen” by Marco Polo.

I started first by sketching the things I had in mind when I read the text for the first time. I first sketched out a little city sitting on a spider-web, but upon second reading realized that he very specifically says that the city “hangs” from the spider-web. SO then I started writing out key words from the text in order to get a better idea of what to illustrate. There were a lot of specific items described like clotheslines and potted plants, but also words describing materials like wood and hemp and woven baskets. These were the words which most impacted the way I personally pictured the city and what influenced the finalization of the image because the materials really do change the atmosphere of a place. Concrete and glass is different from wood and hemp, or from steel and rubber.

Once I had these vague ideas down, I started looking to what others have done with these before. There are many drawings out there not only of other cities from this book, but also of Octavia herself. Many seemed to think along the same lines that I had, so I chose to draw some inspiration from them whilst trying to deviate slightly with my own approach. One of the first decisions I made was that is wasn’t necessary to see the cliffs or the spiderweb as well as they are seen in these representations, because it is something which the reader is readily able to imagine and simply because it was done before and I wanted to try a different route.

There are also a couple of images with fantasy cities I thought looked cool and could inspire my final result. There are more of those on the Pinterest board.

Now that I had a better idea of what I did and didn’t want to do, I started sketching. Cities aren’t something I usually draw, so I was not really sure where to start with trying out fancy building ideas which could also, vaguely, make sense. At least enough to be able to suspend one’s disbelief. I first just tried out buildings that vaguely looked like beehives, a round thing seems to hang much more naturally from a string than a square. But then I started thinking of other things that hang from strings, like lanterns, which are square and vaguely look like houses. I looked for examples in real life of elevated buildings but I was out of luck outside of treehouses, or houses on poles, or houses on poles in water. I did find some interesting wicker constructions which really fit the image of this city I had in mind, again can be seen on the Pinterest board.

I tend to work in pen when brainstorming, but when sketching out a composition I like to be able to erase, hence the pencil drawings.

This all left me with three main ideas to work from: the first a lantern city, the second a sort of net city, and the third the beehive city, or the round houses city. I redrew these concepts in photoshop, tweaking the compositions sketched on paper a little. Then I colored them and had some fun with the scheme, even though below I uploaded a photograph with the colors I felt would fit the city as I pictured it. I felt it was all in warm browns, ochres and taupe colors because of the hemp, leather, and wood the city is mostly constructed from. But I still thought it would be a good idea to experiment with color.

Unfortunately the lantern city was my favorite. I say unfortunately because it does not really match the description given by the author (The Holy Brief). I would have liked to draw this lantern city with lovely metallic and glass lanterns, swirling steel and glittering glass, but alas that is not what Octavia is really like, so I had to pass.

The second concept is I think the most interesting one. A leather, rope and metal net hangs from the “spider-web” in between the two cliffs, and within it the buildings stand on a platform twisting upwards. I like it because one can basically build a regular city (admittedly on a slope) while fulfilling the requirements of the brief, however the concept is a little difficult to sell in two dimensions. I bet it would be awesome for an animation or even a graphic novel, because you can see it both from far away and up close and thus are able to satisfy both the details the author gives and the grand, city wide concept. But as a single illustration it doesn’t really work. Not if I want to also portray life in Octavia up closer.

And lastly, the drawing I ended up choosing, the beehive concept. It is close to what others have imagined when it comes to the shapes of the buildings, but I would like to think that I brought my own flair to them. Some are perfectly round and others are more elongated. Some have balconies and some don’t. Their roofs differ and some even have elevators (only two pictured). I decided to leave most of the spider-web concept out, deciding that it is an illusion seen from afar and from up close, one just sees the ladders and lines used for hanging the structures and for travel between them.

Thumbnail

Sketch

Line Drawing

Color scheme wise, I kept to the warm colors. Octavia just feels like such a merry, warm city to me when reading the text. In spite of the fact that it’s miles and miles away from safe ground, it just seems like the people there don’t live in any fear of it at all, but embrace it as part of the beauty of their life. The warm, earthy colors in golden sunlight just seemed to fit with that.

Flat Colors

Shading

Final Touches

There isn’t much else to say about the actual drawing process, outside of the fact that it took a good long while. I liked designing and drawing this city, though it feels a little empty to me, even if I think there are far too many things in the composition already. Perhaps there is something about the proportions I don’t like. Or perhaps it would have looked better in a more painterly style. Or perhaps I have been staring at it for too long. Regardless, I am glad I also made a last minute decision to also add people. I did not much think about their design, but they are small enough that I do not mind. I like that they are there, it just feels like there’s life in Octavia now.

The basic takeaway from this is that I simply have to try my hand at cities and other places more. I have a tendency to draw compositions surrounding the characters or the action without putting enough thought in the design of their environment. The result can be nice, but without a real sense of space. This might be a good step forward in that direction.